1y ago

Google's Manifest V3 changes will soon disable uBlock Origin on Chrome

www.androidauthority.com Google's Manifest V3 changes will soon disable uBlock Origin on Chrome

Google has announced that it will move forward with Manifest V3 on Chrome, sounding the death knell for ad-blockers like uBlock Origin.

148 comments

Firefox.
Just thought I'd get that one out of the way early.
- I love Firefox, but we need more variety in browsers and Chromium is just making it worse! There has to be a way to make building browsers simpler without everyone ending up relying on the product that was designed to ruin the free internet.
  
  Yeah, the biggest problem with Firefox is that its engine is so hard to embed. Chrome has endless clones because it's just so damn easy to embed. And Firefox just has some weak forks like Librewolf.
  I'd really rather see Mozilla focus on this rather than all their other stupid endeavors....
  
  What we actually need is more variety in rendering engines. There were never that many, and two or three (Presto, Trident, and Spartan if you count it) have been killed off within the past ten years. All that's left are two lineages: Google's Blink and its barely-threre parent WebKit (in Apple's Safari), and Mozilla's Gecko and its barely-there child Goanna (in Pale Moon).
  Unfortunately, the rendering engine is probably the largest single chunk of code in a browser, and writing a new one (or even forking an existing one) is non-trivial.
- Sure, they just need to fix their annoying bugs on Android.
  Everytime I leave a tab open and switch to another app, it's a 50/50 whether I return to a black screen and am forced to restart it or it just works fine.
  
  Hmm, I don't remember seeing that. What version of android?
  
  Yup that's been a long running issue with Firefox on android. Thought it was just me at first then saw forums where tons of people have the issue and the only suggestion is to reinstall it
  
  Another thing I managed to miss out on :(
  
  I thought it was a problem with my phone since I'm using a custom ROM and it did not happen before. When I open Firefox and it has been in the background for a while, it shows a black screen where the web content should be and often crashes if you try to open another tab or do something else. Also happens if I open a link from another app. The only solution is to close Firefox and swipe it off the recent apps and reopen it. Is this the same problem you have?
  
  I had to uninstall since it was draining my battery. On one day it was 40% of my battery usage with just 1 minute on time actually open.
- Actually I'm sure most of us are just baffled that people will make extremely shitty choices just because others do
- Or the LibreWolf fork 😁
- Since Firefox is also implementing Manifest v3, will this also eventually be an issue in Firefox?
  https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/manifest-v3-migration-guide/
  
  Possibly, though for now, they've worked with the ad blocker devs and kept everything working WITH v3 in FireFox. Google will not do it in Chrome because defeating the ad blockees is the point.
  
  Last I heard, Firefox is making carve outs for some of the APIs that Mv3 is supposed to deprecate.
- Firefox fans spamming F5 for any thread that they can comment "Firefox" on
  Geez you guys can't take a joke.
  
  God beware someone posting the solution to the problem. ¯(ツ)/¯
  
  Google Chrome fans spamming F5 on the news page to see what features are being removed next.
  
  We don't have to. There's an ad on for it.
  
  I didn't want you to think I down voted because I disagreed with you. You're quite right. I down voted you because it was a dumb joke.
  
  I use LibreFox, btw
  
  I think the main issue is the people here suggesting and evangelising Firefox not really listening to those who aren't, which frustrates the other person. I think I fell into this with the fediverse, in the early days of Elon fucking up Twitter. There are perfectly valid reasons to not use Firefox right now. Maybe one browser or other works better for them, or has that one killer feature they can't live without. Firefox has that for some of us, too. Or Firefox has some weird quirk or bug that other browsers don't.
  I personally use Firefox and Vivaldi. Vivaldi has tab tiling which is great for when I'm in the zone adding music to MusicBrainz or RYM, and it's not too clunky either. Tile Tabs WE doesn't cut it for me. For casual browsing, vertical tabs is nice and I use Firefox + Sidebery for that, which is better than Vivaldi's vertical tab implementation.

oh no, anyway... -Firefox users

That, my friends, is why we kept fighting for firefox. It doesn't matter if you like or dislike Mozilla foundation, they have to exist because of shit like this
- yet we already have a working implementation of ublock origin for mv3 by it's main developer, gorhill
  
