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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>This a good example of why manifest v3 sucks. By definition, it can't do anything like this...

Technically manifest v3 has nothing to do with APIs that the browser makes available to extensions. On firefox manifest v3 is supported with blocking web request[1], which is the filtering api prior to "manifest v3". Therefore the statement that it certain functionality "by definition" is false.

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-fi...

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> Therefore the statement that it certain functionality "by definition" is false.

Here's the design document. The hobbling is noted there as part of the spec. "API Changes WebRequest: Restrict the blocking capabilities of the webRequest API."

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nPu6Wy4LWR66EFLeYInl3Nzz...

That firefox chose to skip that portion of the design and still call it 'v3' doesn't change history. A true-to-spec implementation kills live heuristics.

Exactly this. There's some good stuff in MV3, but Google decided to take the opportunity to smuggle in some self-serving changes, similar to how Congress likes to sneak controversial laws under the radar as part of unrelated bills*.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation)

OK so Google's near monopoly implementation of V3 sucks. Technically a difference, but practically not so much.

I'm confused, isn't the Manifest V3 essentially just API spec?

They trojan horsed hobbling webRequest.onBeforeRequest into their manifest v3 design doc and rollout. Which is part of what would give you request time cloak detection.

Yes. The point is which APIs Google exposes through it.

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