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Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

(support.mozilla.org)
1222 points phantomathkg | 19 comments | 22 May 25 16:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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segphault ◴[22 May 25 17:45 UTC] No.44064599[source]▶
I was a user for so long that I was on it before it even rebranded as Pocket. I finally gave up on it last year, mostly due to frustration with the terrible 2023 redesign of the mobile app. When Mozilla made the unfathomable decision to become an internet advertising company, I figured it was just a matter of time before they had to put Pocket out to pasture. A product that's designed to strip ads from content for readability doesn't align with their new direction.

I'd probably be applauding the decision to shut this down if I thought they were doing it to free up resources to increase their focus on the browser, but Mozilla seems to be institutionally committed to chasing its own demise, so I'm sure they will instead focus on AI integration and other stuff that nobody asked for.

Meanwhile, Firefox is still missing proper support for a bunch of modern web features like view transitions and CSS anchor points that are available in every other browser.

replies(20): >>44064677 #>>44065070 #>>44065265 #>>44065461 #>>44065781 #>>44065800 #>>44066084 #>>44066430 #>>44066456 #>>44066470 #>>44067023 #>>44067313 #>>44067943 #>>44067953 #>>44068655 #>>44069372 #>>44069898 #>>44070277 #>>44071607 #>>44074502 #
somethingor ◴[22 May 25 18:23 UTC] No.44065070[source]▶
> every other browser

You can just say Chromium

replies(2): >>44065210 #>>44067294 #
zymhan ◴[22 May 25 18:35 UTC] No.44065210[source]▶
Safari exists, and is quite popular.
replies(3): >>44065243 #>>44065637 #>>44065785 #
1. pjmlp ◴[22 May 25 19:26 UTC] No.44065785[source]▶
Safari is the only reason we don't rename (yet) Web as ChromeOS development platform.

Thanks everyone, especially all those Electron crap apps.

replies(4): >>44065938 #>>44066155 #>>44067588 #>>44068487 #
2. criddell ◴[22 May 25 19:38 UTC] No.44065938[source]▶
I think once Apple is forced to allow alternative browsers on the iPhone and iPad, Chrome/Chromium will have won the browser wars.

At least Google is a better steward of their browser than Microsoft was with IE6.

replies(3): >>44066666 #>>44067287 #>>44067333 #
3. no_wizard ◴[22 May 25 19:55 UTC] No.44066155[source]▶
The real death knell is that Microsoft decided not to go with Mozilla in building the relaunched version of Edge.

That would have been a very fruitful relationship, but they couldn't make it work. My understanding is - albeit its second hand - that they really didn't want to simply jump to Chromium, but Firefox proved far more complicated to do what they wanted to do.

Ultimately, Microsoft Edge went from a pretty good browser to loaded with of things I dislike, which is a real shame, but I know it would have significantly boosted usage numbers of Firefox and its engine, which in turn would drive more investment into Firefox itself.

replies(4): >>44066425 #>>44067276 #>>44069068 #>>44069336 #
4. criddell ◴[22 May 25 20:19 UTC] No.44066425[source]▶
Microsoft was (and is) interested in Electron. They used it for lots of stuff like MS Teams (which is now using their WebView2 control), VSCode, Outlook, and their Graph toolkit.
replies(1): >>44066823 #
5. NoMoreNicksLeft ◴[22 May 25 20:38 UTC] No.44066666[source]▶
>At least Google is a better steward of their browser than Microsoft was with IE6.

