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1222 points phantomathkg | 81 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source | bottom
1. _def ◴[] No.44064357[source]
> Your export file will include links (URLs) of your saved items. The export does not extract the text of saved links. Additionally, the export does not contain tags or highlights.

boo! without the tags, the links will be mostly useless for me. Every now and then I thought aboyt switching to some self-hosted solution. Should've done it sooner... and I will never trust Mozilla with any service again.

replies(12): >>44064387 #>>44064622 #>>44064633 #>>44064647 #>>44064701 #>>44064943 #>>44064978 #>>44065001 #>>44065605 #>>44065678 #>>44067559 #>>44068746 #
2. chimeracoder ◴[] No.44064387[source]
> and I will never trust Mozilla with any service again.

Who will you trust? Google? Apple? Microsoft? It's not like any of the other behemoths have a better track record when it comes to long-term maintenance and availability of hosted consumer products. If anything, Mozilla actually has the best track record out of them all when it comes to long-term offerings.

replies(7): >>44064419 #>>44064421 #>>44064428 #>>44064465 #>>44064522 #>>44064548 #>>44065019 #
3. walterbell ◴[] No.44064419[source]
> Who will you trust?

Your-self-hosted?

replies(1): >>44064736 #
4. xnx ◴[] No.44064421[source]
> Who will you trust? Google?

Google has very good/complete Takeout data for most of its services.

5. ummonk ◴[] No.44064465[source]
What hosted products has Apple dropped? iCloud might stop supporting old devices but that doesn’t stop you from keeping the data on device or accessing via a new device.
replies(2): >>44064600 #>>44064630 #
6. thrdbndndn ◴[] No.44064522[source]
His point is about data portability, not service uptime.

This export feature is outright bad, worse than the industry standard by a mile. Why wouldn't it include something as basic as tags? It just forces users to write their own scripts, wasting time for everyone involved.

replies(1): >>44065822 #
7. Buxato ◴[] No.44064548[source]
I trust none of that ones, only Google for one of my emails and my Android phone. The track of abandoned services of Mozilla is astonishing.
8. madeofpalk ◴[] No.44064600{3}[source]
iTunes Ping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping. I never trusted Apple after they got rid of that /s

Apple's problem is they'll often leave products to be stagnant. Existing, but on life support. Like basically all their Mac Apps. A lot of hardware products like this as well, like HomePods.

They have a raft of iOS apps that seemingly come out of hackathon projects that they release, never update, and then maybe quietly kill off. I thought they killed Clips, but it's still hanging out there...

replies(1): >>44110489 #
9. FeistySkink ◴[] No.44064622[source]
Not sure what they mean by tags, but my export seems to have all my tags.
10. chimeracoder ◴[] No.44064630{3}[source]
> What hosted products has Apple dropped? iCloud might stop supporting old devices but that doesn’t stop you from keeping the data on device or accessing via a new device.

Apple is a bit of a weird case because historically they've been a hardware company first and have done very little in the way of consumer services. But they're just as happy as to kill off consumer products if they want to; they just have a more limited selection to start from (which is itself another layer to the "problem" of trying to use them as a replacement - you can't rely on a product they don't offer).

11. bobsmooth ◴[] No.44064633[source]
Downthemall might help with downloading all those links, depending on what they are.
replies(1): >>44064682 #
12. tbr11 ◴[] No.44064647[source]
the csv file I downloaded has a column for tags, pipe separated
13. larrywright ◴[] No.44064682[source]
I never used Pocket but was a long time user of Instapaper before moving to Readwise Reader. My experience has been that many links, other than the most recent ones, are dead.
14. sambaumann ◴[] No.44064701[source]
anyone have any good suggestions for a self-hosted option?
replies(11): >>44064773 #>>44064794 #>>44064818 #>>44064924 #>>44064969 #>>44064987 #>>44065180 #>>44065196 #>>44065419 #>>44065657 #>>44066078 #
15. reaperducer ◴[] No.44064736{3}[source]
Your-self-hosted?

Only if you're among the .0001% of people who can code it yourself. Otherwise, nothing is different; you're always relying on someone else for their software, feature, security, and compatibility updates.

replies(4): >>44064782 #>>44065347 #>>44065624 #>>44065759 #
16. duck ◴[] No.44064773[source]
I've been using https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding and highly recommend it.
17. walterbell ◴[] No.44064782{4}[source]
Are we on Hacker News?
replies(1): >>44065219 #
18. pratio ◴[] No.44064794[source]
I use linkding https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding

Have been hosting it for years, there’s a browser extension and a phone app by a third party developer as well.