  When I read about that like a year ago gorhill had clearly stated that the mv3 version's efficacy is severely kneecapped and while it works as well as it can it's extremely bad in comparison to the present version on Firefox and Edge
- Firefox has the same problem with V3, it has nothing to do with the browser, adblocker V2 will stop working, because are the advertising companies wich will use V3 scripts. For Chrome and Chromium the only thing is, that are no more V2 adblocker in the Chrome Store and installed adblock extensions won't work anymore. after June 24. But don't panic, the fact that adblocker V2 stops working does not exclude that there will be adblocker V3, the devs of these are not going to rest on their laurels either.
  
  to my knowledge Firefox is keeping compatibility with most current extensions at least in terms of adblockers and privacy tools as they transition to manifest v3
  
  Firefox has the same problem with V3, it has nothing to do with the browser
  Didn't they say they will implement V3, but change it slightly to allow extensions like ublock origin to block web requests? Also I'm pretty sure there's still no timeline for any deprecation of V2 in FF, unlike for Chrome, which will disable all V2 extensions.
  
  Firefox has the same problem with V3, it has nothing to do with the browser, adblocker V2 will stop working, because are the advertising companies wich will use V3 scripts.
  What the hell are you talking about? This has nothing to do with what advertising companies do.
  The main reason adblockers don't like manifest V3 is that the webRequest API is gone. The proposed replacement, declarativeNetRequest, does not have the same functionality.

Thank goodness for Firefox. Google is really doing their best to make the Internet unusable.

Google justified this change by highlighting how extensions using the Web Request API could access and modify all the data in a network request, essentially being able to change everything that a user could do on the web (~~which is pretty scary and problematic when you think about it~~ which is a perfectly valid usecase of a user-installed extension).
- I mean what else do I want it to do if not ~~modify~~ extend my usage of the web?

This is good new if you ask me: more people switching to firefox
- People don't even know about manifest v3 let alone switching to Firefox. They will just use whatever google throws at them.
  
  This was true of IE too.
  All of this has happened before, and will happen again.
  
  The point is they will know once their adblocker stops working, and they start to investigate why this happened.
  
  You can't do much about users that just don't care. But more technically inclined folks often do care and these are the people that develop the web and maintain the computer/browser for other people.
  A lot of folks in my circle use chrome, but the moment the AdBlock plugin stops working they'll likely switch to anything that works better. They are not necessarily too concerned about privacy, but they also don't want to have most of their browsing made effectively impossible by ads everywhere.
  I mean, just try and use the web without any sort of blocking. A lot of sites don't even have their content visible.

Guess I just need to keep using firefox. shrug

Goddamnit I missed out again, faaaackkk! Why do i keep using Firefox ? Why?
- Because you don't randomly insist that your tab UI is some extremely fucking specific way that is somehow required to use the Internet! The nerve!

Well what did you expect from an advertising company with a side hustle in web search.

This article is really wrong, wow. There is already a Manifest V3-compliant version of uBlock Origin, it's discussed in this thread: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338
I don't know if it's stated definitively anywhere, but I'm pretty sure the plan is to roll out that different version to Chrome users as an update to the existing extension. It's going to be slightly worse because MV3 is still missing some API features.
- that version works but it's always been a lite version compared to the standard ublock origin with far less capabilities and features.
  
  Right, my point was just that the article is wrong/clickbait. The changes won't "disable uBlock Origin" or "essentially kill off uBlock Origin".

I could have sworn I saw something saying Google caved on this due to pressure.
- They pushed it back. They've done so several times with Manifest V3.
  
  That's an important distinction. Whenever trillion dollar tech companies say they're not going to do something hugely unpopular and selfish because of public sentiment, what they really mean is they're not going to do it right then. Instead they back off, do something like this to get everyone's attention focused elsewhere, and then they'll push the original unpopular idea anyways, but quietly.
  
  Thankfully Google is really good at killing things.
  
  They don't allow any new MV2 extensions in the store, though.
- It was something else. Web drm : Web Integrity API.
  Tho I don't think they canceled the mobile variant of it for apps.
- They backed off their web drm, because it was hugely unpopular, but also because they remembered they own chromium and can just disable adblockers directly. They tried to over-engineer something that requires everyone else to adopt a new standard, when all they ever needed to do was use a sledgehammer.
- They played possum while stuffing MV3 with as many internet killers as they could get away with
- They did update the Declarative Net Request API to be more useful apparently.
  https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23964509/google-manifest-v3-rollout-ad-blockers

Amazing how versioning can give an air of legitimacy through the illusion of progress.

