[jtgeibel]

This completely captures my response as well. I run on the beta channel, so the day after 38.0 stable hit, this got rolled out the the beta channel. I checked the plugin/addon page and my user profile directory at least a dozen times, assuming that something unwanted had done this behind my back. I probably wasted half an hour looking into this. Finally, I took a (second) look at the release notes before actually realizing that this was something build in. (I missed it the first time because it didn't even register that they would be doing this.) What really shocked me was that it was added by default to standard toolbar, which seemed rather rude and presumptuous. (Maybe they rolled this out differently to the stable channel, I don't know.)

Worst of all, there has been almost no communication on this. I subscribe to Planet Mozilla and read everything that seems interesting to me, and I still didn't know this was coming. There still hasn't been much public discussion on this. On top of that, they did a weird 38.0.5 release cycle that I haven't seen before with the release train. It was almost like someone said: "there is no way we can introduce this to enterprise with an ESR release, so lets tweak the whole release model so we can shove it in everyone else's face once we spin the ESR release."

I've been a huge Mozilla supporter since back in the Pheonix days. I'm even okay with their ad ambitions (so far) and think that they made the right pragmatic decision with regards to DRM support. However, with this move I've now felt it necessary to take a step back and seriously question their motives. It just seems so far out of character. I've been thinking and reading about this for the last 3 weeks and I still have no idea what they are thinking.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I'm a huge Firefox Sync fan. The fact that they took such a user focused approach to encrypting everything client side, and minimizing their server-side exposure to user data seemed like such a principled approach and is probably the only thing that kept me from taking the leap to Chrome at a time when there were noticeable performance benefits to doing so. This integration seems like the exact antithesis.

[browser]

In my view, they need to reverse course 180 degrees on things like Pocket and Hello, or it will be the beginning of the end for Firefox.

Firefox is a niche product that appeals to the privacy-consciuos. Stuff like Pocket and Telefonica/Hello basically eliminates its reason for being.

I have Firefox as my main browser now, but I won't keep it around for long if I have to swat down new marketing integrations in every new release.

[jtgeibel]

I'm not as concerned with the Hello integration. With both features, I'd like to know more on the technical details.

For Hello, I think Mozilla (but actually unsure who's servers?) is only involved in initial discovery and, if needed, WebRTC NAT traversal. In terms of code bloat, I think Hello is just a bit of extra javascript on top of functionality already built into the web platform.

But I admit I haven't look that much into it. I don't know how or if crypto is used. I haven't used the feature yet either and would want to know more before using it in a corporate or privacy sensitive situation.

I guess the same goes for Pocket, I probably don't need to worry about it if I'm not using it. However, for me personally, it just seems to be such a stark contrast with their position on Sync. On top of that, the browser UI is _mine_! Nobody - not even Mozilla - should be adding something to the primary interface of _my browser_ without a very good reason. And this is where I feel my trust has been betrayed for the first time.

[browser]

Hello uses Telefonica servers. My guess is that Mozilla's partnership with Telefonica is the reason why Hello was added to Firefox.

[dblohm7]

Not really. Hello was added in order to offer an alternative to Skype/FaceTime that uses open Web technologies and does not require you to create accounts or upload contacts. The partnership with Telefonica made it more convenient since they host the server side.

[dblohm7]

What's your beef with Hello, exactly? The whole point of Hello is to offer an alternative to Skype/FaceTime that uses open Web technologies and does not require you to create accounts or upload contacts. How does that not appeal to the privacy-conscious?

[paulmd]

Because it doesn't belong within the core browser framework. A browser should not tie to your "internet identity", whether it's an account or a cookie fingerprint. That actually is the business of a service to manage.

[seanp2k2]

Because it wasn't a choice I made to install it, and since it's not something I'll use, it's useless for me. I do use pocket, but I'd much rather use it as an extension vs a special integration with who-knows-what different permissions / sandboxing / control vs an extension.

[azakai]

Both features have near-negligible overhead if you don't use them. But having them in the product makes them accessible to the wide userbase, many of whom don't know what addons are or how to install them.

Therefore it seems reasonable to add them to Firefox.

[weaksauce]

I'd much prefer them to improve the memory and performance reporting features over adding some features that goes against their core values. right now I have a firefox that uses tons of ram and slows down to a halt very frequently but there are no decent tools to diagnose what addin/plugin/webpage/bug might be causing trouble. it's very, very frustrating.

edit: I am talking about multiple gigs of memory for firefox and multiple gigs of memory in the kernel task allocated for who knows what. stop firefox and it lowers the kernel memory to a reasonable level and (obviously) removes the memory usage of firefox.

[derefr]

I see this argument all the time in the form of "why are they working on the UI instead of the backend?" Well, because UI engineers and backend engineers are different people and don't share one-another's competencies, is why. The people who are adding these things probably don't know how to improve Firefox's performance. They're probably networked-multimedia engineers scratching their own itch.

(And it's not like Firefox's performance has any low-hanging fruit left; there have been years of performance improvements already, and only someone versed in those would know how to take them further.)

[azakai]

There are a lot of people working on performance - it's just less press-worthy than new features, so less noticed I guess. But bugs do exist, of course. Do you see anything odd in about:memory that can help diagnose your specific issue?

[hobarrera]

If that's the intention, they failed horribly. Not because the lack of adoption, but because a propietary server is involved. Only the client is open.

[dblohm7]

https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server