I see plenty of folks in here lamenting this release at all - in the hopes that the lack of it will push folks to Firefox. It won't. Those who care about this are already on Firefox, and frankly - Firefox isn't going to be the answer here (to be clear, this is opinion).
I'm also not thrilled at manifest v3, although for very different reasons than the adblocking limitations - I do lots of extension development, and I think the service worker approach taken is a bad mistake, forcing a distributed consensus model onto extensions without understanding the limitations that model imposes given how often extensions span multiple js contexts (across tabs/frames/content_scripts/windows/etc).
Frankly - the environment is also still riddled with bugs... everything from docs that are wrong, to serious issues like a service worker not activating on simple, basic, required events (like chrome.action.onClicked, which is literally about as basic as it gets for extensions).
Overall - my first impression of the manifest v3 upgrade was fairly neutral (it's not really solving any of my pain points, and it requires a lot of changes to support - but it seemed functional). My opinion after porting several large extension projects to the space is... bad. It's a bad set of changes as implemented in chromium right now.
as a direct result the only thing I have left is a pixel phone, which will be going with the new iPhone
(and in the meantime my entire family has been 'helpfully' migrated too)
I may be up the extreme end of the distribution, but this sort of grassroots push is what dethroned IE, and the resultant loss of control of the web eliminated Microsoft's near total influence over the computing industry
I spent years hoping for Apple to see the light, allow other browser engines, AT LEAST give us proper WebM and Opus support. Yet, today, it is no sooner to happening. I finally got fed up and switched back to Android where I grabbed Fennec F-Droid, installed uBlock Origin and finally had a decent mobile browser.
I also use a Pixel phone, though I use LineageOS so I feel less tied to Google
The grassroots push that dethroned Microsoft's browser was Google's browser (aided by Firefox's suicide.)
Huh? I'm going to switch to Firefox the second uBlock Origin stops working on Chrome. Otherwise I'll continue to use Chrome because it's a better browser (for me). I don't think I'm some rare minority here.
uBlock Origin already blocks a lot better on Firefox than on Chrome.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=115225...
I don't think that's true. Many, many more people would care immensely if they were suddenly deprived of good adblocking on Chrome.
Ok - but that won't happen (at least not yet, given the m3 api available, who knows what google will do long term).
The majority of users won't genuinely notice any difference between an adblocker running on m3 vs m2, and plenty of companies are going to make them.
My point is that despite the push back from the UBO dev (and I sort of agree - this does limit some capabilities, although not nearly as much as he claims) M3 is absolutely not going to kill the adblocker extensions available in chrome.
It just makes them... slightly minus. Which is why I think the name is a good call. I don't approve of the direction google is going, but this is not the deal breaker for any sort of public audience - it's just a talking point among the tech literate.
Off topic, but since you seem experienced at this, do you recommend any resources for extension development for someone that's beginning from scratch with no experience in this area?
If you're relatively familiar with web development in general - you can just peruse the APIs that are available for extensions
Chromium based: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/
Or for Firefox: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
Then hit the MDN "My first extension page" to get a mostly functional manifest file: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
Get familiar with `about:debugging` in firefox, and `chrome://extensions` in chrome - you'll need them to load your test extensions.
Finally - It's very worth it to read and understand the "core concepts" as outlined here, starting with the content_scripts: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/content_scr...
And check out the companion extension: https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/b2x
100%. Firefox murdered XUL extensions, a then-thriving ecosystem, and the mobile version's addon support is still very lacking, years later. If the moaning from this haven't stopped them, uBO's lack of mv3 version certainly won't.
I switched from the Safari on MacOS for just the same reason even though I lost things like ApplePay etc.
I am not giving up on uBlock. The web is too bloated and unusable for me without it.
About 43 %, according to [1].
> Is there any chance manifest v3 will lead to enough users abandoning Googles Chrome […]
No. Google Chrome is pretty much in the same position as Internet Explorer used to be. It's the default browser in the most popular mobile OS and the first thing people install on their PC (or get it installed by someone else). Mozilla can barely play catch-up with all the complex web standards pushed by Goog&co., to say nothing about adding killer features that could bring enough users back from Chrome.
Modern web browsers are rapidly approaching the YouTube territory. That is, becoming a technology so complex that only a multibillion-dollar conglomerate can really maintain it without losing money.
Even to install on Android Firefox it took more effort than I expected.
The only thing I actually have to start Chrome for is (ironically) Microsoft Teams.
42.7% of internet users worldwide (16-64 years old) use ad blocking tools at least once a month.
EDIT: it looks like the source is HootSuite may have a conflict of interest, as they seem to focus on social media advertising campaigns.
Mozilla, unfortunately, is dead. Like Firefox did from Netscape before it during the dark times of the IE ubiquity, when people claimed what you claim now, a new browser that supports true freedom must rise from Firefox's ashes to begin the cycle once again.
43% is huge. Firefox had significantly less when it won hearts and minds.
