The upside of a bigger business deciding to buy a service or a product is that they have the power to infuse a lot more money into it. The downside? It's that the bigger business can choose to axe that product or service whenever it feels like, whether for competitive reasons or for a lack of profitability.
Sadly, that same script is playing to the gallery. Mozilla has just announced that Pocket, that app you can use to save articles for later or to discover new things to read, is being put to bed for good. It will also be lowering Fakespot, another one of its products, into the grave. It's time to find alternatives, I guess.
Mozilla Puts Pocket to Rest, Eight Years After Acquiring the Popular Extension
There's a lot to do on the internet. If you know where to look, there will never be a scarcity of interesting content. But you know what they say—so much to do, so little time. That saying probably best exemplifies the reason why the Pocket app was developed. Its developer, Read It Later, Inc., has a name that explains it all. Pocket was the perfect place to stuff those articles that you wanted to get to at a later time.
Pocket came into the world in 2007 as an extension for Mozilla Firefox, but ten years later, in 2017, Mozilla itself decided to purchase Pocket. It'd be nice if there were a happily ever after to this, but we're in 2025, and with less than ten years of the app being in Mozilla's care, it has decided to cut its life short. The reason for this isn't surprising, as we've heard from other companies before: it needs to focus more on its primary product.
Needless to say, this sucks, especially for the avid Pocket users. If you belong to that fan club, here are the most important pieces of information that you need, and the dates that they correspond to:
| Date | Description |
| May 22nd, 2025 | – You can no longer be able to download the app – You can no longer purchase a Pocket Premium subscription |
| July 8th, 2025 | – The application will be shut down for good – Premium subscriptions will be canceled – Annual subscribers will receive automatic, prorated refunds |
| October 8th, 2025 | – Final date to export Pocket saves – All data and accounts on Pocket will be deleted permanently |
Mozilla Will Also Terminate Fakespot While It's at It
One issue with shopping online is that you can never tell fake reviews from real ones, especially on Amazon. Fakespot was developed to help with that back in 2016, and just two years ago, Mozilla decided to get its hands on the product.
Well, despite only having ownership of Fakespot since 2023, Mozilla has decided to add that to the chopping block. Here are the dates to take note of:
- June 10th, 2025: Review Checker, a Fakespot-powered feature in Firefox, will stop working
- July 1st, 2025: The Fakespot extension, website, and its mobile apps will no longer function.
