> - Yes, Mozilla has made missteps with Pocket and Mr. Robot.
and the removal of RSS support. So much for the champions of the Free Web!
and the removal of RSS support. So much for the champions of the Free Web!
- pretty much nobody was using it;
- it's pretty easy to reimplement as an extension.
Championing the Free Web is harder if you also need to champion the dead web.
edit "nobody" => "pretty much nobody"
You'll need a source for that, since most Wordpress sites which constitute a HUGE part of the web have pretty much by default rss feeds. It's not because you are not using it that nobody is.
And even you premise was true (which is debatable), it cost absolutely nothing for Firefox to keep a functional RSS reader without putting much effort into it (or instead, you know, putting efforts in pushing ads to people who never wanted them).
I'm not making it up. I don't remember the exact details – you'll have to look at the archives of the Mozilla dev-platform mailing list if you want them – but I seem to remember the usage was below 0.001% of users.
I personally read RSS with Thunderbird, which is a much better experience anyway.
> And even you premise was true (which is debatable), it cost absolutely nothing for Firefox to keep a functional RSS reader without putting much effort into it (or instead, you know, putting efforts in pushing ads to people who never wanted them).
It actually does. Every piece of software that you need to maintain is a tax. Paying the tax makes sense if the code is useful, not if it isn't.
Also, frankly, this implementation didn't bring anything to users. It wasn't nice to use. There are much better RSS readers than a browser – starting with RSS WebExtensions.
Additional features that the average user does not want to use or care about creates confusion and a feeling of bloat. An official extension would be nice though.
I'd be surprised. Do you have a source?
Here, just take a look at the first response:
>Literally 99.99% of Firefox users did not use the built in RSS support[1].
>I love RSS! I also never used the built in Firefox RSS support because it was not very good. Mozilla also compiled a helpful list of alternative RSS readers for the 0.01% of users that used this feature and made it easy to export your feed list[2].
>[1] https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod...
>[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacement...
Very happy indeed. I discovered Pocket as a result of it being integrated and have been a very happy user ever since.
If the answer to both is no, they should have left it. I wish I could tell my parents to subscribe to some news sites and my website to see updates, so they dont' have to join some kind of mailing list... but I can't, because I'm not going to explain how to configure addons to my 70 year old.
- it actually doesn't hurt;
- market research indicates that most people actually love it.
I love RSS! I also never used the built in Firefox RSS support because it was not very good. Mozilla also compiled a helpful list of alternative RSS readers for the 0.01% of users that used this feature and made it easy to export your feed list[2].
[1] https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod...
[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacement...
Mozilla have done all these things, and when called out on it, they don't seem to realise they've done anything wrong. That crosses the line from naive to actively malicious.
But the big difference is that people actually use it.
Literally everything I liked about Firefox is gone, so I have no reason not to use Chrome instead anymore. They are mostly the same, Firefox is just uglier than Chrome now and I can't change that anymore.