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Google Chrome’s plan to limit ad blocking extensions kicks off next week
(arstechnica.com)
::Laughs in Firefox::
Who knows... Firefox might just follow suit. If devs have to write their extensions one for Chrome and once for Firefox, the Firefox one will probably be the first to die.
That's not how it works. Firefox has full support for Manifest v3 extensions, but it does also support MV2 at the same time, and aims to keep MV2 support alive in the future.
From the article:
Firefox plans to support Manifest V3 because Chrome is the world's most popular browser, and it wants extensions to be cross-browser compatible, but it has no plans to turn off support for Manifest V2.
I doubt they'll ever choose to shut down V2, but Google is already forcing their hand a little by making them require supporting V3 to stay relevant
Not if more people use FireFox...
Firefox also supports mobile extensions, unlike Chrome.
Unfortunately, as much as I like and use firefox on both pc and mobile, chrome and chromium based browsers dominate the market. It doesn't help that they come pre-installed in both cases.
Then there will be thousands, millions of people continuing development of FF extensions.
Isn't that already how it works? Are there extensions trust work unchanged on both browsers? At the very least they'd have to maintain them on both addon stores.
There's a common specification called WebExtension, which is used by all modern browsers. Firefox had their own API (XUL/XPCOM) before that, but they deprecated it in 2017. Safari also used to have its own system for extensions, but it's been deprecated since 2019. The Manifest API is a subset of WebExtension, which defines an extension.
Firefox plans to support Manifest V3 because Chrome is the world's most popular browser, and it wants extensions to be cross-browser compatible, but it has no plans to turn off support for Manifest V2.
If Google decided to break V2 compatibility with V3, Mozilla should announce V4 (or V3 extended), which is V3 but with the missing stuff readded.
That'd be a good practical and great product/tech marketing move. Just like most people won't see how V3 is worse than V2, V4 will indicate it's the evolved and improved V3.
It would also simplify supporting V3 and V4 at the same time for extension authors. A great practical gain for extension authors, not having to read and understand two manifest schemes and APIs.
Mozilla’s V3 implementation already extends out removing artificial limitations from it. Mozilla’s doing a reverse E3 and I’m all here for it.
Now if only the nincompoop IT dept on my company allowed me to run Firefox…
When my company enabled Microsoft InTune this year, so that our administration could ensure software is updated on our PCs, it repeatedly downgraded my Firefox back to before a security update, on every login. lol
We went through all this shit with Microsoft and Internet Explorer. It’s time to break up Google’s monopoly.
I'll develop my own browser before using an ad-infested internet. Luckily I don't have to do that, because there are alternatives and also because it would be a damn time consuming project to put it mildly 😅
I went back to FireFox way back when the announcement of V3 killing adblockers in chromium first was made. I could go without everything else a browser offers, as long as it has ad blocking.
I legit want AR glasses for the same thing; to block ads IRL.
I actually really like the AR glasses idea. That said, They need to be open source and de-spookified, and there needs to be some kind of regulation that they can't store or transmit images without first displaying a recording indicator.
It's probably not going to happen like that, though, so I'm not mad existing ones have such bad battery lives.
Literally just gave up brave for Firefox two weeks ago just for that reason even though brave isn't supposedly gonna be affected. I have no doubt Google might deliberately just break chromium one day once and for all.
I wonder what would happen if µBlockOrigin was just pulled from the Chrome Webstore. Would that drive people to other browsers?
Some would switch, some would install another ad blocker extension, and some wouldn't know any better and do nothing.
Unfortunately, most people don't care all that much.
but there are some people who do care.
There's uBO Lite, which is an MV3 version so one step towards making adblockers less useful as Google planned.
Many people have said they have switched already and have said it works without issues (as far as they know). I'm sure there is a huge amount of sites and configs that didn't make it into the lite version, I guess we'll find out when a huge userbase refuses to migrate from chrome and installs the uBo-lite
37 million Chrome users have downloaded Ublock Origin (if that isn't including duplicate downloads/multiple accounts on one user).
5.3 billion people use the internet. 307 million in the U.S. as of 2022... what is that, 10% of Americans using Chrome using adblock? Less?
