Comment by DamnInteresting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DamnInteresting | Hacker News Reader

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DamnInteresting

I have a Manifest V2 extension in the Chrome Web Store that has a "featured" badge, and Google has been sending me emails that feel a bit coercive:

> To maintain your extension's Featured status, you will need to migrate it to Manifest V3 by June 3rd. [...] Extensions that do not complete this transition will see their Featured badge removed

> Manifest Version 3 extensions will be prioritized in the Chrome Web Store, including in search results and recommendations

> Beginning June of this year, we will begin to gradually disable extensions running Manifest V2 for Chrome users

> Thank you for your cooperation and participation in the Chrome extension ecosystem.

I am really dismayed that an advertising company has such a stranglehold on the web. They are not good custodians.

Would you rather they deprecate manifest v2 without reaching out to developers to migrate?

The browser extension I created, and presumably many others, will see no benefit from this forced change. To the contrary, Manifest V3 will hinder the functionality of some extensions, including the widely used and beloved uBlock Origin[1].

Nevertheless, if I wish to keep my extension in the Chrome Web Store, and keep it working in Chrome browsers, I am required to bend to Google's demands and spend a considerable chunk of my time to perform this unnecessary update. And it must be done NOW!, with an artificial sense of urgency. Time is precious, and I'd really rather not donate mine to a multibillion dollar advertising corporation. Google is the primary beneficiary of Manifest V3. They are demonstrating why they abandoned their "Don't be evil" mantra[2].

My browser extension doesn't make money. I made it purely to improve my own browsing experience, and shared it for free with others. It's working fine on Manifest V2, and has done so for years. I have no desire to learn Google's crappy new implementation.

[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-chrome-manifest-v3-c...

[2] https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

Or maybe the alternative to coercion isn't to communicate better but not to deprecate?

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