I also tried readeck for a while but went back to lindking because of missing features

https://readeck.org/en/

There’s also linkwarden

https://github.com/linkwarden/linkwarden

Too colourful for me, can’t like the design

And there’s also karakeep

https://github.com/karakeep-app/karakeep

replies(2): >>44066185 #>>44125463 #
19. nfriedly ◴[] No.44064818[source]
I've been using Readeck, but I never actually used pocket, so I'm not sure how comparable they are.
20. pkaye ◴[] No.44064924[source]
Karakeep is good. You can import the pocket bookmarks. It can do automatic AI tagging.
21. JeremyNT ◴[] No.44064943[source]
Yeah this is really lame. I used it because I like Mozilla and thought Pocket's future would be relatively safe in their hands.

I'm sure a lot of HN readers view any of Mozilla's operations outside of Firefox as a distraction, but I think it's a shame to lose Pocket. I really like several Mozilla services (Relay, VPN, and up to now Pocket) and this shutdown along with such a half-assed export option is a real disappointment.

replies(4): >>44064991 #>>44065282 #>>44065380 #>>44065465 #
22. monooso ◴[] No.44064969[source]
I don't understand the Linkding recommendations.

AFAICT Linkding is a bookmarking app, much like Pinboard, not a read-later app like Pocket.

replies(2): >>44065656 #>>44111360 #
23. sdk16420 ◴[] No.44064978[source]
Not to mention they charged $45 a year for a service that included backups in their cloud should your save become a dead link. Imagine paying that amount for several years and when you need it they pull the rug.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250321050043/https://getpocket...

replies(1): >>44067417 #
24. InsideOutSanta ◴[] No.44064987[source]
I've tried all of the options: Linkwarden, Linkding, Karakeep, Shiori, Wallabag, Grimoire—you name it, I've tried it. These are all great tools, and I use Karakeep myself, but I use it to bookmark and archive links, not as a "read it later" tool.

In my opinion, no self-hosted read-it-later tool can replace Instapaper or Pocket, as they focus on providing an exceptional reading experience in a native app that works offline. None of the self-hosted tools offer a comparable experience.

So, depending on how you used Pocket, there are either better or no self-hosted options.

I wish Mozilla would open-source Pocket so it could be made into a self-hostable option.

> Wallabag

replies(2): >>44066157 #>>44110536 #
25. hyperhopper ◴[] No.44064991[source]
> I like Mozilla and thought Pocket's future would be relatively safe in their hands.

Never trust a company like this. You'll always get burned. If it's not FOSS, its not reliable and will likely burn you

26. tristanho ◴[] No.44065001[source]
You can connect Pocket to Readwise Reader ( readwise.io/reader ), via Pocket's API, which will let Reader view all the tags, metadata, highlights, etc.

Even if you didn't want to use Reader, you could then export from inside Reader and Readwise to pull out CSVs of all of your articles+highlights -- no subscription required.

(full disclosure: founder of Readwise here, obviously if you want to try our Reader app that would be sweet, but at least wanted to offer this way to get a more complete export)

replies(5): >>44065234 #>>44065377 #>>44065420 #>>44066353 #>>44079009 #
27. rockskon ◴[] No.44065019[source]
Chasing the ever-cycling list of organizations that haven't yet betrayed trust with regards to privacy. If you're going to go with the "who can you trust" angle then you need to qualify that with a type of product.

Also?

An organization's past doesn't dictate their present.

28. akirk ◴[] No.44065180[source]
WordPress + Friends + Post Collection plugins (+send to e-reader), see https://youtu.be/kHaODAUazwE?t=214
29. netghost ◴[] No.44065196[source]
This might come off as dismissive, but after using services like Delicious from way back, I've more or less ended up using Obsidian to edit a few markdown files that contain links to stuff I liked.

I know there are services that offer more, but if I look at how I __actually__ used them, this does the trick.

30. 4ndrewl ◴[] No.44065219{5}[source]
Yeah, bit weird - surely the population of HN is either going to be

- people who _can_ code it themselves, or

- people who believe they can get AI to code it for them

replies(1): >>44066161 #
31. TiredOfLife ◴[] No.44065234[source]
Thanks. Will try. Currently Pocket seems to be overloaded, but hopefully it recovers in the 30 trial days.

