this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

God damnit so they bought Fakespot, an extension that actually did good, hiding fake botted reviews and reanalyzing them - and now they're killing it. It was literally an extension to help prevent unnecessary buying. Why the hell did they even buy it?

We acquired Fakespot in 2023 to help people navigate unreliable product reviews using AI and privacy-first tech. While the idea resonated, it didn’t fit a model we could sustain.

Then why did you buy it you idiots?!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm also exactly on the same boat as you; I use Fakepost frequently and now it will be canned by Mozilla. The alternative I found is https://reviewmeta.com/, but it's quite slow and can't cover all domains of Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I'll give it a try, but yeah very disappointed

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's astounding how stupid that decision was. Fakespot, quite literally a device to help deter people from buying products, was gobbled up by way too much money by Mozilla - who - apparently wanted it to make profit? How?! Why?! Why did they even buy it?

I think it was just executive idiocy. They searched for extensions with the term privacy in them, bought it, and thought it would make their product worth more. I'm getting really tired of companies just sunsetting products the instant they don't make money.

We really need an open version of fakespot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I think it can be VERY valuable especially today with all the ai spam.

It's not about buying less, it's about people making you a trusted source when they look to buy.

I cannot believe they are stupidly abandoning this, it could be a gold mine

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

I expect that Fakespot already had problems funding themselves, and thus they were a relatively cheap acquisition, and now it turned out they couldn't cover their own costs as part of Mozilla either. But I've never used it so I have no idea.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

what’s up with ending FakeSpot? They just bought that.

Assuming the tool was not accepted and used well enough by the user base. Also Mozilla got all user data and the technology. Maybe they plan on a new project that implements part of it in the future? Mozilla is currently experimenting a lot. Shutting down lot of services should be expected.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

it was never available outside the usa i think. hard to get useful market penetration then

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

killedbymozilla.com

Sucks, these were both somewhat useful services (pocket particularly)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What a terrible day to hear about Fakespot for the first time :(

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Mozilla should make Fakepost source code open-source so that people (with right hardware) can self-host it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Seriously. If they're not even interested in making money off it anymore then why not?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If it's open source how easy will it be for others then to game the system?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

There are open source tools for analyzing if github stars are fake, and they work reliably.

The kind of people that fake reviews/stars target are not the kind of people that are going to be verifying things.

As long as Amazon doesn't crack down, there isn't really a need to game the system.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Owho! This was one of the only useful services provided by Mozilla. Well fk it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I use pocket to easily sent sites to my e reader.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Same! This is really unfortunate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Normally postpone to read in the e-book this is Readeck, Wallabag and LinkWarden (taste and color), I have Self-Hosted Wallabag through KOReader.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Owho indeed

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Imagine that someone collected and kept the bookmarks there, and now they will disappear. Another reason to remember that you do not need to store anything important remotely.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

This is why whenever I want to save a news article, I actually save it to my computer as a PDF. Not only can your online bookmark store be shut down, the article itself can be deleted or edited especially if it's a hot button issue.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I kind of liked visiting https://getpocket.com/explore just to read some of the stories they had posted there, but oh well.

Is Mozilla on its last legs?

EDIT: a more highbrow alternative to the pocket explore articles is Arts & Letters Daily.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Oh nooo.. less bloat? anyway

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Cool now kill everything else and go back to just being a fucking browser

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Thank you, I've hated pocked ever since the forced integration.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Setup Miniflux to fetch all my feeds, which I can parse through manually during the day and send over the choice pieces to Wallabag for later reading, either at lunch or at nighttime using my phone or KOReader.