Google confirms they will disable uBlock Origin in Chrome in 2024 | Hacker News Reader

Google confirms they will disable uBlock Origin in Chrome in 2024

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233 pointslopkeny12ko162 comments

Next will be the litany of comments pointing out that the declarative API works reasonably well for blocking ads. That's mostly true, for now. Google's shown in several different areas that they know how to slow-roll the real objective over years, when needed.

This is roughly the equivalent of taking a heuristic malware blocker and making it depend solely on file names or file checksums. I can't prove it, but I feel like it's only the first shoe dropping.

> that the declarative API works reasonably well for blocking ads

Depending on your definition of "reasonably"; it does appear to result in worse coverage, and how much is not clear to me.

How does MV3 affect content script injection? I looked a bit more into how uBO does xhr-content based filtering (like it uses to block YT ads) and it appears to shim the fetch() method. Would this approach still work in a MV3 world? And if it does still work, doesn't this negate any supposed security/privacy benefits of the declarative model?

My understanding is thay it doesn[t work in mv3, precisely bevause of that security issue.

What's the problem to let user chose to let that specific extension to use the more invasive access mode, like we already do with other extension permissions?

I don't think there is personally, but how do you reliably keep track that it was the user that made that choice, and not some installer on the machine? I.e. Ol' McDonald AntiVirus installs an extension for scanning that marks the extension as approved like that, and then updates to also use it to inject their own ads for other security products.

> Next will be the litany of comments pointing out that the declarative API works reasonably well for blocking ads.

Does anybody know if it's possible to block Youtube ads with just what's available in Chrome's manifest 3?

>> Next will be...

>> I can't prove it, but I feel like it's only the first shoe dropping.

People supporting "free" software instead of "Free Software" continuing to complain as their freedom is taken away. ;-)

I know the submission title matches the title of the Reddit post, but both titles are misleading—Google didn't mention uBO by name, they just confirmed that all Manifest v2 extensions will be disabled.

Of course Google don't mention uBO by name. But this is the real reason they are doing it. Privacy is just a pretext.

uBO lite will still be available but it will be very nerfed.

Hopefully people move to Firefox, but I'm not so optimistic. It took a huge campaign to get people to move from IE6 to Firefox, and I'm not certain it can be replicated with Chrome.

What is the nerfing reason between 2/3?

Switching to an extension providing a list of things to block or redirect to the browser rather than the extension having access to all content on every page that you visit.

I'd imagine that people don't vet extensions nearly as much as they should for the access they give them to all their web browser traffic. Not to mention an extension that is okay now may not be once sold to someone else (for those extension developers not as honorable as those of uBlock Origin and hoverzoom).

Oh man I've seen that happen before eg. a JSON parser

I feel the same. It's crazy what kind of extensions people just use, there is one called Snov or something, to add a pixel in emails... it's like dude, you gave this random company access to read your emails... idk.

which yeah... UBO but still that's open source at least. An extension you can view the source sure.

uBO is more exceptional than typical open source extensions. Its developers has shown themselves to be much more trustworthy and well-intentioned than Google.

I think, at some point, people should have the right to be stupid on their computers. What needs to change is holding them liable if their negligence affects others.

Manifest v3 is killing current WebRequest API so you won't be able to filter requests on the fly (sort of playing man in the middle).

This means uBlock won't be as effective because once web request is done\page\script is loaded - it is impossible to stop it from loading other scripts.

Also it limits how many or what urls can be filtered at all if I'm not mistaken.

Plus the new api don't even prevent you from peeking the traffic. Only prevent you from modify it. How is this able to improve privacy?

And the biggest user of traffic modification? You got it, it's all sorts of adblocks. They are literally not trying to hide it. Or they should probably also limit apis that are able to peeking the traffics.

... which means that UBO will be disabled.

If A=B and B=C, then yadda yadda.

Sure, but surely you agree there's a difference in implication, right?

Like, if a headline says "McDonald's Announces It Will Stop Serving McNuggets to Donald Trump", and the story was actually that McDonald's was discontinuing McNuggets altogether (and therefore also to Trump), would you call that misleading or just an honest application of the transitive property?

> would you call that misleading or just an honest application of the transitive property?