While your app seems nice on first glance the 10$ a month is not a small amount for non americans. 10$ a year I could stomach.

replies(1): >>44065292 #
32. bossyTeacher ◴[] No.44065282[source]
> I'm sure a lot of HN readers view any of Mozilla's operations outside of Firefox as a distraction

For most people, Mozilla is just the company developing Firefox and Firefox is the Mozilla product. Mozilla's pivot into the web's hero is coming at the price of Firefox and people are not happy. Their current situation where they depend financially on Google just doesn't feel right. And I understand that Google has been asked to stop financing Mozilla. Tough times will be coming for them

33. tristanho ◴[] No.44065292{3}[source]
Cool! The import should auto-retry, but in case something gets snagged there you can also always do `cmd+k -> pocket` to retrigger a full import.

Totally hear you on price.. Reader is built for people who spend a lot of time reading and can justify it (and the sub also comes with access to our Readwise product too).

We also have a 50% off discount for students as well folks in countries with depressed currencies (eg India, South American countries, etc) which might help.

We try our best, but are also bootstrapped and have to charge enough to keep the company sustainable!

replies(1): >>44066424 #
34. homebrewer ◴[] No.44065347{4}[source]
I'm self-hosting a couple of services that stopped receiving updates (including security updates) about 10 years ago. They still serve my needs perfectly well. They're hidden behind HTTP authentication (with HTTPS) so the internet noise ("AI" shit, web scrapers, shodan, script kiddies) doesn't even know they exist.
35. uxcolumbo ◴[] No.44065377[source]
So your app will also import the archived copies from Pocket? It's mainly about importing archived content from links that might now be dead.
replies(2): >>44065456 #>>44066086 #
36. thayne ◴[] No.44065380[source]
Mozilla's track record of shutting down projects is almost as bad as Google's. I wouldn't count on any of their non-Firefox projects lasting very long.
37. jonotime ◴[] No.44065419[source]
Oh man. I have been working on a side project just for this purpose. The aim is to create a pocket like experience (with additional functionality like handling other media types) that is local first, unhosted, and more future-proof (no lock in).

All data is stored entirely on your device, and you have the option to sync it to your own storage provider like dropbox. This means you don't need to have the technical know-how to setup and maintain a server.

Its not usable yet, as I have rewritten it several times, but in the current iteration it is a client side PWA, so cross platform. Just started a new job so had to take a break for a bit.

Follow if you are interested (I need to update the Readme): https://github.com/jonocodes/savr

38. deepthaw ◴[] No.44065420[source]
seems to work better with https://fabiensanglard.net/rss.xml than most readers although it still gets 403s fetching images but I'll still give it a run to see how it works for me.
replies(1): >>44066165 #
39. tristanho ◴[] No.44065456{3}[source]
No, unfortunately their API doesn't return the actual html content of the saved articles :( just the urls and all the metadata: highlights, title, author, image, tags, location, etc

I really wish they did :/ some things aren't even on the internet archive and are probably saved uniquely on Pocket's servers. Would be sweet if they could open source that data.

replies(1): >>44065764 #
40. OddMerlin ◴[] No.44065465[source]
I'm with you. I think it's great that Mozilla is trying/tried to extend their value beyond just the browser.

I found pocket immensely useful. Having the ability to have my kobo e-reader sync pocket articles to read off-line was such a useful feature.

I don't understand the Mozilla hate on this board. I think it's wildly overblown.

replies(1): >>44068915 #
41. sanjayts ◴[] No.44065605[source]
I migrated to raindrop.io[1] few months back and IIRC the file downloaded from Pocket did have tags. I again tried following the same steps and the CSV does have tags so I'm not sure why they save the export will not have tags?

[1] https://raindrop.io/integrations/pocket

42. jauntywundrkind ◴[] No.44065624{4}[source]
It's a pity Sandstorm never super took off. Portable serverless with really nice security built in meant really easy to deploy apps; app server just for you or for a group of people was so nice & easy.

I really hope we someday have self-hosting that isn't as intimidating, that isn't a million different systems all complex in their own way, where there's a base platform with base assumptions and base tools, that let's us manage our self-hosted apps & their data.

43. pratio ◴[] No.44065656{3}[source]
I totally understand you and it seems that a lot of users like myself were using pocket as way to sync bookmarks across devices as well.

Also, linkding offers a way to read it later by using the singlefilextension https://linkding.link/archiving/

replies(1): >>44066922 #
44. cycomanic ◴[] No.44065657[source]
There is readeck, linkwarden and karakeep. Each has a slight different focus (readeck probably has the most read it later focus). There is also omnivore, but I have been struggling to get it to work selhosting (there currently is a bug that prevents signing in), it is also quite resource heavy.
45. pouulet ◴[] No.44065678[source]
The tags are exported : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/exporting-your-pocket-l...

What is contained in the export file?

