I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today:
"Why your brain hates other people"
"The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself"
"You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix it"
"Fund managers warn a downturn is coming and it's going to be ugly"
"The dangers of belly fat"
It's lots of outrage & negativity, and I imagine it's because that's the kind of article people are actually reading & sharing, so that's what feeds the recommendation algorithms.
I don't mind if Pocket develops a personalized profile of my interests, but I'd like it to surface what I want to see. Right now YouTube does a better job of detecting my interest in music hardware & album production techniques than Pocket does.
I tried to use Pocket a while back. First it put me in an HN cluster where it would recommend all the articles posted on HN that I didn't save to Pocket because I wasn't interested.
Then I intentionally avoided saving articles from HN and just saved any decent blog posts related to programming. One of those must have mentioned Merkle trees or something because it started recommending "5 ways Bitcoin will make your farts smell better" etc. Then I gave up.
I think there might be a point where recommendation algorithms kind of 'overfit'/become a filter bubble. I remember reading a article about the youtube recommendation algorithm led to increasingly more radical videos until you end up on 'that weird side' of youtube (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po...). Depends entirely on what metric you are trying to opimize, I guess. With youtube is probably something like "time spent on the site". If you want non-sensational content instead you should probably read papers on arxiv or something.
> It's lots of outrage & negativity, and I imagine it's because that's the kind of article people are actually reading & sharing, so that's what feeds the recommendation algorithms
I would think a ML model could fairly accurately judge the level to which articles are written in an intentionally inflammatory way, I would like to see tech companies start to make a sincere effort to allow users set an adjustable filter on this "inflammatory-ranking" dimension of the content in their feed.
> pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.
I'm not sure this is possible anymore. Even legitimately well written articles and sources now use clickbait titles to just be competitive. And you can't really blame them, they're just trying to stay in business using the systems people like us make. I'm really concerned that we're conditioning new generations to expect clickbait titles. It makes me wonder how long until this is just the norm for all titles. And the most abrasive thought, how long until we've reached a point where avoiding clickbait titles actively stunts your ability to get information and knowledge?
At this point, I've stopped worrying about the titles and just focus on the sources.
I probably would have agreed with you in the past, but not anymore. Here's why:
I was having coffee with a friend today and he mentioned he was thinking about opening a facebook account – here's the kicker: the reason he wanted to get a FB account was the news feed; he wanted to be able to subscribe to people's pages and get updates when they post something new.
I mentioned RSS; he was flabbergasted. He didn't know such a thing exists. I came home and investigated – the option to "subscribe to page" when the page has an RSS feed is gone from Firefox, or at least I couldn't find it.
I moved to the ESR branch specifically to get a web browser that just browses the web. (It's the default in Debian for that very reason!)
However, version 60 added pocket, along with other "features" such as the optional Firefox experiments (where, if you opt in, they track your user behavior to improve the browser).
I'm really excited on what Mozilla is doing with Pocket and I hope it continues down that path. Currently my only gripe is that I cannot download the archived version of webpages I have and not easily make public link collections (atleast as far as I've seen), for which I currently use Shaarli...
Here is my backup chain for articles I want to read later/archive against link rot:
I run my own Wallabag instance (self-hosted pocket). Wallabag offers an rss feed for all new articles that triggers IFTTT to
a) save a copy to pocket (just as backup)
b) save a markdown version of the article to dropbox (via http://heckyesmarkdown.com/go/?read=1&preview=0&showframe=0&...)
Wallabag also offers automatic tagging rules and RSS feeds to each tag.
People are overlooking how critical this technology could be for privacy, mass surveillance, and all its consequences: Personalization has been the selling point, albeit disingenuously, for the surveillance. It may be true that people won't use technologies which provide confidentiality if it means giving up personalization. A solution that does the personalization locally and with local data, thus preserving confidentiality, and which is open and free, could be pivotal.
The same was true with Firefox' customized home page ads of a few years ago. Everyone focused on 'advertising in Firefox', and overlooked the critical work they were doing: solving the problem of advertising, a seeming necessary evil, with confidentiality. In the uproar, the great value of that work was lost (IIRC).
I disabled everything from Pocket I possibly can when I downloaded and setup Firefox, in the `about:config`. That integration annoys me to no end. Who decided I needed pocket in my browser?
The belief most people have that Mozilla puts things in the browser they expect to be useful to users is mistaken and needs to die. They didn't decide you needed Pocket in your browser. They wanted Pocket in your browser, so that they could sell story spots (read: ads) to the highest bidder.
Note the PR-speak in that article. Advertising, by its very nature, cannot "provide value to users". If a publisher is paying to promote a story, it's because they want the story to capture more of users' attention than the users themselves want.
The most important differentiator will always remain that Firefox is free software and Chrome is the proprietary expression of the largest advertising company in the world. Anything else either of them does is peripheral to that.
People do complain about FBs feed but they don't really care. If I were to ask you whether you'd like to sleep one more hour in the morning then you answering "yes" wouldn't imply that you don't get enough sleep. A technically better solution alone isn't convincing. They need a service that delights at least some people.
And so I think their chances would be higher (but still pretty low) if they were spending serious amounts of money on a campaign to promote RSS and a service similar to google reader. That way they'd at least get tech-savy people on board who would then act as evangelists for them.
I tried to switch back to Firefox, but my password manager (lastpass) doesn’t work correctly, I guess the new extension APIs are too restrictiy. So, Chrome it is.