The latter because McDonalds managers have been publicly discussing how and why they should stop serving nuggets to Trump in order to better protect their customers

That's not true in reality or in your weird twisting of the metaphor. When has Google ever mentioned uBlock specifically?

How dare you tease us with that pornographic hypothetical?

Not the best analogy as we all know that the rationale behind the change is to cripple ad blockers.

If most people thinks that McDonald's actual motive is to starve Trump, then it would be fair to post a headline like that too.

If McDonalds sees a certain politician walking toward their register eyeing the picture of nuggets on the overhead screen, and they frantically rush to slap “sold out indefinitely” there… well, then I’ll think they had an agenda.

Chrome wants to get ad revenue on YouTube, but those ads are blocked. Now, it after many years finally decides Manifest v2 has to go? Suspicious.

Sure, but in the context of a headline/submission title, "Google confirms they will disable uBlock Origin" strongly implies that Google mentioned uBO by name, which they did not. The news articles that the Reddit post links to have more general headlines for that reason.

Plus, for me at least, there are plenty of other extensions I'd like to continue using, not just uBO :(

There is zero chance that Google as an organization are unaware of uBO and of how their changes will affect uBO.

There’s a significant difference between:

- Google blocks uBlock Origin

- Google EOLs manifest v2 extensions

So whether a consequence of #2 is #1 doesn’t change the fact that #1 and #2 as headlines mean different things and imply very different ideas around the scope and intention of the action.

Yes, but the title of the Reddit thread is the title used here, so that complicates the situation. The title is accurate and not editorialized in that context.

People are talking about it because of the effects on uBlock origin. Nobody at large cares that Google is finally pulling the plug on v2 extensions.

> The title is accurate and not editorialized in that context.

So long as you treat the Reddit thread as a primary source which in this case it's clearly not.

While we avoid low quality re-print/syndication, it is normal to submit and discuss secondary commentary on HN. Think of all the “X did Y, here is why it matters” style blog posts.

I think that is some lousy excuse for lying

Why are we linking to reddit posts and not just the actual source anyway?

Why do you all even care? We’re on a web forum not the New York Times.

it's in this web forum's rules

> Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.

That sounds very similar to hiding behind sneaky talk in order to keep the practical effects in the background.

Almost no-one cares about the terms "Manifest v2 extensions" - because almost no one recognizes them for what they really are. Most people can understand it by its effect - that it will disable UBO. Only sneaky people will insist on using the technically correct, but obscure term in a PUBLIC announcement - clearly the aim is to make sure that the public overlooks the announcement.

Firefox gaining market share yet? It gained me; FF's hostile 2021 summer mobile release really burned me. But guess who is back?

Can't stand this garbage. Ads are a malicious code payload vector worth blocking.

We will be likely move our business off Google Suite too. Any suggestions on good replacements with trustworthy vendors?

Microsoft 365.

You can’t be serious.

A lot of people use it But if I wanted MS, we would have started on MS instead of Google Suite. Yeah, it's out there, but I agree with you, not a trustworthy option.

We are a small startup using Zoho and Notion (for developeras and knowledge base). We like Zoho. Whenever we felt like we need a solution now for some new requirement, they have it!

Some of their apps are very good like Books, Expense, Sign, Drive and Write, most are good enough and a few need more work (calendar, booking, and meet). When you need help there is always a person to talk to and they are pretty fast in support.

In dollar pricing, they are very cheap, but in India, they are still on pricey side. But worth every rupee we spend on them. Zoho CEO is bit of a character!

Another vote for Zoho.

What we like is the ability for every email user to be on a different plan, the savings really added up compared to what Google wanted.

Third vote for Zoho. Just got tired of the existential dread of depending on a company that clearly does not give a damn about SMB.

I switched to 95% firefox in 2021. I needed ad block on my phone browser due to some awful (but necessary) sites. I still use gmail for my main email and use other google-specific apps in my browser/phone. So I keep a chrome browser installed on my PC with my main google account logged in. I only use that for google stuff though. All other browsing is done in firefox. It's worked out great for me.

Why use Chrome for Google apps? I use firefox for google and it works fine.

Firefox has lost about 60 million users since Chrome announced Manifest v3: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

Extra credit: compare and contrast with the graph of Baker’s compensation as CEO

Term project: draw Sundar Pichai's total comp over the graph of Baker's comp without using a log scale.

