Manifestv2 acceptance ends in 1 month, spelling trouble for popular adblockers

[rcmaehl]

Summary

Manifestv2 based extensions will stop being accepted in Chromium based browsers January 2022 and stop working in 2023 Popular privacy tools such as adblockers are expected to be heavily impacted.

 

Media

 

Quotes

Quote

Manifest V3, Google's... basket of changes to the world of web browser extensions, has been framed by its authors as “a step in the direction of privacy, security, and performance.”... These changes are a raw deal for users. Manifest V3 is... [an] inherent conflict of interest that comes from Google controlling both the dominant web browser and one of the largest internet advertising networks. Manifest V3... is outright harmful to privacy efforts. It will restrict the capabilities of web extensions, especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute... with the websites you visit. ...Extensions like these– like some privacy-protective tracker blockers– will have greatly reduced capabilities. Google’s efforts to limit that access is concerning,... considering that Google has trackers installed on 75% of the top one million websites. It’s also doubtful Mv3 will do much for security. When a malicious extension sneaks through the security review process, it is usually interested in simply observing the conversation between your browser and whatever websites you visit. The malicious activity happens elsewhere, after the data has already been read. A 2020 study by researchers at Princeton and the University of Chicago revealed that privacy extensions, the very ones that will be hindered by Mv3, actually improve browser performance.

 

My thoughts

It looks like it's finally happening. It's been a while since Google announced this, and I believe they've pushed it back a few times hoping people will forget about this. I think there'll be some minor percentage shift in web browser usage once the ad-blockers are no-longer effective in Chromium browsers, but I'm not sure the average user will be quick to switch. I personally will be switching to a PiHole, but it's just not the same feature wise as some of the current extension options... maybe it's time for me to give Firefox another chance. 

 

Sources

EFF

 

[GuiltySpark_]

Yeah uh, I’ll just wait and see. Someone will find a way. 

[Tieox]

Well hello there Firefox. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

if Im looking at that timeline right that wont happen until 2023..

In jan22, there can be no new mv2 ones, devs can publish new ones that are private, 

in jun22, no new private ones, updates can contunie,

jan23, mv2 extentions wont run

[Sauron]

*laughs in firefox*

[Fasterthannothing]

[jagdtigger]

Good thing i dont use it....

[RejZoR]

We already know none of the 3rd party browsers like Edge, Opera, Brave and Vivaldi will follow this dumb manifest which means all these browsers will stay behind with engines in this particular function, creating fork within a fork.

 

Issue will be for browsers that just use Google's extensions repository (Brave and Vivaldi). Luckily they have adblocker built-in, where Opera and Edge don't have that issue, because they run their own extensions repository so they'll be able to host extensions that are not nerfed like ones on Google's extension repository which will have to adopt Manifest V2 thing.

 

And yeah, laughs in Firefox as well.

[Blademaster91]

I thought this meant all ad blockers when I read it at first lol, glad I use Firefox.

[duncannah]

I guess I should convert my extension to Manifest V3 now, hopefully it's not too hard

Although the prospect of having to use a chromium fork (or maybe Safari) in the future sucks

[rcmaehl]

18 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

if Im looking at that timeline right that wont happen until 2023..

In jan22, there can be no new mv2 ones, devs can publish new ones that are private, 

in jun22, no new private ones, updates can contunie,

jan22, mv2 extentions wont run

Me:

 

Corrected

[Quackers101]

google? Sussy?

Don't go into the pihole, google might follow you in there

[RejZoR]

<removed by staff> questionable design decisions, Firefox is still by far the best. Latest 95 also gained WASM caching and occlusion detection, not enabled by default, but can be. Pretty cool features.

[NinJake]

Pihole running on the home network and also daily driving Firefox since before Chrome was an idea.

[SansVarnic]

-= Cleaned =-

[DANK_AS_gay]

Laughs in Safari (cries in mourning for AdBlock Plus on Chrome)

[Zodiark1593]

The time has finally come for the Firefox users to have the last laugh. 

[Jtalk4456]

never even used an adblock...

