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Mozilla

Mozilla Is Shutting Down Pocket (betanews.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the expanding-graveyard dept.
BrianFagioli writes: In a surprising move that will frustrate longtime fans, Mozilla has announced it will shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. The once-popular read-it-later service, which helped users save and organize web content for later reading, will no longer function as normal after that date. While existing users can continue saving and reading articles until July, the service will switch to export-only mode afterward, with all user data permanently deleted on October 8. The Firefox-maker will also shut down Fakespot, a service that allows users to identify unreliable reviews, on July 1.

Mozilla Is Shutting Down Pocket More | Reply

Mozilla Is Shutting Down Pocket

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  • Who didn't immediately disable Pocket in Firefox? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @02:43PM (#65396465) Homepage

    In a surprising move that will frustrate longtime fans

    My condolences to both of them.

  • If there is anything I want to read later it is too easy to simply bookmark it, and if you have a lot of bookmarks start categorizing them into subfolders within your bookmarks

    • If there is anything I want to read later it is too easy to simply bookmark it

      I bookmarked the page but now it still looks the same when I click it again. What am I doing wrong? You're claiming booking marking is an alternative to this, but it seems to address only a single one of many features of Pocket.

      • In particular, Pocket let users save pages to read offline. I found this helpful to avoid paying for a cellular data plan for a netbook on public transit, as not all buses and trains had guest Wi-Fi.

        • Firefox extension WebScrapbook, available for both Android and desktop versions of Firefox, allows to save the page locally in a searchable archive.

      • I bookmarked the page but now it still looks the same when I click it again. What am I doing wrong?

        You could always clear your cache, but since that is such a difficult thing to do, it might take some time to do. I've never had an issue with a web page looking the same after I bookmark it and come back later, but that's just me always clearing out crap and forcing the browser to get new info.

    • Bookmarking? In 2025?? Well that's just uncivilized!

      In 2025, I need all of my content links uploaded to the cloud so it can be paraphrased and narrated by an AI that sounds like Patrick Stewart complete with corresponding random vertical videos of random things getting assembled from my smart hub screen as I fall asleep at night to maximize content retention. Anything less is too much of a bother.

  • Has anyone ever used this? (Score:3)

    by HnT ( 306652 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @02:57PM (#65396519)

    I already found pinterest completely insufferable and they were the first to massively push for hostile content where you were forced to sign up to see a funny picture.

    And then came pocket from Firefox. Anyone actually used this? And what for?

    • Mozilla claimed it had 17 million active users 10 years ago... for whatever that is worth.

    • Re: Has anyone ever used this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Twipped ( 10473954 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @03:18PM (#65396613)
      Pocket (originally called Read It Later) wasnâ(TM)t originally a Mozilla product, it was a web 2.0 startup from 2007 that eventually sold to Mozilla when the investor money ran out. It existed before browsers had reading list features built in. It wasnâ(TM)t just a bookmarking app, it archived the page for full text search. Extremely handy for pages I remembered saving but didnâ(TM)t know the title of. The fact it worked everywhere was a huge bonus, and the UI was beautifully simplistic. Unfortunately, enshitifaction claimed it like everything else. They added loads of pointless social features trying to bring in capital, and it never worked. Mozilla made it worse by shackling it to their firefox identity system.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by acroyear ( 5882 )

      I have been using Pocket (Read It Later) since 2009 at least. It got even more use when it was integrated into Feedly which I started using for RSS after Google killed Reader. (as another post said, there's always /somebody/)

      However, I never use Firefox (their PWA support has always been second-class) and so I have no idea what pocket's "integration" with Firefox was like.

      I'll figure something out. Having cloud bookmarks easily referenced was always useful - bookmark on my desktop mac, then read later on my

      • I *only* use the Firefox integration. I don't ever use "read it later" but I like their curation of interesting articles from around the web.

  • I recently started removing Pocket from every instance of Firefox I use. Occasionally there would be some interesting recommended articles, but I got tired of the "Your Gender Is Toxic" stories it started displaying.

  • I will miss (Score:5, Informative)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @03:19PM (#65396631)
    immediately removing it from the toolbar when installing a new copy of Firefox.

    • just looked - didn't know that it was there.

    • immediately removing it from the toolbar when installing a new copy of Firefox.

      This will soon be irrelevant, but don't forget the config setting:

      user_pref("extensions.pocket.enabled", false);

  • One of the stupidest purchases ever (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blahbooboo2 ( 602610 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @03:29PM (#65396687)

    By the time Mozilla wasted money on buying pocket in 2017, the use case of pocket was already done. During the heyday of Pocket, the hassle of using the product to get content onto a PDA had some return; once cellular data was ubiquitous and cheap Pocket was done. Whomever approved Mozilla buying this stupid product in 2017 should be forced to reimburse Mozilla. The creator of Pocket really lucked out with that acquisition.

    • Speaking as someone who often travels outside cell data zones and prefers to read things on my own terms, I know I'm in the minority, but the use case Pocket was created to fill does still in fact exist.

      However, enshittification means that I'll continue meeting my personal need for this exact functionality with "print to PDF" and other basic tools, because those don't randomly change everything in an attempt to get more of my attention every other Tuesday.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      Pocket is still extremely useful for travelling. Being able to have a whole bunch of content I can read on my phone OFFLINE without an internet connection is very handy.

