Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

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.

I never wanted Pocket, it was forced upon us users initially and slowly made less obtrusive, but the damage was done. When I saw this headline, I cracked a wide smile; maybe there is hope for Firefox after all. I just want a browser that respects my freedom. Not a web platform with a dozen doodads and gizmos and AI review bots and weird partnerships.

Ah, Firefox, the overly attached browser: https://bug1791524.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9295...

(From https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1791524)

A lot of developers and “UX” “experts” really don’t appreciate how extreme these modals are. They disrupt everyone a little bit, and for less-technical users can throw them off entirely.

“Once per year” heh, add it to all the other disruptive shit they pop up and out on launch basically at random and they’re training users to dread launching the program. “Will it slap me in the face this time? If so, how hard?” Most modern programs have a problem with this, but FF is bad about it. And it’s just a fucking browser! Why? Why do this crap?