Google is much larger than Chrome, Mozilla isn't much larger than Firefox.

According to this blog announcement, [1] Manifest 3 was announced on Nov 9th 2020 which had ~223M Firefox users and the last avaiable data says that on Nov 5th there is a ~187M users. This about ~36M not 60M.

[1] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/

I'm going off of this story: https://9to5google.com/2019/01/22/google-chrome-break-ad-blo...

That's alarming on its own, but I don't think the point of announcement of Mv3 is all that relevant, 99.9% of users aren't going to change their browser until they absolutely have to because they don't know what "Manifest v3" is, much less what it means for them.

Because the MPL/GPL is super restrictive if you’re trying to build any kind of sustainable business directly from Firefox code. Nothing big tech scale, but even just attempting to put food on the table with it risks lawsuits.

Can you give some more details?

You can't restrict what any for-profit entity does with your source code. You have to give it away for free to be in compliance with the license.

I can't believe its coming to this.

I've been de-googling myself slowly over the past 5 years or so. The shift has been marked, but even cynical old me is surprised how quickly they are turning on their user base.

The signs have been there all along though.

So... in all seriousness... Brave or Firefox? What about that Kagi Orion browser?

I use both Brave (on my phone) and Firefox (on my laptop), and they both work fine.

Me too.

I have Firefox installed on my phone (Android) as well, but I found Brave to be faster with its "baked in" ad blocker compared to Firefox Android + uBO.

Brave on Android is still an annoying software, with VPN, Rewards, and News icons in the burger menu that you can't disable. You can turn off the services, but the icons do not go away.

vivaldi

is it still around?

Still around getting updates, I've been using it for a while now.

> they are turning on their user base

Their user base are not us.

I've been liking Arc. Even comes with uBlock Origin.

I got rid of GMail and haven't looked back. GOOG being run into the ground would be wonderful to me. They are evil.

What did you replace it with?

Not who you replied to but I'll chime in with a similar experience. I also moved away from gmail. I set it to forward all emails to my new account and slowly moved various services off of it to the point now that the only thing it receives is spam.

I originally tried proton mail. It was nice but I never took advantage of the encryption features. So I eventually settled on fastmail and I have zero complaints.

I still have my gmail accounts for a few things (SSO, sharing calendars), but I haven't logged into the email account in years.

ICloud for me

I moved to fastmail, positive experience I have zero complaints.

Firefox is the best. Company behind Brave is yet another ad company, which business model eventually conflicts with the interests of the users.

Orion browser is still too young to match the requirements of the major userbase.

But Kagi beats Google already as search engine.

Firefox and derivatives such as Librewolf.[1]

[1] _ https://librewolf.net/

Does librewolf have a mobile version or can I sync Firefox stuff to libre so I can sync between Firefox and libre where needs require one or the other is installed?

> Orion browser is still too young to match the requirements of the major userbase. But Kagi beats Google already as search engine.

Orion is older than Kagi search. What is it missing in your opinion?

Cross-platform support is must.

It is only possible to use it currently if you are deep into Apple ecosystem.

I know it takes resources, but there is no other way.

To add: Browser itself is in quite good shape, maybe the best you get on iOS. But for example, sync with iCloud only does not work in the long term. Vendor lock-in is hindering adaption.

I'd say that does not make a browser young, otherwise you would have to call Safari young too.

The goal of Orion is not to go for maximum possible market share, but to be the best browser for Mac. This specialization may be seen as a sign of maturity and devotion to a well-built, native user experience.

On the other hand, browsers like Chrome and Firefox are not native on Mac and look out of place when used on macOS. They do not use native controls and do not integrate native services. This is exactly because they are cross-platform and have to carry the burden of being built by a committee on all these platforms. Their design language traces back to the first platform they were designed for - Windows. So at least to me, they look 'young' and unpolished on a Mac despite being 20 years old. I doubt they even look and feel native on Windows any more, they are kind of hopelessly lost in translation. If that is a sign of maturity, then they did not age well.

Orion may be called young for many things, but not being cross-platform is not one of them. We'd like to build similar native experiences for other platforms, but you have to start somewhere. (Orion dev here, if it was not obvious)

Even if the browser would be the best browser on the Mac from UX side, people might not use it because they can’t use it elsewhere.