Your export file will include links (URLs) of your saved items. The export does not extract the text of saved links. Additionally, the export does contain tags or highlights.

replies(1): >>44066233 #
46. bee_rider ◴[] No.44065759{4}[source]
Code? For self-hosting? I hope not. Most programmers shouldn’t be programming internet-facing stuff. (FWIW I include myself in “most programmers”).

Get it from your repository. In that case you are trusting somebody like Debian or Redhat. They’ve earned an awful lot of trust.

47. uxcolumbo ◴[] No.44065764{4}[source]
Would be awesome if your app could scrape the actual pocket pages.

I'd sign up for a paid version of yours if it had that feature. But I'm not sure how many others premium users would do the same.

48. jamienicol ◴[] No.44065822{3}[source]
It does include tags
49. asciimoo ◴[] No.44066078[source]
I'm using & developing Omnom (read-only demo: https://omnom.zone/ ). It is self-hosted, free software, fediverse compatible and creates 1:1 snapshots of the saved websites: https://github.com/asciimoo/omnom
replies(2): >>44067415 #>>44073945 #
50. no_wizard ◴[] No.44066086{3}[source]
something these other apps could do is run dead URLs through archive.org and nab it that way.

Not 100% foolproof but I'm willing to bet it will work for the majority of links

51. import ◴[] No.44066157{3}[source]
They open sourced some stuff already https://github.com/Pocket
52. doubled112 ◴[] No.44066161{6}[source]
I'm in a third group:

people who can decide if somebody else's code is "good enough" to host it themselves

replies(1): >>44070773 #
53. tristanho ◴[] No.44066165{3}[source]
I think the image urls provided in the RSS feed are just broken, eg this one is linked in the latest article:

https://fabiensanglard.net/2168/french.webp

54. enjikaka ◴[] No.44066185{3}[source]
I wrote this Deno script to convert the Pocket CSV export to a Bookmark HTML-file so that it can be imported to Linkding: https://github.com/enjikaka/pocket-to-bookmark
replies(1): >>44144422 #
55. thrdbndndn ◴[] No.44066233[source]
The page was "Last updated: 24 minutes ago". Someone at Mozilla saw this HN post and modified it (unsure if the export feature itself was changed or not).

You can tell it's a rushed edit as "Your export file will include links (URLs) of your saved items. The export does not extract the text of saved links. Additionally, the export does contain tags or highlights." reads very unnatural.

Via Wayback Machine, it can be easily verified that the old versions of it, both the one edited very recently or the old ones in 2024, said "does not contain tags or highlights".

https://web.archive.org/web/20250415002842/https://support.m...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250522175656/https://support.m...

replies(3): >>44067469 #>>44068643 #>>44095626 #
56. oa335 ◴[] No.44066353[source]
Love your app. Any plans to enable reading of Readwise Reader articles on eReaders like Kobo? I’m thinking of something akin to how Pocket’s integration with Kobo.
replies(1): >>44067533 #
57. TiredOfLife ◴[] No.44066424{4}[source]
I can't even connect to Pocket.
58. monooso ◴[] No.44066922{4}[source]
Thanks for the clarification.
59. codethief ◴[] No.44067415{3}[source]
Great project name!
60. ternaryoperator ◴[] No.44067417[source]
On that archived page: "A forever home for your collection"

Forever just doesn't mean what it used to.

replies(2): >>44071213 #>>44071915 #
61. tbr11 ◴[] No.44067469{3}[source]
My export from March had tags, my guess is this docs page just got missed when they updated the export months ago
62. tristanho ◴[] No.44067533{3}[source]
Thanks! Kobo is hard because it's proprietary software, but we would like to...

However, there is a wide range of eink devices that already exist that run Android (check out Boox, Meebook, Daylight, though there are many others) -- we've optimized Reader to run great on these devices :)

63. KPGv2 ◴[] No.44067559[source]
I just got my export, and it has the tags.

Fields are: title, url, time_added, tags, and status

The tags field is a pipe-separated list of tags

64. throwaway314155 ◴[] No.44068643{3}[source]
Doesn't have to be a conspiracy. They saw a comment about a mistake in the article and made a clumsy edit in an attempt to remedy the mistake.
replies(1): >>44068849 #
65. randomor ◴[] No.44068746[source]
I just did an export while trying to create an importer to my app DoubleMemory. Pocket actually does export tags. It’s probably a miscommunication.

Here is what the raw csv look like if you check my tool example: https://doublememory.com/posts/tools/pocket/

The text that’s separated by pipe are the tags.

66. thrdbndndn ◴[] No.44068849{4}[source]
I didn't mean that there is a conspiracy, just that OP wasn't lying and the doc was indeed saying it won't save tags.

