Chrome's controversial new extension platform is coming in 2023

This change really sucks. The ad blockers we all love on Chrome will no longer work soon. And:

Hopefully something changes by next year when this happens…

1 Like

What should happen, if people care about their “right” to control the content in their browser, is they move to a browser that puts them first instead of treating them as products. Firefox still exists, will support the old way of doing things even if they add support for the new manifest, and is eminently more configurable and better at ad blocking and cookie corralling. With Firefox I recommend the add-ons “uBlock Origin”, “Cookie AutoDelete” and “Sponsor Block for YouTube” to make the web much less ad infested. You can also configure Firefox’s privacy settings to a higher level, I use “Custom” and block all 3rd party cookies.

I very rarely have problems with any site, but I do keep another browser around, mostly in its default configuration, to help make sure where the problem lies if Firefox appears to be malfunctioning on a specific site.

2 Likes

Agreed, I use Firefox on my Linux, Windows, Mac and iOS machines

I’ve used Firefox since it was called Phoenix and then Firebird, for about a week. On Apple, I tend to use Safari.

I don’t use any Chromium based browser on a regular basis, with the exception of Edge on Windows for managing our Microsoft 365 instance.

I assume this move to Manifest V3 also applies to all the Chome-based browsers too? I currently use Edge, as it’s nicer on Android IMO than Firefox. But not a big issue if I have to go back to Firefox everywhere.

Yes, it will apply to all Chromium based browsers, unless they fork and keep the Manifest v2. I could see Vivaldi and Brave maybe doing this, but it would be a short term solution, as most add-ins will move to Manifest v3, because that is where ~80% of the market is.

Some, like uBlock Origin might stay on Mv2, because they have no real choice, but they will become ever more niche as they will only run on a handful of browsers that have next to no market share, unfortunately.

The one exception maybe that, if Google go through with Mv3, a lot of people switch to Brave or Vivaldi, for example, leaving Chrome and Edge hanging. If Chrome suddenly drops 10-20% and Brave or Vivaldi, or Firefox, get a sudden surge in active users, it might make them think twice, but it is doubtful that that will happen.

2 Likes

I wonder if a developer can manage to build the same code into both versions of the manifest, only limiting features in V3 if left with no choice. Also wonder if one file can host both versions of the manifests, or if Google will intentionally break backward compatibility to make developers make a choice. (And make thier lives more difficult if they fall in line.)

The point is that the whole concept of an add-in like uBlock origin is that it blocks unwanted (tracking and advertising) sites and Manifest v3 blocks that too a great extent and also reduces the number of sites that can be blocked too a small fraction of what it currently protects against.

So, either way, the add-in won’t work properly under v3. More interesting would be a browser that supported v2 and v3.

2 Likes

Well Firefox said they would, I believe. My issue is that the developers of add-ons only have so much energy and they might decide to stop V2 versions if Google makes it difficult enough for them to otherwise support V2 along with V3. (Basically you have to spend your limited time chasing the largest audience.)

1 Like