Re: [gentoo-user] Pocket sneaks back

[Michael]

On Tuesday, 17 March 2020 04:42:12 GMT Dale wrote:
> Matt Connell wrote:
> > On 2020-03-16 19:46, Dale wrote:
> >> Anything that can do, I can do locally by saving a web page or
> >> downloading the content.

Firefox has this functionality for people who have multiple devices and are 
not able or want to save content locally and want to discover similar 
articles/pages without carrying out their own web search manually and be able 
to access them from other devices too, potentially when offline.


> > Pocket is easily replaced by just synchronizing bookmarks, for most
> > people's purposes, and FF already supports that.

Pocket, at least in its premium paid for service, is more than a bookmark 
syncronization service between devices alone.  It is utilizing a 3rd party's 
cloud servers to store content and send this content to your devices, using a 
Firefox account.  In addition, webpages uploaded to Pocket's servers are 
cleaned from adverts and extraneous content, can be tagged for easier 
referencing/search, have their text size adjusted for easier reading, etc.  I 
don't know to what extent content is drawn dynamically from the original 
website and modified on the fly when a user logs in and requests it, or if it 
is stored on Pocket's servers and remains available even after the original 
website ceases to exist.

Arguably Dale already does all most of this for himself, personally, locally 
and privately, without sharing *his* data with anyone else - unless he 
explicitly wishes to do so.  Other users don't/can't and Pocket caters to 
their needs.

Mozilla uses some anonymizing/obfuscating mechanism for storing your Firefox 
account and associated data on the cloud and Mozilla claim they don't share 
personally identifiable information with anyone else.


> > If you need more than that, I can recommend Wallabag for link-saving.  I
> > use it as my "read later" list.
>
> Since I backup my /home directory, I have that already.  Based on what
> the link claims, it allows you to watch videos, read articles and such
> later even if offline.  If I like a page, I save it or print it as a pdf
> or copy and paste it into LOo.  It might be a long way around but it
> makes it available even if the website removes content or shuts down
> completely, forever.

Yep, your data, under your ownership and free (as in freedom) access.


> Still, I likely don't understand all it does but I disabled it since I
> don't think it serves a purpose here for me anyway.  Maybe others will.
>
> I wonder what else Firefox does I don't know about????
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)

In a proliferation of 'cloud services', 'user accounts', 'mobile apps', multi-
device data access, etc. it is important to satisfy yourself a service 
provider's Business Model is not somehow orthogonal to your personal data 
security, privacy, rights and preferences.

With Mozilla the picture is mixed.  Mozilla Foundation is a not-for-profit 
organization established to lead the open source Mozilla project.  All this is 
good I hear you say, but then comes Mozilla Corp. a subsidiary of Mozilla 
Foundation.  The Mozilla Corp. outfit is for-profit, pays taxes and it 
reinvests all of its profits back into the Mozilla project.  This was needed 
to overcome financial considerations a not-for-profit organization cannot 
engage with.  Still good.  Here comes the rub.  Pocket contains closed source 
code and any statements about being converted into open source have yet to 
materialize.  Also, the business model of surveillance capitalism is endemic 
in all business affiliates of Mozilla Corp. and the way they make money - with 
your data.  So even if Mozilla Corp. is not using/abusing your private data, 
its affiliates are in business to do just that.

I suggest the saying "if its free, your are the product" applies here too.