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Comment by throw7 | Hacker News Reader

The article is not exactly well written. I don't really follow web developments anymore because the web, well, sucks; So, after reading, I'm still not even sure what "manifest v3" is about and why I should care.

I know websites track me. I know I get tons of ads. I know websites popup questions about cookies. I know they play videos that follow me around when I scroll. I know sometime in the past that shit would've been under my control. But I suppose I have rose-colored glasses on and that's just the way it is. After all, I remember blink tags.

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It's for Browser extensions. Chrome extensions (and also Firefox and Safari). a fail called the "Manifest" that tells Chrome and the extension about the extension and contains all it's permission requests. Eg: "This extensions wants to modify all webpages", which is what ad blockers need to do.

Going forward extensions in the Chrome Web store will have to use Manifest v3. Which has less capabilities than previous version. Which will stop ad blockers working.

tl;dr. Ad blockers will not longer be possible in Chrome.

tl;dr Extensions with embedded spyware will no longer be able to record all of your web use. Malicious ones that steal credentials will be more easily identified. These types of extensions are installed far, far more than ad blockers.

Why would you spread misinformation? V3 removes Blocking part, but doesnt touch Inspecting - every extension can still snoop on all traffic.

> tl;dr. Ad blockers will not longer be possible in Chrome.

This is not completely true. Ad blockers like uBlock Origin that allow specific elements to be picked and blocked wouldn’t be allowed. All the requests (like ads) to be blocked would have to be declared in a list (like Safari Content Blockers, and presumably have a limit on the number of rules). The actual blocking will be done by the browser without the extension knowing which rules were applied to which pages.

So, useful adblockers that actually work well won't be allowed.

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