For example, every devoloper who currently buys Mac because of its power efficiency, that user base which is the most interested about privacy, is likely not adapting it because they use other operating systems too.

> Their design language traces back to the first platform they were designed for - Windows. So at least to me, they look 'young' and unpolished on a Mac despite being 20 years old. I doubt they look and feel native on Windows any more, they are kind of lost in translation. That is not a sign of maturity if you ask me.

That might be true, but in the end, does it matter? And what is good? If user buys Mac, does it mean that they wants everything to be Mac-like? There is already Safari.

Ideally, browser is used for browsing the internet. You want to see the websites, not the browser. Users still likely use mouse and scroll wheel for doing that.

The basic end-user is usually satisfied with search bar and being able to organize tabs and bookmarks. Basic end-user does not notice that <5% performance gain what focusing on single platform target might benefit. If you compete with Safari on this, Safari already won becausd it was pre-installed.

The more advanced user, more settings buttons they want to see, and better extension support.

They want to configure things and see the websites. Whether the browser looks ”native” to the platform, is minor concern.

They want security updates fast. They want that websites work on that browser. They like privacy features, like Firefox containers. Is it gestures why they would change the browser? Only if it also fulfills all the above.

It is not clear which of these feature users do not have with Orion?

In some respects Orion has more features than Firefox and Chrome, and certainly more than Safari.

It is also zero telemetry and comes with a built in ads and tracking blocker, something all these browsers are very far away from.

And Orion was faster than Safari to ship a patch for iLeakage WebKit vulnerability recently.

So I would really like to understand what makes your perception as such.

Monetarily, only Kagi is different. Brave, Chrome, and Firefox are all dependent on ads to keep running, whether directly or indirectly.

Google just keeps on digging in. Their search engine has been a smoldering SEO dumpster fire for the past 10 years; Now it’s blazing.

Chrome? Friends don’t let friends use Chrome. It’s the unadulterated Android OS of the browser world.

I’ve been considering Kagi, but I don’t see an easy way to pay for it without basically removing all anonymity… it really is a relentless yet boring dystopia.

I gave Orion a serious try a few weeks ago, and it was very promising. But I ended up having to abandon it due to 1Password not working.

I'll likely revisit it soon, when there's hopefully been some more fixes and improvements.

Title is very misleading. Not just uBlock but every other non-MV3 compliant extension will be dropped. If the Chrome team stick to their timeline.

Also, it would be prudent to note that an MV3 version of uBlock Origin has existed for quite some time now.

Sure, but it doesn't have the same functionality [1]:

> With Manifest V3, uBlock is required to limit how many websites our users are able to add to their allow lists. Going forward, you'll only be able to add up to 5,000 websites to your allow lists.

> Moving forward, we’ll no longer be able to enable automatic daily updates to filter lists.

[1] https://support.ublock.org/hc/en-us/articles/11749958544275-...

There are some recent improvements underway over the number of rules allowed by MV3's declarativeNetRequest API.

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/improvements-to-content-fi...

Important note: ublock.org is NOT related to uBlock Origin [1]

[1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-is-comp...

Features lost by the Ublock Origin V3 version by gorehill: - No cosmetic filtering (##) - No scriptlet injection (##+js) - No redirect= filters - No csp= filters - No removeparam= filters

This isn't just a oh no we need to rewrite for V3, it's a very user hostile action to take control away from users. Because only Google can be trusted of course.

The original source mentions "a new UserScripts API"[0].

[0] https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to...

I have been using Firefox since version 1 as my primary browser, originally because it had Firebug, and later out of apathy to change. I’m also weird in that I’ve been using DDG as my sole search engine for years. I haven’t felt like I’ve been held back by these tools in the slightest, whether for web development or personal use.

Same with both yet DDG I'm sorry to say as its creator is very nice guy/helpful guy but it feels stale to me.

They should've released their own search engine long before that bad PR thing showed Microsoft was harvesting some data.

Joe Rogan prior was promoting DDG for awhile to his millions of listeners.

I like the idea of DDG, but its search results have always been noticeably weaker than Google and even Brave Search these days.