So max 37M users possibly willing to switch away from Chrome should it not be available anymore. Not nothing.
8.2% isn't nothing but I also wonder if it's worth anything to Google. That would bring Firefox from ~3.3% to 11.5% of the browser market share if everyone switched to non-chromium browsers.
I just wonder if that's enough for anything. It's better than nothing of course, and for those users that switch there's almost nothing but benefits, It's more just that I have doubts about the willingness of the general public caring enough, and if 10% of people will have an effect for Firefox or against Google
IMO ~+10%pt just provide Google with a thicker armor against antitrust lawsuits. "Hey hey hey, can't sue us! We have a competitor with ~15% of the market! And we helped them get there! Look at the 500 million we give them per year!".
If Mozilla wanted to be a threat to Google, IMO they could, but they'd rather pay their CEO 5M, fire a few hundred engineers, and spend a fraction of their Google money on Firefox.
Reminder than most other browsers are based on chromium, and Google can probably break ad blockers on them if they want to.
it is so sad that e is dead
You left out the 'N' and the 'tscape Navigator'
If someone unironically wore gloves like that I would bully them without hesitation.
Those aren't gloves, they're just weirdly soft knuckle dusters.
Brave's native adblock works better than anything else I've tried.
Give Brave a look, folks.
Use Firefox. The crypto bros running Brave have been caught multiple times gathering and selling user data. You use Chrome as the base when you want to hoover data.
False.
They sold data from Brave search, which you don't have to use. (and I don't.)
Also, the crypto thing is also opt-in. You don't have to use it either.
It works better than Firefox, especially if your aim is blocking ads.
"I trust these guys to not sell my data because they've only sold me data over there" is a hell of a take.
Someone has their identity tied up in this for some reason
I think that, if you're going to pretend to know what you're talking about, you should know what you're talking about.
I think it's a good thing that a person as to willingly opt-in to data collection.
It's really that simple.
They still sold user data without being upfront about it until caught, and are still running a shady-ass business. They're at the intersection of crypto, bigotry, and dishonesty.
Not using or advocating for Brave is pretty simple.
They still sold user data without being upfront about it until caught,
And then they did better, as a business should. It's all in their FAQ.
I'm not sure why there has to be a circle jerk of trolls any time someone mentions Brave, but here we are.
How much of a corporate shill are you? Do you own the company or something? Be open minded and try other things. Don't be a corporate drone. Don't defend the corporate doing as right , defend your interests first.
No thank you, I'll use Firefox instead. Brendan Eich the CEO of Brave is a POS, he donates to shitty causes and then pretends that those donations don't define him as a bigot.
"In other words, because he silently donated to causes seeking to strip rights from minority groups instead of directly harassing them, the outrage was unjustified."
It’s also a chromium based browser so good chance it will loose any ad blocking ability if google decides to play hardball.
That's fine. Do what you like.
Firefox or Vivaldi. I prefer Vivaldi with its built-in blocking. I also use NextDNS for DNS level blocking. Free plan is good enough for my use.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Other groups don't agree with Google's description, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which called Manifest V3 "deceitful and threatening" back when it was first announced in 2019, saying the new system "will restrict the capabilities of web extensions—especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute alongside the conversation your browser has with the websites you visit."
Google, which makes about 77 percent of its revenue from advertising, has not published a serious explanation as to why Manifest V3 limits content filtering, and it's not clear how that aligns with the goals of "improving the security, privacy, performance and trustworthiness."
Like Kewisch said, the primary goal of malicious extensions is to spy on users and slurp up data, which has nothing to do with content filtering.
Google now says it's possible for extensions to skip the reviews process for "safe" rule set changes, but even this is limited to "static" rulesets, not more powerful "dynamic" ones.
In a comment to The Verge last year, the senior staff technologist at the EFF, Alexei Miagkov, summed up Google's public negotiations with the extension community well, saying, "These are helpful changes, but they are tweaks to a limited-by-design system.
For a short period, users will be able to turn them back on if they visit the extension page, but Google says that "over time, this toggle will go away as well."
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this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
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