[segphault]

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.

[bayindirh]

I have another theory, actually.

I'm also a very old user, since the first days of the service, and I don't know how many saves I have it inside (will see when my export arrives).

The latest iteration's search was abysmal, and I normally refrain from using strong words. It failed to find exact matches from titles, the words or excerpts I know that exist in the article I'm searching for, and as a result, it became a FIFO basically. Unless you consume the list directly, hitting something you are looking for was nigh impossible.

After being berated by support to use the search "properly", I started to build my own app, a TUI tool to curate the list, but it was going slow. Honestly, I'm a bit relieved now since I'm free from developing that software, and I can dig the data in my own terms.

BTW, my export is just arrived, and it's a series of CSV files which has the usual suspects as columns. I can import this into a SQLite and dive the way I want.

One less thing to worry about, but this doesn't mean I'm not bitter about its demise, too.

Edit: It turns out I have ~37K saves. Whoa.

[gxqoz]

Yeah I have 32k saves and hit the same problems with search being extremely unreliable. About 5 years ago quotes stopped working in search. Trying to find "The Grapes of Wrath" would return all instances of "of" and "the." You could sort of hack it by searching for the most distinct word (maybe "Grapes") if you already knew exactly what you were searching for. I long suspected there was some architectural change they made on the backend that broke this and they didn't want to admit in support articles. Perhaps the Mozilla legal department determined that having a text copy of all articles in their database was some legal risk and they moved to just having the URL and maybe the title (this would also explain why "permanent copies" disappeared).

Anyway, as the 32k articles indicate, I was a power user of Pocket so part of me is sad it's going away. But they've really been checked out since maybe 2019 with regards to any real support for this product.

[mikemcg0]

Agree on search being abysmal - I'm surprised that none of these readings apps realized that the right approach to this space is building an aggregator and solving discovery/search for all writing on the internet.

perch.app is the newest entrant to this space, and it's the closest I've seen to getting this right.

[lttlrck]

What's your other theory? ;-)

[trinsic2]

I used to use Rain.drop, not the same a pocket, but similar. I imported the data into Obsidian and I now use that for information I want to save online using the clipper plugin. It's changed my life. If you like customizing the searchability and displaying content from saved pages, is the best IMHO.

[grvdrm]

I’m curious: with that many saves, what were you main reasons for using Pocket? Did you glean info at scale or is it just the case that you saved so much, read some subset, and it grew over time?

[poopsmithe]

What was the theory!!! I had to read your comment twice looking for it, only to realize that there was no theory in there!

[major505]

Mozilla is more occupied this days paying multi milionary bonus to its executives and begging users for money they waste on useless projects.

Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

[whyenot]

Their reckoning day is coming when Google stops paying them $500m+ a year to be the default search engine. That payment alone account for 80% of Mozilla's budget, and has made them fat, wasteful, and directionless. It's really upsetting to me personally, I gave a lot (time, code, and money) to Mozilla in the early days when they were really struggling.

[magicalhippo]

> Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

As someone who grew up on Netscape Navigator, the current situation gives me flashback to how Netscape had to die so Mozilla could be born...

[thesuitonym]

I'm curious what the governance structure of Mozilla is that keeps things this way. People have been upset for quite a while at the direction Mozilla is going in, yet there seems to be no coalition to oust the current leadership. Is this impossible for some reason?

[28304283409234]

I switched to Vivaldi after 23 years of Mozilla. Could not be happier.

[Henchman21]

All my hopes are with Ladybird now

[fransje26]

> Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

The day that happens, the only thing we are left with is Chrome..

[binkHN]

> Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

Ugh. This sounds so horrible, but this is probably the truest statement on this entire page.

[doubled112]

And Thunderbird?

[modzu]

mozilla has been broken for a long time. spiritually and intellectually, brave is the successor

[fkfyshroglk]

> A product that's designed to strip ads from content for readability doesn't align with their new direction.

Interesting. I saw it as a glorified bookmarking service and saw the readability concerns as what raised red flags for me: mozilla just inherently isn't interested in competing on value rather than on marketing.

[laweijfmvo]

they really went out of their way to include as many "Why" sections and links as possible without saying a single word about why.

[nimbius]

the internet is no longer designed to be readable.

it is designed to be profitable.

[Multicomp]

They killed off the live bookmarks feature that I still miss in favor of this and it was never the same.

My rss feeds are still around from then. Glad I didn't invest in this fad.

[nine_k]

> available in every other browser

Isn't it because almost every "other browser" reuses the Chromium engine? Or is Firefox trailing even mobile Safari here?

[alwillis]

> Or is Firefox trailing even mobile Safari here?

Short answer: yes.

Here are some web platform features Chrome and Safari (desktop and mobile) are shipping but not Firefox:

* Container Style queries: https://web-platform-dx.github.io/web-features-explorer/feat...