As an example, try searching "DuckDNS" on DDG. The homepage is nowhere to be found on the first several pages of DDG, but is rightfully the first result on Google.

Personally, I've never had a problem finding what I'm looking for using DDG, but I also have never compared the results on DDG with Google Search.

Considering how much edge wants to gain back browser share, if they kept mv2 support the combination of supporting real ad blocking while still being a chromium browser is pretty appealing.

Exactly. Being able to effectively block ads is a highly desirable feature. All it takes is a well-funded marketing campaign that educates users when Google stops supporting MV2 extensions.

I tell everyone I know to use Firefox with uBlock. It's a small good deed, but everyone should get off Google and MS products.

Hey, this one might actually finally help Firefox's marketshare. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting anything massive, but imagine if people's adblockers got disabled over night: a horde of technically-inclined users, being newly-introduced to what the Internet currently is like to use without an adblocker, might just decide it's worth it to switch rather than try Manifest v3 adblockers and find out if it's really good enough. (It is not terrible right now, but really, why bother? It's not as good.)

They've been saying this since 2018. I'll believe it when I see it.

https://blog.chromium.org/2018/10/trustworthy-chrome-extensi...

I get the feeling that along with youtube anti-adblock efforts that this is google rifling-through-the-couch-cushions phase, and we'll see them actually execute this time because it's worth it.

Makes me wonder if they have plans to deal with FF as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see them stop paying for FF search box defaults or progressively negotiate lower payments each year.

Google is so reliant on ads, they will probably push through with this. More ads in search, YouTube, GMail and the wider Web is the only way for them to grow revenue. More other Google businesses are small fish compared to their ad revenue.

Let’s hope that other browser makers use this opportunity to attack. Chrome’s dominant market share is unhealthy for the Internet anyway.

That’s actually a meaningful way for other browser makers to differentiate themselves. Notably Firefox, but potentially also Microsoft Edge. While Edge is based on Chrome, they could decide to keep supporting manifest V2 extensions.

I remain baffled that people are still using chrome. Each to their own.

I love safari. It’s blazing fast, battery efficient, and cares about my privacy. Firefox is okay but I only use that on my gaming pc.

Have you use multiple tab on iPhone, which basically suck more and more juice from the battery the more tab is opened?

Apple sucks though.

> It's blazingly fast

Why do people always say this as the reason for why they use a particular browser? They're ALL blazingly fast. I'm not going for a coffee break to load a page.

Yeah, I remain baffled people are still using internet.

Whatever Google may wish, Chrome is not the internet. And given the choice, it is reasonable for a person to question why anyone would choose Chrome. I mean, I think there are plausible reasons[0], but it's an understandable view.

[0] Not caring about ads or privacy and wanting the easy path, mostly.

It is the default choice nowadays. Most people on the Internet are not emotionally invested in whose browser they are using. They just want to use a browser that works on every site.

Unless you’re using Internet Explorer, every browser works on every site. I’ve never had Chrome installed even as a backup. Have yet to find a site that doesn’t work on Firefox.

The thing that makes chrome completely unusable to me is how you can't Ctrl-Tab between tabs in recently-used order.

Maybe it's possible to do it with an add-on but I don't like installing add-ons because they always want access to your complete browsing history. I'm not doing that just to restore basic functionality.

Oooooohhhh boyyy. This could be good, I'll stop consuming media or use Firefox more. I'm just mindlessly connected to media on my spare time.

I've been using Firefox exclusively for a few years on Desktop and mobile, and it has been great.

It's pretty rare that something doesn't support Firefox, and usually it's some weird web tech demo I found on here. Nothing that I'd miss.

Ublock Origin is no small part of why I use Firefox for Android, and a redirection plug-in for old reddit, nitter, etc make following links in forums sufferable.

When Firefox is not supported it's usually because the website explicitly checks the user agent and not because of an actual compatibility issue, i.e. business.apple.com blocks Firefox specifically... which is an absolute joke because Apple has Apple resources.

This is the inverse of accurate, uBlock Origin already has a MV3 extension in progress (beta at https://ublockorigin.com/ top middle of the page). As others have noted, uBO is not even named in the Google releases, this applies to all MV2 extensions.

Annoyed they are barrelling ahead with this still, but not an attack on uBO or ad-blockers directly. Seems like they even made some changes to service workers to enable ad-blockers as well.