To be fair they also spend a lot of resources on dreaming up their own shit tier solutions. Like the time Google proposed federated learning of cohorts, which was universally shot down by critics. Mozilla saw that as a sign and jumped into bed with Meta to create their own version of it. Because who could think about user privacy without immediately thinking of Meta?
It is almost as if Mozillas leadership wants to prove that Mozilla is a waste of money.
Even easier, they would just sabotage their own web versions (like reddit with mobile.reddit.com) to force people to use the app versions where tracking/ads is harder to block.
The web is the best platform for us, the users, and the way to go - good sandbox, transparent, customizable. We should fight tooth and nail to preserve it.
I really doubt this will change anything for Google with regards to ads. At most you can argue that this is "step 1" in a larger plan to eventually bypass these adblockers or something, which I'll totally buy, but V3 has gotten better at blocking ads over time, not worse.
I'm using adblocker written by myself. It's pretty primitive, it uses declarative blocking by URLs and optionally inserts some CSS and JS to selected websites. So far I was able to solve all my ads issues with this approach.
That Google hasn't seen such pushback suggests to me that corps writing their own extensions for internal use never caught on like Flash did.
For example for a website I manage that targets PC gamers, 80-90% desktop users use adblockers. On mobile however the majority settles for chrome (which intentionally doesn't support extensions to avoid adblockers), therefore most mobile users don't have adblockers.
So... thanks Google I guess ?
if broad "read/modify data" permission is to be used, than there is not much point for an MV3 version over MV2, just use the MV2 version if you want to benefit all the features which can't be implemented without broad "read/modify data" permission.
Considering this is stated in ManifestV3's announcement and that no APIs have been made for it:
> Beginning in Manifest V3, we will disallow extensions from using remotely-hosted code. This will require that all code executed by the extension be present in the extension’s package uploaded to the webstore. Server communication (potentially changing extension behavior) will still be allowed. This will help us better review the extensions uploaded, and keep our users safe. We will leverage a minimum required CSP to help enforce this (though it will not be 100% unpreventable, and we will require policy and manual review enforcement as well).
Scriptlet injection is as good as dead.
> and cosmetic filtering features,
Cosmetic filtering can only happen by making a service worker, that will turn on five seconds after the page has loaded.
> the "read/modify data" permission isn't getting removed by MV3?
No, but Google will heavily restrict any extension using this permission, and make the requirements to be published on their extension store so draconian that an ad blocking extension (which directly threatens their business model) has no chance of ever being accepted.
So, no, Google, as usual when they implement a new API, does half assed shit, breaks compatibility, forces everyone to follow on their bad decisions before deprecating it later. Going all in on MV3 is just bringing yourself to the slaughter, and MV3 should be laughed off by any serious extension developer.
See https://github.com/google/google-api-javascript-client/issue...
Chromium bug marked WONTFIX: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=116445...
Updated readme: https://github.com/google/google-api-javascript-client/blob/...
So effectively this means extensions on MV3 can't easily access Google apis, which is quite unfortunate since Chrome extensions in particular made Google authentication super straightforward (piggybacking off of chrome's built-in google authentication). If someone knows a better way I'd love to hear it.
I believe the reason that the current incarnation of the javascript library won't work is because it modifies the dom to add script tags to fetch and run the api library (or components of it), which is specifically what MV3 will disallow AFAIK.
I'll admit—when I first made this comment, I assumed (based on the initial manifest v3 draft) that this change only affected privileged context execution, and did not affect execution in the "main world", outside of privileged extension contexts. That said, APIs HAVE been made for it, and it would still be possible to do this using the dynamic addContentScript feature, even though I'd imagine it's a very low priority change to implement for the uBlock team (how many rules even use scriptlets?). But this is only a very small part of the features that Gorhill removed from the extension
> Cosmetic filtering can only happen by making a service worker, that will turn on five seconds after the page has loaded.
What? Content scripts still exist. Scriptlets may be harder to implement, but there's absolutely no reason cosmetic filtering should be.
> No, but Google will heavily restrict any extension using this permission, and make the requirements to be published on their extension store so draconian that an ad blocking extension (which directly threatens their business model) has no chance of ever being accepted.
Source? Have they said that they're going to do this to uBlock origin? They've said time and time again that making sure ad blocking extensions continue to work is one of their highest priority goals with MV3.
Also, the DNR changes absolutely do not make a meaningful impact on Google's business model—Google's ads are very, very easy to block, and you could do it with a one-line chrome extension. The vast majority of complexity in ad blockers is required for other ads that live outside of Google's ecosystem. If you really believed that Google was making their MV3 changes based on their business goals for their ads team (a pretty ludicrous idea when you think about how big Google is and how far separated the ads department and extensions teams are), then the inescapable conclusion is that Google should be supporting ad blockers themselves, to hurt the smaller companies that threaten their monopoly by trying to work around ad blockers.
The stated reason for the removal of the blocking webRequest API was to avoid broad permissions to read/modify data on all websites in the name of privacy/security.
What would be the point of still requiring those broad permissions while losing features and the ability to innovate on extension-side matching algorithms beyond what the declarativeNetRequest API allows?