  • I had a 1000 links on Delicious and a similar number on Pocket. Now I store my links in text files, but links degrade with time. Sometimes I export to PDF, but that takes up hard drive space.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Plugh ( 27537 )
      Your LLM agent and its ancillary vectorDB will remember everything for you. I suggest selfhosting and not using a corporate secondbrain.

      This may come across as tongue in cheek but I am deadpan serious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Try Joplin. There is a web clipper add-on for all major browsers.

      You can then save a simplified version of the page into a notebook, which you can sync between machines.

  • Now where will I put all my pennies [slashdot.org]?

  • I guess I was one of the dozen users still using Pocket.
    Why, you ask? It is (was) simple, not terribly intrusive or advert-happy, and it just suited my needs.
    I use(d) it as a cross-platform link-sharing tool between my mobile and various personal and work PCs - just a big bucket of links accessible anywhere, which I would occasionally revisit and prune if/when the list grew too long.
    So now what? Google Keep? Microsoft OneNote? (shudder)

  • ... either extension or plug-ins all along... instead of being integrated in the browser...

    Mozilla had/still has the opportunity to become the "Distro of browsers". Just like a Linux Distro is the linux kernel surrounded by a bunch of other projects, Mozilla should strip the browser to the bone, shifting everything non-essential into plug-ins or extensions, either developed by Mozilla, or developed by trusted third parties, and ship "Browser Distros".

    A "normal user browser distro" with all the privacy, DRM, Media/codecs and such plug-ins and extensions, but none of the programming and debugging stuff
    An "enterprise browser distro" in the ESR channel with all the privacy and ad-blocking stuff, but sans the DRM and media/codec Plug-Ins and extensions.
    A "web forensics browser distro" with all the DEbugging and ispection stuff, but sans the programmingh stuff
    A "Web programmer browser distro" with all the programming, inspection and debugging components.
    and any other you/me/they can think.

    If you download from mozilla, all the plug-ins and extensions are vetted by them, if you then decide to uninstall/substitute plug-ins or extensions, you are on your own security and stability wise, like you are on your own security and stability wise when you download from 3rd party repos or compile from source....

    That way the browser would be more responsive and more tailored for everyone involved

    JM2C
    YMMV

  • They're killing pocket because almost nobody uses it. How do they know? All the telemetry they gather, the fuckers.

    Fakespot is what dumbasses quote on Slick Deals. Algorithmic bullshit that was useless even before the AI age got more useless as AI use expanded.

  • Pocket was useful! (Score:3)

    by Moochman ( 54872 ) on Thursday May 22, 2025 @06:14PM (#65397177)

    Just because you didn't use Pocket doesn't mean it wasn't useful.

    It was, for me, like an easier-to-use version of Evernote, with the specific use case of "read it later".

    Why is this better than just saving bookmarks, you may ask?

    1) The pages' contents are saved for posterity, so even if a link degrades or becomes locked behind a paywall, if you could access the page at the time you saved it, you will have saved it for eternity... erm, or until the service is shut down.
    2) The UI is much more suitable for leisure reading, with nice previews of the saved pages, and the pages themselves formatted in an easy-to-read style, without ads or other distractions. As others have noted, this is now a standard feature of most browsers, but Pocket lets you skip that extra step of having to wait for the full, noisy version to load first. Bonus: ability to easily send articles to your e-reader.

    Now, I must admit that I only ever saved a handful of pages to Pocket (20 or so, over something like 9 years), almost always for the specific reason that I wanted to save articles that were somehow in danger of becoming inaccessible for one reason or another. But I'm still surprised there weren't more people out there who saw its utility and made more use of it -- especially considering that, unlike Evernote, it's completely free.

    • Yep, I must be one of the two. I never used its "Read it later" feature, but I liked their curation of interesting articles from around the web. Kind of like how slashdot curates interesting *tech* articles from around the web, Pocket had a broader range of topics.

  • I use Pocket quite a bit, mainly when browsing news through an aggregator app on my tablet. There's a 'save to pocket' button, I can look at interesting long articles later on my desktop. I sure am going to miss that feature.

  • What the hell!? I've been using it forever and now they've killed it? Do they think they're Apple? I'm seriously pissed.

  • Pocket is a valuable IP and tool that has millions and millions of users.

    Sure, maybe Mozilla can't afford to run it anymore and can't figure out how to make it proitable. That doesn't mean it should just die. WHy can't they either sell it off, or at least offer to donate it off to the community to run somehow?

    It's nuts how organizations just constantly EOL tools. It's bad enough when someone like Google does it, but I find it even more egrigous when a non profit for the public good like Mozilla does it.

  • You will not be missed.

    Only time I've ever opened Pocket was by accident.

  • Try Readeck: https://readeck.org/ [readeck.org] or Wallabag: https://wallabag.org/ [wallabag.org]

    Some of us did use Pocket to archive web stuff long-term easily so there was definitely a market for this. I have a couple hundred pages saved in Readeck that have been shut down now but used to have useful information. You could probably achieve the same with something like HTTrack but that would be a pain to configure to scrape just one page.

  • I am one of those two users and definitely not happy. Pocket was great to let me save articles to read offline in my e-book reader later. Perhaps it should have remained an add on, but it was certainly useful for those of us who did use it. Anyone have any alternative suggestions for saving and offline reading?

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