Firefox's new extension API is Chrome's extension API + a few extra APIs. There's a handful of APIs that are actually Chrome/-ium specific, which made no sense porting to Firefox in the exact same way, but those should not be critical to the functioning of a password manager.
The only way in which Firefox is actually more restrictive with extensions, is in requiring user opt-in for internet connections that are not necessary for the functioning of the extension (so that's usually telemetry or ads).
But if LastPass refused to function because it can't send data back home that's not actually needed, and which it can't reasonably explain to users, or because it can't load third-party content from the internet, which would be a massive security hole, then I strongly advise using a different password manager.
Overall, though, this sounds to me like LastPass is just too incompetent to port their extension, which again should not be hard as Firefox's extension API is essentially a superset of Chrome's.
[+] [-] SyneRyder|7 years ago|reply
"Why your brain hates other people"
"The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself"
"You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix it"
"Fund managers warn a downturn is coming and it's going to be ugly"
"The dangers of belly fat"
It's lots of outrage & negativity, and I imagine it's because that's the kind of article people are actually reading & sharing, so that's what feeds the recommendation algorithms.
I don't mind if Pocket develops a personalized profile of my interests, but I'd like it to surface what I want to see. Right now YouTube does a better job of detecting my interest in music hardware & album production techniques than Pocket does.
[+] [-] mcbits|7 years ago|reply
Then I intentionally avoided saving articles from HN and just saved any decent blog posts related to programming. One of those must have mentioned Merkle trees or something because it started recommending "5 ways Bitcoin will make your farts smell better" etc. Then I gave up.
[+] [-] stev0lution|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistermann|7 years ago|reply
I would think a ML model could fairly accurately judge the level to which articles are written in an intentionally inflammatory way, I would like to see tech companies start to make a sincere effort to allow users set an adjustable filter on this "inflammatory-ranking" dimension of the content in their feed.
[+] [-] isaiahg|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure this is possible anymore. Even legitimately well written articles and sources now use clickbait titles to just be competitive. And you can't really blame them, they're just trying to stay in business using the systems people like us make. I'm really concerned that we're conditioning new generations to expect clickbait titles. It makes me wonder how long until this is just the norm for all titles. And the most abrasive thought, how long until we've reached a point where avoiding clickbait titles actively stunts your ability to get information and knowledge?
At this point, I've stopped worrying about the titles and just focus on the sources.
[+] [-] zouhair|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ve55|7 years ago|reply
Firefox should be a standalone web browser that focuses on security, privacy, efficiency, and customization. Not Chome+Social Media 2.0.
[+] [-] shock|7 years ago|reply
I was having coffee with a friend today and he mentioned he was thinking about opening a facebook account – here's the kicker: the reason he wanted to get a FB account was the news feed; he wanted to be able to subscribe to people's pages and get updates when they post something new.
I mentioned RSS; he was flabbergasted. He didn't know such a thing exists. I came home and investigated – the option to "subscribe to page" when the page has an RSS feed is gone from Firefox, or at least I couldn't find it.
[+] [-] fuckyouzilla|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fuckyouzilla1|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bhhaskin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trendia|7 years ago|reply
However, version 60 added pocket, along with other "features" such as the optional Firefox experiments (where, if you opt in, they track your user behavior to improve the browser).
Guess I'll be looking for a new browser again.
[+] [-] forapurpose|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaarn|7 years ago|reply
Otherwise it's a cool product.
[+] [-] m-localhost|7 years ago|reply
Wallabag also offers automatic tagging rules and RSS feeds to each tag.
https://wallabag.org/en
[+] [-] forapurpose|7 years ago|reply
The same was true with Firefox' customized home page ads of a few years ago. Everyone focused on 'advertising in Firefox', and overlooked the critical work they were doing: solving the problem of advertising, a seeming necessary evil, with confidentiality. In the uproar, the great value of that work was lost (IIRC).
[+] [-] chalkandpaste|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bscphil|7 years ago|reply
They discuss advertising in the browser chrome here: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/04/30/a-privacy...
Note the PR-speak in that article. Advertising, by its very nature, cannot "provide value to users". If a publisher is paying to promote a story, it's because they want the story to capture more of users' attention than the users themselves want.
[+] [-] twblalock|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamienicol|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abrowne|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twblalock|7 years ago|reply
Mozilla is making it easier to think thoughts like this: If Firefox is just as bad as the other browsers, you might as well use the most popular one.
[+] [-] dublinben|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bag123|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cJ0th|7 years ago|reply
And so I think their chances would be higher (but still pretty low) if they were spending serious amounts of money on a campaign to promote RSS and a service similar to google reader. That way they'd at least get tech-savy people on board who would then act as evangelists for them.
[+] [-] theweb1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] megaman22|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shock|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kart23|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jes5199|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sylos|7 years ago|reply
The only way in which Firefox is actually more restrictive with extensions, is in requiring user opt-in for internet connections that are not necessary for the functioning of the extension (so that's usually telemetry or ads).
But if LastPass refused to function because it can't send data back home that's not actually needed, and which it can't reasonably explain to users, or because it can't load third-party content from the internet, which would be a massive security hole, then I strongly advise using a different password manager.
Overall, though, this sounds to me like LastPass is just too incompetent to port their extension, which again should not be hard as Firefox's extension API is essentially a superset of Chrome's.
[+] [-] Fnoord|7 years ago|reply