The only lesson Google took from the Microsoft browser monopoly was "make sure the browser doesn't suck ass". So, Chromium will continue to be technically competent, enough that they can lull people to sleep and mine their personal data in ways that should horrify us all. Whatever else Microsoft was, it wasn't a gigantic advertising company that wants to spam us with borderline-scam sales efforts.

replies(1): >>44075817 #
6. encom ◴[22 May 25 20:51 UTC] No.44066823{3}[source]▶
Outlook is Electron slop now? Jesus christ.
replies(1): >>44073082 #
7. EasyMark ◴[22 May 25 21:28 UTC] No.44067276[source]▶
I really really wish they would have gone with webkit, even though they could have with some effort used gecko. Just giving up and going blink engine is awful for diversity in browser engines. I don't have much hope for efforts like ladybird, as they're just too small and browsers are a huge ecosystem now.
8. EasyMark ◴[22 May 25 21:29 UTC] No.44067287[source]▶
That's not going to happen in the USA. at least not in the next several years. I think as long as that's true Safari dominance on iOS will continue.
replies(1): >>44067615 #
9. cptskippy ◴[22 May 25 21:33 UTC] No.44067333[source]▶
Microsoft's goal was to make sure the browser didn't obviate Windows.

Google's goal is to push ads and you can see that with everything their doing. Manifest v3 castrates adblockers and their attempts to remove 3rd party cookies would stifle any competition in adtech.

10. epolanski ◴[22 May 25 21:57 UTC] No.44067588[source]▶
> Thanks everyone, especially all those Electron crap apps.

Electron apps have no stake nor impact of any kind in the results of browser market share. None.

replies(1): >>44069941 #
11. epolanski ◴[22 May 25 22:01 UTC] No.44067615{3}[source]▶
I don't think people even think about downloading browsers, swear the overwhelming majority of my irl friends only uses the default one on whatever phone, with rare exceptions.
replies(1): >>44069076 #
12. AgentME ◴[23 May 25 00:08 UTC] No.44068487[source]▶
In my experience, Safari has been the slowest to implement useful new standards and is the least transparent about bugs and development plans, so it's very hard to act like they're doing us a favor by preventing better and more open browsers from having more marketshare.
replies(1): >>44069958 #
13. binkHN ◴[23 May 25 01:46 UTC] No.44069068[source]▶
> Microsoft Edge went from a pretty good browser to loaded with of things I dislike

Yep. It was great. Now it's a kitchen sink with everything thrown into it and it's disgusting.

14. binkHN ◴[23 May 25 01:48 UTC] No.44069076{4}[source]▶
I agree. To a large extent, the only people you'll see putting Chrome on their iPhones are the people who are cross platform on their laptops.
15. cherrycherry98 ◴[23 May 25 02:34 UTC] No.44069336[source]▶
This has always been an issue with Gecko and the Mozilla codebase. It was a massive blow to the Mozilla community when Safari was released using KHTML instead of Gecko. Google then adopted WebKit (itself an evolution of KHTML) for Chrome, another slight for Mozilla. This despite prominent ex Mozilla developers like Lisa Melton, David Hyatt, Ben Goodger, and others being involved early on with Safari and Chrome development. Even Brendan Eich went with Chromium and not Mozilla technology for Brave.
16. pjmlp ◴[23 May 25 04:49 UTC] No.44069941[source]▶
Indeed, shipping Chrome alongside each application, because developers couldn't be bothered to write cross-platform Web code for OS Web widgets or the users system browser doesn't have nothing to do with it.

None at all, those poor devs, write portable Web code is so hard.

17. pjmlp ◴[23 May 25 04:52 UTC] No.44069958[source]▶
Welcome to open standards.

Same happens across OpenGroup, Khronos and ISO standards in the industry.

Apparently what is so great about them, is too much work in what concerns doing the latest shinny thing on the Web.

18. LgWoodenBadger ◴[23 May 25 14:12 UTC] No.44073082{4}[source]▶
It's so fantastic that it can't even open Outlook .msg files. It boggles the mind
19. MaxBarraclough ◴[23 May 25 19:29 UTC] No.44075817{3}[source]▶
> Whatever else Microsoft was, it wasn't a gigantic advertising company that wants to spam us with borderline-scam sales efforts.

True at the time, but spam is now baked into Windows.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/windows-11-has-made-... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37208219 )