[MageTank]

<removed by staff>

 

5 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Summary

Manifestv2 based extensions will stop being accepted in Chromium based browsers January 2022 and stop working in 2023 Popular privacy tools such as adblockers are expected to be heavily impacted.

 

Media

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

It looks like it's finally happening. It's been a while since Google announced this, and I believe they've pushed it back a few times hoping people will forget about this. I think there'll be some minor percentage shift in web browser usage once the ad-blockers are no-longer effective in Chromium browsers, but I'm not sure the average user will be quick to switch. I personally will be switching to a PiHole, but it's just not the same feature wise as some of the current extension options... maybe it's time for me to give Firefox another chance. 

 

Sources

EFF

 

I don't know much about these extensions so pardon my ignorance, but is there anything explicitly stopping developers from using the V3 extension for the same purpose of blocking ads? Or would this be an intentional design by Google to circumvent that? Would we ever reach a point where websites can detect that you are using pi-hole and refuse to display a page?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

17 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I don't know much about these extensions so pardon my ignorance, but is there anything explicitly stopping developers from using the V3 extension for the same purpose of blocking ads? Or would this be an intentional design by Google to circumvent that? Would we ever reach a point where websites can detect that you are using pi-hole and refuse to display a page?

 

4 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Manifest V3, Google's... basket of changes to the world of web browser extensions, has been framed by its authors as “a step in the direction of privacy, security, and performance.”... These changes are a raw deal for users. Manifest V3 is... [an] inherent conflict of interest that comes from Google controlling both the dominant web browser and one of the largest internet advertising networks. Manifest V3... is outright harmful to privacy efforts. It will restrict the capabilities of web extensions, especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute... with the websites you visit. ...Extensions like these– like some privacy-protective tracker blockers– will have greatly reduced capabilities. Google’s efforts to limit that access is concerning,... considering that Google has trackers installed on 75% of the top one million websites. It’s also doubtful Mv3 will do much for security. When a malicious extension sneaks through the security review process, it is usually interested in simply observing the conversation between your browser and whatever websites you visit. The malicious activity happens elsewhere, after the data has already been read. A 2020 study by researchers at Princeton and the University of Chicago revealed that privacy extensions, the very ones that will be hindered by Mv3, actually improve browser performance.

 

[LAwLz]

If you need any more reason to dump Edge, Microsoft has confirmed that they will adopt the extensions manifest v3 and not fork it.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions-chromium/developer-guide/migrate-your-extension-from-manifest-v2-to-v3

 

[Qub3d]

On 12/10/2021 at 1:54 PM, DANK_AS_gay said:

Laughs in Safari (cries in mourning for AdBlock Plus on Chrome)

Buddy, Safari did basically the same thing ages ago. The remaining players in the space, like AdGuard, use a companion App that you have to install alongside an extension. https://adguard.com/en/blog/safari-adblock-extensions.html

 

 

On 12/10/2021 at 11:20 AM, RejZoR said:

We already know none of the 3rd party browsers like Edge, Opera, Brave and Vivaldi will follow this dumb manifest which means all these browsers will stay behind with engines in this particular function, creating fork within a fork.

I wouldn't be so sure about edge. In fact, of the chromium-based browsers, the only one I really expect to stick with v2 for any non-trivial amount of time would be Brave, and they have their own set of issues.

[Mihle]

5 hours ago, Qub3d said:

Buddy, Safari did basically the same thing ages ago. The remaining players in the space, like AdGuard, use a companion App that you have to install alongside an extension. https://adguard.com/en/blog/safari-adblock-extensions.html

 

 

I wouldn't be so sure about edge. In fact, of the chromium-based browsers, the only one I really expect to stick with v2 for any non-trivial amount of time would be Brave, and they have their own set of issues.

Only reason I think Vivaldi would just follow it, is that they just want to continue using chrome plugin page and not run their own. 

In the past they have spesifically gone against things Google do with chrome and stuff. For example they do do not want googles alternative to cookies, and there was also a other thing I don't quite remember that is off by default. 

[Vishera]

Brave's response:

 

[linkboy]

Vivaldi had this response to Manifest v3 back in 2019, so who knows if their stance has changed since then.