I suppose this will affect chromium too?
- Since Chrome does not "disable uBlock Origin" but Google deprecating manifest V2 in favor of manifest V3 it will be done in Chromium because Chromium does the heavy lifting and Chrome is "just a Chromium based browser".

Didn't expect the day to come when I can no longer use Chromium based browsers.
Oh well, anyway.

They have been postponing it for a long time now. But uBlock origin has a light version they expect to work with V3. I wonder why they bother in the first place when they can just focus on Firefox
- But uBlock origin has a light version they expect to work with V3
  It just "kinda" works. It cannot nearly load all the network filters that it would normally use.
  
  So does it block ads or not? Does it block youtube ads?
- Well, Firefox also plans to deprecate MV2 at some point (deadline to be announced at the end of this year), the difference is just that their implementation of MV3 is more flexible at the points Chrome was criticized for.

Not sponsored, I just genuinely like the product. Adguard doesn't require manifests because it works outside the browser.
On the other news I hope this bullshit is finally the straw that kills chrome.
- Not sponsored, I just genuinely like the product. Adguard doesn't require manifests because it works outside the browser.
  But trivial to circumvent. Just change the origin url from (for example) 'ads.google.com' to 'google.com' and you no longer can block ads based on DNS blocking.
  While it is now not a hugh thread it will eventually happen when they manage to eradicate adblockers in the browser.
- Ublock origin is far way more advanced and complete than adguard, though. Cosmetic filtering, for example
  
  Adguard does have cosmetic filtering thou. I'm talking about their paid app not dns servers.
- Hope springs eternal. Most people without an adblocker don't even notice that their web experience has become an ad-ridden hellscape.
- The people who don't run ad-blockers are many, and stupid.
  
  Those many stupid people are paying for your gmail.
- Highly doubt it. So many other browsers on so many platforms (mobile, tv, Auto,...) are built on Chrome and will have this by extension.
  
  And opening most links in Android apps still opens them in Chrome, even if Firefox is your default browser.
  Time for Android to get the EU treatment.

That's why we need to switch away from this proprietary garbage and use Firefox or LibreWolf (Firefox on steroids with less bloat, improved privacy and even pre-installed uBlock Origin)
- Does libre wolf support Wayland?
  
  Yes, I use it on Hyprland and it works perfectly.

I've disabled chrome on all my devices some time ago, so this is fine.

idk what people say but webextensions were a mistake.

Does this apply to all Chromium based browsers? I would like to switch to Firefox, but the touchscreen scroll there is terrible, and that is 90% of what I do in a browser.
- Vivaldi and Brave are planning to extend the deadline of MV2 by some extent, not sure if it means just like the enterprise policy or will they keep the implementation in code for longer.
  
  They both get their extensions from the Chrome Web Store. It’s going to be a lot like when Mozilla deprecated their old extensions and some forks continued support for them, great except very few people are going to continue to develop those extensions.
  
  Vivaldi is my daily driver. It has the best tab-management, dark website-mode (hidden function), build-in tracker, pop-up & ad-blocker, RSS-Reader, e-mail client, site-hibernation and much more. My hope is that the build-in protection will suffice when ublock origin will stop functioning. I can't use any other browser anymore.
- yes it does.
  what trouble are you having with FF's scroll? it's worked perfectly fine on every device I've ever seen, you sure it's not a problem with your setup?
  
  The deceleration is way too low and it's hard to get it to focus where I want on the page fast. The deceleration is inconsistent between touchscreen and touchpad, which works fine. I tried looking around for configurations for it but couldn't find any. Touchscreen support in Chrome is just generally better
- Welp a very nuanced slight difference would obviously need to be avoided at the expense of literally ruining every web page with a shit ton of ads. That's just a fact!
  
  This is not a slight nuance, it literally makes touchscreen unusable for me. Touchscreen really helps with carpal tunnel and RSI, which is more important to me than an ideological war against Google.

Early Christmas present for FireFox, yay!

Google keeps improving chrome /s

148 comments