Chrome’s next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower extension updates
Chrome’s next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower extension updates
When ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game, make the mouse slower.
Firefox looking better all the time...
172I've been using Safari exclusively since 2013, completely sidestepping all of this drama. I haven't seen an ad on YouTube in several years. I also haven't seen any hint of YouTube blocking my access to videos.
But for everyone who needs Windows, and the growing number of Linux users, FireFox seems like the only democratic option left.
29always has been
13
“Manifest V3 will also put roadblocks up before extension updates, which will delay an extension developer's ability to quickly respond to changes.”
Can’t wait for a day zero exploit to let rip and its impact and exposure increased because of an extension’s developer inability to promptly patch their software. I hope they are considering more than just ad revenue but somehow I doubt it.
95They allow extensions to be sold and completely reworked without telling the user jack shit. So I doubt they care about that either.
6
Stop using chrome, let the market share dry up. The only reason they can get away with this is because they have a monopoly and surely its against anti-competition laws. But who is gonna try and take on google in court?
Break up tech giants.
Welcome to our hellish future.
93The one thing I never understood about breaking up the giants is how are the remaining components gonna compete. Bc "YouTube inc" would benefit alot from "Chrome inc" and "Android inc". It's not like when we broke up the oil giants into normal sized oil tycoons that compete against each other. These are completely unique businesses that just feed off of each other instead of taking from each other.
2
this is when a company needs to be broken into pieces.. when instead of providing new benefits, the company seeks to control access to its product, and control the market.. i want my government to break Google into bits..
58Google already did the hard work, too. Just make each letter within Alphabet its own company.
24
Please tell me that Google was so tone deaf that they actually made a starte page banner for the anniversary of Monopoly or something.
39This tactic seems short-sighted to me. It will force migrate people to firefox.
28Nah, it'll just force an evolution of adblocking methods and tech.
5
Can someone clarify why browsers other than the ones that are Chrome based are forced to adopt Manifest v3? What happens if the don't, are they blocked from the web or something?
19They aren't forced to do anything. Manifest v3 is just a part of the WebExtensions API (which is not a standard and is really just "whatever Chrome does except we find/replace'd the word chrome to browser") which both Safari and Firefox chose to implement in order to make porting of Chrome extensions easier.
Before that, Firefox had a much more powerful extension system that allowed extensions quite a lot of access to browser internals, but that turned out to be a maintenance nightmare so they walled those APIs off (not a coincidence that Firefox started getting massive performance improvements after that, and extensions stopped breaking every other release) and decided to go the WebExtensions route. I have no clue what Safari was up to but I think they implemented it after.
If they don't implement Manifest v3, extensions that want to work across multiple browsers need to support both the older Manifest v2 and the later Manifest v3, which would be a burden not many extension authors would want to bother with, which would make them just say "yeah we're not supporting anything outside Chrome". Firefox avoids this problem by extending the v3 API to allow for the functionality necessary for powerful ad blocking Google removed in v3 (webRequestBlocking) while also implementing the new thing (declarativeNetRequest) side by side, so extensions that want to take advantage of the powerful features on Firefox can do so, while Chrome extensions that are fine with the less powerful alternative can still be ported over relatively easily.
Firefox does have it's fair share of extensions on top of the WebExtension API already (sidebar support for one), so adding one more isn't too big of a deal.
44Very, very good summary. Thank you.
6
Can someone clarify why browsers other than the ones that are Chrome based are forced to adopt Manifest v3?
See, that's the thing: pretty much every browser except Firefox is Chrome-based. When people talk about browsers being forced to accept manifest v3, they're talking about all the Chrome-based browsers other than Chrome.
22why browsers other than the ones that are Chrome based are forced to adopt Manifest v3?
Then the only browser left is Firefox. Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi and a long etc are all Chromium based.
There is also Safari, but Safari does not support WebExtensions in the first place so it does not apply here.
6Safari has supported mv2 extensions for years and recently added mv3 support.
However it never supported WebRequest blocking.
1
Google is the biggest of browser and http/s internet based protocol, so much bigger that everyone plays by googles rules. if they set out manifestv3 the other browsers that are not compatible will not work, and as a result people will abandon them.
4
Edge & Firefox exist.
19Won't Edge and all Chromium-based browsers end up with Manifest v3 and no v2? Will extension devs continue to support v2 in Firefox?
14Yes it does still exist. It came preinstalled with the ThinkPad I set up for my daughter yesterday. That's why I immediately installed Firefox and made it the default browser instead.
9
I don't use chrome, so I don't care until it starts effecting the Fox.
17I'm confident that Mozilla will follow suite sooner or later to make it easier for extension developers to make extensions for both browsers. Mozilla did that when manifest v1 came along, removed a bunch of functionality from Jetpack, and aligned with Google.
-11
Boy! Glad i dont use chrome!
16Firefox works lovely
14I know this will irk some people but... Do you know why using Gmail or YouTube on Firefox feels slower on an Apple computer?
I use Firefox on Android exclusively, but on Apple computers I still use Chrome more since Firefox seems to either be slow on certain websites or use too much memory (I'm sure it's not Mozilla's fault here)
BTW I actually donate to Mozilla because I think it needs to survive (though it must be a drop compared to what Google pays Mozilla and I hope they keep doing it), but I'm not using Firefox all the time as I'd like, since the experience looks a tad worse on Desktop
8Google makes their websites slower in Firefox. I don't think this is related to Apple at all. You'll probably have the same experience in Linux or Windows with Firefox and Google. They just want you to use Chrome.
12BTW I actually donate to Mozilla because I think it needs to survive
Donations to Mozilla go to the Foundation, not to Mozilla Corp., which is the one developing FF. So you aren't fueling FF development.
Anyway, I've read elsewhere that they're doing fine also without donations: they get 7M$/year in donations and their CEO gets 5M$/year. It doesn't look like they're actually starving...
You may want to think twice before wasting your money:
https://old.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/yy986k/can_someone_explain_why_mozillas_ceo_salary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary-achievements_correlation_controversy
https://techrights.org/o/2022/02/17/mozilla-salaries/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28116853
https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
But it's your money, in the end. Do whatever makes you feel better.
5Firefox on osx and Google meet sucks. But I use it anyways because everything else is better.
4After writing my comment, I did some research again and found an old Reddit post suggesting to lower the resolution to 1280x800 on a 13' screen. I did so, just as a test, and now when I open websites like YouTube or Roll20, the fan is always off. I'll try it tomorrow with Google Meet and Webex, which is also something that made the fan explode.
1
Doesn't for me
3
This is the best summary I could come up with:
YouTube can instantly switch up its ad delivery system, but once Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, that won't be true for extension developers.
If ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game of updates and counter-updates, then Google will force the mouse to slow down.
The current platform, Manifest V2, has been around for over ten years and works just fine, but it's also quite powerful and allows extensions to have full filtering control over the traffic your web browser sees.
Engadget's Anthony Ha interviewed some developers in the filtering extension community, and they described a constant cat-and-mouse game with YouTube.
Firefox's Manifest V3 implementation doesn't come with the filtering limitations, and parent company Mozilla promises that users can "rest assured that in spite of these changes to Chrome’s new extensions architecture, Firefox’s implementation of Manifest V3 ensures users can access the most effective privacy tools available like uBlock Origin and other content-blocking and privacy-preserving extensions."
Google claims that Manifest V3 will improve browser "privacy, security, and performance," but every comment we can find from groups that aren't giant ad companies disputes this description.
The original article contains 915 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
5Permanently Deleted
3