(Now I read it, it does sound like so. My bad.)

replies(1): >>44068914 #
67. throwaway314155 ◴[] No.44068914{5}[source]
No worries! Perhaps i shouldn't have assumed that so much investigation implied a conspiracy theory.
68. kyleee ◴[] No.44068915{3}[source]
You’re misunderstanding; much of the so called hate is rather intense disappointment many tech people have with Mozilla due to mismanagement and constant fumbles. Intense disappointment about a future we’ll never get to experience where Mozilla is well run and produces and iterates effectively on big open source projects, bolsters browser ecosystem competition and fends off browser monopoly (requires market share which they’ve failed at), etc. Don’t conflate that with hate, many of us are still their biggest proponents despite often engaging in criticism. If you stop seeing a lot of Mozilla “hate” that would probably be worse and then you’d really know that nobody cares about them at all and they’re actually a dead organization at that point.
69. 4ndrewl ◴[] No.44070773{7}[source]
For my definition of code in this context you're in the first group, as you're doubtless going to have to modify some Dockerfile/.env/config.yaml to point the flapdoodle_cache setting to /usr/local/.this/fnar
70. daemin ◴[] No.44071213{3}[source]
Like when people assume a "lifetime guarantee" is for the lifetime of themselves. More correctly it means for the lifetime of the company or the product support cycle.
71. rollcat ◴[] No.44071915{3}[source]
SaaS rots faster than the bits on your spinning rust. The incentive structure tends to drift away from a corp's long-term strategy. If you don't own it, you don't own it.

Even the bits you own rot faster than brick and mortar. It's just the nature of the universe - cosmic rays, magnetosphere, etc. Doesn't help that the integrated circuits are smaller, and hence much more brittle with each generation.

And do you even own the hardware you purchased? Even before the ongoing craze to turn fridges into subscriptions into landfill. Try some "retro" devices from 15, 20, 30y ago - many builtin websites/apps/services just 404, long before companies planned for obsolescence.

Only diamonds are forever.

replies(2): >>44077018 #>>44081111 #
72. fivestones ◴[] No.44073945{3}[source]
This looks great! Does it capture the website from what is currently rendered in the browser, or does it get it through a separate get request? In other words, if I am on a site that is only locally available or is logged in, will it still capture the website?
73. ternaryoperator ◴[] No.44077018{4}[source]
Agreed, except none of those things (Saas, hardware, etc.) explicitly promises you a forever timeframe. That's really what I'm poking at--the promise, rather than the reality, which you quite accurately describe.
74. joshjob42 ◴[] No.44079009[source]
It would be really amazing if you could attempt for those who've connected Pocket to pull the data of all those saved files etc into Reader. I realize it wouldn't necessarily work as some stuff is just gone, but it would be a nice feature for those of us moving over.
75. seec ◴[] No.44081111{4}[source]
And that's the fundamental problem with web software, regardless of its technical merit (or lack thereof).

It's crazy that you can pay something for so long but whenever they decide it's not profitable enough, you not only loose access to the hosted ressources but also to the complete usefulness of the tool.

Meanwhile there are people still keeping around computers from the late 2000s. They might not be secure for browsing the web but at least the software can still be useful.

The update everything all the time is such a perverse incentive, tech is gobbling up value that could be better invested somewhere else.

76. Vinnl ◴[] No.44095626{3}[source]
Yep sorry, I saw this post, brought it up internally because I remember hearing they updated the export functionality in preparation of the shutdown, and then they fixed it while I was out. So here's your notification that the docs were updated :)

Edit: and I see now other folks noticed and shared it as well.

77. ikomrad ◴[] No.44110489{4}[source]
And here I thought I was the only person who used that service.

RIP Apple Ping.

It met the same fate as Facebook Ping.

78. ikomrad ◴[] No.44110536{3}[source]
I’m in process of trying different tools.

I broke requirements down to 3 use cases

Links I visit often (general bookmarks) Links I visit once( read later) Links I preserve forever (offline storage)

79. ikomrad ◴[] No.44111360{3}[source]
Linkding is basically a reading list with some extra features like downloading an arching copy , notes, and tags.

I think of Wallabag and Readeck as readers since they render the page in “app” , keep track of your reading progress, and in some cases let you highlight text

80. ikomrad ◴[] No.44125463{3}[source]
What features were missing? I can only think of offline reading.
81. appel ◴[] No.44144422{4}[source]
Thank you! Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty to have Gemini convert it to python, since I'm not familiar with Deno. Appears to work just fine. I posted a gist here in case it is useful to anyone else: https://gist.github.com/appel/a6accfab384f80cb12c9c20a1075e9...

I'm of course happy to take it down if you do mind, just let me know. And thank you again!