On 6/6/15 3:36 PM, David Rajchenbach-Teller wrote:
For clarification: it is possible to reimplement most Firefox entirely
as an extension. For instance, Bookmarks, Find in Page, Save As, Tabbed
Browsing, Session Restore, etc. could all be implemented as extensions.
Not only that, but some of these features were initially implemented as
extensions and were then bundled with Firefox.
In other words, the questions that needs to be asked here are:
1. does it work well?
2. does it serve users?
3. does it hurt privacy or security?
I haven't checked 3., but the answer to questions 1. and 2. is very much
"yes". Of course, 1. could be improved, and I'm sure that it will.
Well, it clears hurts privacy, right? It's a feature that sends browsing
data to a VC-funded third-party company, which says in its privacy
policy that if it's acquired " user information may be included among
the transferred assets".
I have nothing against Pocket — from the comments I've seen on this list
and on HN, it seems to be an exceptional tool and service. And I
actually think Reading List functionality is entirely appropriate in a
browser, a natural extension of the browsing process.
But Pocket's inclusion in Firefox as a default toolbar icon is
mystifying to me, coming from an organization that values user privacy
so highly that it designed a client-side-encrypted sync architecture to
avoid collecting similar data.
Yes, Firefox has a search bar that sends queries to search engines, but
that's unavoidable — Mozilla isn't in a position to build a search
engine, and the privacy trade-off is clear. But it seems to me that
Mozilla could absolutely build functionality like this (sans web access)
on top of its existing, privacy-protecting sync architecture.
Privileging a third-party service that doesn't have those same
protections — a few icons down from the bookmark icon, which does —
feels like an abdication of Mozilla's role and a betrayal of users who
trust Mozilla but may not fully understand where their data is going
when they use this feature that suddenly appeared in their toolbar.
So I fully support the decision to add this sort of functionality to
Firefox, but I want it designed according to the principles that cause
me to use Firefox in the first place. Until that time, I think Pocket
integration should be treated like the services available via the Share
button: as a clearly separate, third-party option with benefits that
Mozilla can't provide but that may carry trade-offs that aren't in line
with Mozilla's priorities.
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