Perhaps gorhill will weigh in with more comments if he sees this. Curious if any of their changes to MV3 actually moved the needle on the issues previously identified.

Related ongoing thread:

Google resumes transition to Manifest V3 for Chrome extensions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292409 - Nov 2023 (73 comments)

Will it affect other chromium based browsers?

Dark times ahead.

Firefox is mainly funded by Google, if they've decided to be this aggressive about it, then I am guessing that they've absolved whatever restraint they had and that they're probably going to either force Firefox to follow suit, or cut funding.

Neither bodes well for the people's champion in the browser wars.

If you care about uBlock Origin then use Firefox. uBlock Origin works best in Firefox:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

Given Chrome/Android doesn't support extensions at all, and Firefox/Android does, for Android you'd tend to prefer Firefox as your browser regardless.

(Or another browser which supports adblocking natively. I use EinkBro (on an e-ink device) most of the time; it has integrated ad-blocking. I believe Brave and Vivaldi will also provide ad-blocking.)

Vivaldi: Yep. "Vivaldi Browser on Android | Fast Android browser with Ad blocker" (from page title) <https://vivaldi.com/android/>

Brave: Yep. "Brave Browser is a web browser app that blocks ads, protects your privacy..." <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brave.brow...>

I am so glad, so glad I was proven right, I knew the second back in like 2009 when I tried chrome and right clicked on a youtube channel background and it didn't let me get the image link unlike firefox that Chrome was an evil that was going to creep to who knows what standards.

And here we are, 14 years later, Google finally slowly got its masterplan done, and it will keep getting worse.

While I have many grievances with Firefox, there is simply no alternative, the only real alternative is Firefox, don't even give Google the benefit of using chromium, if you truly care switch to Firefox and make everyone else switch, worst case scenario use a chromium alternative but please do not use Chrome anymore, if you are a techie swap everyone you know to an alternative browser.

Just use FF or Brave.

Considering how pro-privacy Apple is, I wonder why Safari’s extensions don’t offer the same level of dexterity Chrome and Firefox do

It is the same as with YT anti-adblock: all it does is move people away from Chrome.

Chrome had a good run, but it is time again to help family members and organisations to migrate to ... firefox and never look back. Google has lost its ways and i am sure that "don´t do evil" was just replaced by "do evil stuff in a sneaky way".

This is actually the best chance Microsoft has to bring Edge back from the dead and make people support using it.

Going from one abusive partner to another will not fix the issue

I wish FF would implement support for WebAuthN Passkeys so I can use it for work as well :-(

Glad I'm already on Firefox, but I wonder how long Manifest v2 will stay in Firefox.

Fortunately, the MV3 implementation in Firefox has the necessary tweaks to continue supporting add-ons like uBlock Origin[1]. So, even when MV2 is eventually dropped in Firefox, ad-blocking add-ons written for Firefox will continue to be able to work without restrictions.

[1] https://adguard.com/en/blog/firefox-manifestv3-chrome-adbloc...

You just made my day!

Manifest V3 is mostly a good idea. Global variables only live for a few minutes, so extensions have to keep state in a key-value store instead. The code is more tedious, but this also helps extensions run well on Firefox for Android, where the OS kills processes at random.

The main problem with Manifest V3 is that Google used the API version bump as an opportunity to remove the 'blocking webRequest' API from Chrome. Firefox is keeping the API:

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signi...

[dupe]

The story is about the Manifest v3 transition, not about uBlock (whether it's included or not. boohoo)

Thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292409

I assume this will not affect Edge? Or will this effect Chromium in general?

I believe Chromium-based browsers can choose to ignore this. IIRC, Vivaldi already said they would?

They can, but that means dealing with the overhead that comes with maintaining a divergent and ever increasingly different code base from the forking point.

Every single browser except for Safari and Firechrome today is based off Chromium because devs are either lazy or incapable of writing and maintaining their own browser engines.

So can browsers forked from Chromium ignore this and keep MV2? Sure. Will they? Hell no.

Google pay other browser vendors significant amounts to be the default search engine. If any browser were too far ahead of Chrome on blocking advertising, wouldn't Google care substantially less about being the default search engine on that browser? Ad blockers switch off the primary revenue stream for browsers & websites alike.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23933206/google-apple-se...

