HN Explorer

Ask HN: Good Pocket Alternative

5 points by atulvi ↗ HN
A long time ago, Pocket (the web reader app) had the best recommendations. The pages I got recommended were exactly the kind of articles I used to read. Now, almost all the articles that are recommended are ads.

I'd say their original recommendation system was the best ever, and nothing like it existed. Is there anything like this these days? if not, I'm thinking of making a decentralized alternative.

6 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 23.8 ms ] thread
AndyIsBuilding
I've build a Pocket alternative and plan to launch soon. It's focused more on usability right now, since Pocket has completely dropped the ball on so many fronts, but usability is my biggest grievance.

The recommendation engine has yet to be built so would love to hear more about what you liked best.

atulvi
That's great to hear. Original Pocket recommended articles were very high quality. I saved a lot of Haskell/fp related articles back in the day and all my recommendations were related to the topic, saved by other users with my same niche interests.

I'd say this kind of recommendation is not hard to do. Pocket simply went to the dark side for monetization reasons.

This is why I wanted to look for a decentralized alternative that can be self hosted, yet communicates with other nodes for recommendations.

AndyIsBuilding
Thanks! I'll keep that in mind as I create the rec system. Are there any other issues you've found with using Pocket? Do you still use it at all or is it just a repository of things you've saved but never access (like me until recently)?
atulvi
* I really just want pocket as a bookmarking tool than the web reader. The web reader works, but it's very bad in cases with a lot of embeds/code snippets. If a site is pay-walled, only a small section is available in Pocket. I usually open the actual page in this case than read in pocket.

* Some links I added a long time ago are permanently lost because the original page got taken down. It'd be much better if a permanent snapshot was taken(including all the images, this is pretty easy to do with something like https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile) of the page and is available even if the original page is lost.

nicbou
I have moved to Instapaper and I am happy with it. I only use it to queue up offline articles for my iPad so I can't speak about recommendations. However I like that it's not so pushy about recommendations.