The point is to show that if you respect the stated reasons for the declarativeNetRequest API deprecating the blocking webRequest API, that is what you get.
I think that's fine. It's good to have an adblocker that uses minimal permissions. But it seems like people will use this to argue that MV3 is less capable than it really is. Maybe UBO Plus (MV3) will come later that enables those feature.
The point would be to have those features, obviously? Cosmetic filtering is extremely important, there was never any possibility that MV3 was going to remove it, and you just removed it yourself for absolutely no reason.
I'm sorry, but if you're just removing features from your extension to make a "point" about "respecting stated reasons" then I don't think people should take what you say about it seriously. This might be an art project or a political protest, but people shouldn't confuse it for an actual attempt at extension development. You're taking a single reason that they gave, two years ago, and pretending like it should dictate every single thing you should do with your extension, out of some weird form of stubbornness and bloody-mindedness.
Furthmore the webRequest API has been nerfed to the point that it cannot block requests any more, only track them. The replacement declarativeNetRequest API is not flexible enough to serve uBlock Origin's needs.
Do you have a source for this? Have other ad blocking extensions been removed from the store? I find it very hard to believe that Google would block uBlock over something so clearly and obviously required for its functioning when they've said over and over again that making sure ad blocking extensions continue to work is a high priority for them.
> The replacement declarativeNetRequest API is not flexible enough to serve uBlock Origin's needs.
Well, the stats from the commit in question clearly disagree with you—of 22,245 rules, only 145 use unsupported regexes. How is DNR "not flexible" enough here?
I sort of like the idea of UBO Minus, regardless of whether they do a full MV3 version of UBO later. It's more private than UBO could ever be. If it's enough, it's actually quite a nice extension.
Methinks a competitor ad blocker leaning into MV3 and claiming the 'first MV3 ad blocker' title last week was a glass of cold water for UBO devs. MV3 is happening, and usershare is at risk.
But, in addition to all that, I also think the main objective of MV3 is to hamstring ad blockers. Very very elegantly hamstring ad blockers.
My impression from way back in the uMatrix days was that marketshare is not a concern for gorhill and that the u* family are a labor of love to improve the internet for everyone.
The logical strategy is to extinguish. They never embraced or extended it.
Still doesn't feel native at all.
Or don't, and it'll probably be in the list of suggested results anyway.
(Unless you're using container tabs, in which case it'll only search open tabs in the current container, which is sometimes good but usually a nuisance.)
I much prefer Firefox's address bar search heuristics over Chrome's, but it definitely depends on your usage patterns. Firefox is very good at suggesting relevant things from my history, to the extent that I will gasp actually close tabs now and rely on search to rediscover them, rather than forever accumulating open tabs that I might want to get back to.
> Mozilla has no one to blame but Mozilla for where Firefox isn't in terms of market share.
I think you should read up on how Chrome was/is advertised, how is pushed to users and what marketing channels and resources Google has.
ADHD sucks and I have a lot to thank to these types of tools for acting as my "crutches" that allowed me get where I am today.
Many computer users run a modified version of a content blocker every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of the content blocker which is widely used today is often called an ad blocker, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically a generic content blocker with a particularly popular block list preloaded.
if gorhill simply refused to release UBO for manifest V3 then someone would, and release something similar without the negative branding
(plus eyeo crapware "ad blocking" extensions would gain market share)
this way the users are being reminded that on Google's platform you're getting an inferior blocker
Sadly, this is likely not to happen, as every newsroom relies on online ad clicks for a revenue stream...
I hope it doesn't affect FF users, and uBlock Origin will continue to function same as it always has.
Fresh info regarding mv3 & FF:
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-fi...
At this point I consider being permission-less the limiting factor: if broad "read/modify data" permission is to be used, than there is not much point for an MV3 version over MV2, just use the MV2 version if you want to benefit all the features which can't be implemented without broad "read/modify data" permission.
(I personally use Firefox but I didn't want to give them a regular Windows laptop because they'd have to re-learn far too many things -- the old laptops were Windows XP -- and ChromeOS is both harder to break and easier to recover.)
It's doing cosmetic filtering, uBO is not. Neither seem to be slowing down the browser in a noticeable way. Eager to see 1.0 benchmark results.
You also get some options to adjust in AdGuard. uBO Minus (hell of a name), nothing.
I would suggest to the author of uBlock Origin to change attitudes towards the MV3 extension as even Mozilla said MV2 was sticking around "for now".
This work is inevitable. Other options would be to partner with a browser like Brave to take over their adblocking development, or, create a system-wide blocking solution. Microsoft may be worth engaging with as they have no native adblocker, but given gorhill's clear purism about profits and Microsoft that doesn't seem likely. Someone else has to publish uBlock Origin for him on the Edge Add-ons store.
Still a bit exciting, as even Mozilla will turn off MV2 at a point. No reason to resist this. Once the uBlock Origin guys figure this out, we'll get a good race between it and AdGuard. So far, AdGuard is the clear winner.
This is why I became a tech person. Incredibly inspiring.
While still using the best engine out there, chromium.