I haven't been following too closely, but as far as I know, MV3 is coming to pretty much all browsers, including Firefox.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/10/31/begin-your-mv3-mi...

Wondering how Microsoft Edge will deal with this. Follow Google?

Good thing I never bought into Chrome hype. Use Firefox.

surprised to see a lack of support for vivaldi. i am a Firefox user and i love it, but vivaldi is also pretty good

Firefox works almost all the time and is getting better with every release.

For the sites which look for Chrome, there’s Brave.

Chrome, Google and most websites are insufferable without ad blockers. I can't imagine living a life with so many ads.

Firefox, here I come.

Come on in, the water's fine! I haven't used Chrome in years and don't miss it.

There are other usable browsers… haven’t had Chrome on my machines in literally years.

But you have likely have Chromium based browsers. It takes a lot of work to maintain those if they keep on the old manifest versions.

Vivaldi is Chrome without GOOG.

Remember Xkcd 792 from September 2010?

https://xkcd.com/792/

It turns out the answer 13 years on really was "make boatloads of money." That's it. That's all they have. They don't know how to innovate anymore. Tightening their grip is the final strategy.

Thankfully we should all be able to sideload Firefox on IOs by then.

I mean, you already couldn't use uBo in the Chrome skin of webkit on iOS, os I don't see that this makes any difference there.

Presumably, Mozilla or someone else, will provide a side-loadable version of Firefox for iOS with regular manifest v2 / v3 support. Android users already have this via the Play Store and it works great since Google doesn't ban other browser / rendering engines.

Will this affect Arc?

Unless they are going to build their browser with a custom V3 implementation like Firefox.

How does this affect Brave’s built in ad blocking?

I think both Vivaldi and brave have in the past claimed that they will keep manifest v2 going. And maybe others?

Brave is built on the open source Chromium project. As long as it's open source they can't stop Brave doing whatever they want and ignoring these changes.

Brave's adblocking is not an extension and is entirely unaffected by changes to how extensions work.

off topic, why this reddit URL subdomain is "sh"?

RIP Chrome users lol

Don't use it, don't care.

This is dumb. Manifest v3 is better than v2. For security, privacy, efficiency, reliability, etc. uBlock origin will work just fine, and be a hell of a lot more efficient using v3.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...

Better for whom? You're just spouting marketing terms like 'reliability' as if v2 wasn't reliable.

uBlock Origin already has a v3 (experimental) version:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...

Yeah, it's not ideal, but this title feels overblown. uBlock seems confident they can make it (mostly) work.

Given YouTubes recent adblockblocking moves, it's reasonable to infer that it is in fact to prevent ad blocking, enabling delivery of malicious, undesired payloads.

What is it about manifest v3 that would make blocking youtube ads impossible, but would continue to be possible with manifest v2?

As a user of their service, rather than a developer of ads or their service, it isn't incumbent on me to care about their approach. Rather, it is incumbent on me to exercise caveat emptor, and understand that Google has both exercised nefariously in prior activities and that ads are how they choose to make revenue. Ergo, trust is low.

It isn't the manifest version directly that is doing this, just the permissions/api changes that are happening at the same time. Firefox for example is keeping the old style as an option while still implementing support for MV3 and the declarative option: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-fi... Mozilla will maintain support for blocking WebRequest in MV3.

v3's has declarative blocking/redirecting of things vs v2's read/write access to all network requests on any page.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/migrating/block... Manifest V3 changes how extensions handle modification of network requests. Instead of intercepting network requests and altering them at runtime with chrome.webRequest, your extension specifies rules that describe actions to perform when a given set of conditions is met. Do this using the Declarative Net Request API.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/manifest/de... Using declarativeNetRequest, you can block or modify network requests by specifying declarative rules. This lets extensions modify network requests without intercepting them and viewing their content, providing more privacy.

Note that ublock.org is not Raymond Hill's ublock origin [1]. (Edit: then parent comment was edited the point to gorhill's mv3 chrome extension.)

Here is ublock origin's experimental mv3 version with detailed notes on limitations: [2] [3]

[1] https://ublockorigin.com/

[3] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/commit/a559f5f2715c58fea4d...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32754274

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