* @scope: https://web-platform-dx.github.io/web-features-explorer/feat...

* Picture in Picture: https://web-platform-dx.github.io/web-features-explorer/feat...

* View Transitions: https://web-platform-dx.github.io/web-features-explorer/feat...

* Cross-document view transitions: https://web-platform-dx.github.io/web-features-explorer/feat...

[alwillis]

WebKit, which powers Safari on all its platforms has been ahead of Firefox on a number of features.

For example, the WebKit team shipped :has() in March 2022. Chrome shipped in August of that year and Firefox even later: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33646121

[binarysneaker]

Ever since Microsoft announced Edge was going to use Chromium, I've been wondering why Firefox doesn't do the same. By adopting the same renderer as everyone else, consumers get a consistent rendering experience and Firefox devs can focus on the features that keep us using Firefox.

[mvdtnz]

How does that change the basic facts from the end users' perspective?

[soulofmischief]

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.

[netsharc]

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

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

[90s_dev]

Firefox introducing tabs instantly made it more usable than IE. Then Chrome came out, and was always two steps ahead of Firefox. A month ago or so I added Firefox support for 90s.dev but for some reason they still don't support ES modules in service workers, which was a pain to work around (see https://github.com/sdegutis/os.90s.dev/blob/main/main.ts#L12... and https://github.com/sdegutis/os.90s.dev/blob/main/site/sw.ts#... )

[bwat49]

I think firefox is going to end up like Opera

lack of investment in gecko and dropping marketshare of firefox will result in more and more compatibility issues over time (which further accelerates dropping marketshare), until they're eventually forced to become another chromium based browser

[paradox460]

A few years ago it was Safari that was the new IE, the one browser you had to go out of your way to support all its dumb little quirks. Firefox and Chrome+friends more or less "just worked"

Now Firefox is moving into that role. Except Firefox has no killer captive audience. Safari was pushed because of iOS Mobile users. Firefox doesn't have that.

So when you're a frontend dev at big corp, and you have to get stuff done now, targeting the quirks of a browser used by less than a tenthbof a percent of your userbase doesn't factor into the equation

[wodenokoto]

> When Mozilla made the unfathomable decision to become an internet advertising company

While strictly speaking it is not “always”, Mozilla has, in the colloquial sense, always been an internet advertising company. But they have mostly outsourced the advertising to Google.

[somethingor]

> every other browser

You can just say Chromium

[zymhan]

Safari exists, and is quite popular.

[shiomiru]

I was curious what "view transitions" are even about: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-view-transitions-1/

It's yet another 2.8k line specification solely authored by Google employees, introducing a brand new complexity monster (clones of ghost elements represented as a pseudo-element tree) to... make it easier to add fancy animations.

Now what I really miss is a "disable CSS animations" button. I find them very distracting and an unnecessary burden on battery life.

[mikesabat]

I was a user for so long I used to call this app instapaper.

[sethaurus]

Apologies if I'm missing a joke, but Pocket used to be called "ReadItLater". Instapaper still exists and I imagine they're about to get an influx of Pocket refugees.

[zomg]

same here! we're dating ourselves... xD

[PunchyHamster]

Mozilla appears to be retirement fund for incompetent CxOs...

[ls-a]

I also used them before rebranding or even being acquired by Mozilla. I saved some bookmarks then they locked me out because they switched to a paid model. I deleted that app then. Very shortly after i heard they were acquired.

[brodo]

> I'm sure they will instead focus on AI integration

And blockchain integration after that.

[riffraff]

Same here, I was a readitlater user, recent iterations somehow broke it and it stopped syncing for offline viewing which was my main usage of it.

Screw you Mozilla.

[pete1302]

"Mozilla seems to be institutionally committed to chasing its own demise" Indeed every stable software provider.

[stevenhuang]

Not to mention general UI jank that is present for years.

Start Firefox and right click anywhere to open the context menu. If it's the first time that specific menu is opened, you can a flash of nothing and then see a few frames of the css being inflated.

Contrast that to Chrome and you don't get any sort of jank.

Small things like this add up to an overall feel of unpolish.

[bambax]

> mostly due to frustration with the terrible 2023 redesign of the mobile app

That's a classic move: make it bad / observe that nobody uses it anymore / close it. Sometimes it's done on purpose, sometimes not, but the result is always the same.

[strangescript]

If you look at their finances you will realize that there is nothing left in that company.

[modo_mario]

You'd imagine they try to stretch it a bit rather than throwing it at the most ineffective charity projects they could come up with whilst firing staff.

[tempodox]

> …that are available in every other browser

where “every other browser” == Chrome.

Otherwise, agreed.

[1oooqooq]

missing features at this point is laudable.

most features are useless design clutter (view transition being the poster child) or privacy nightmares pushed by google for their ad business (all the way back to full url referr to floc)