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Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

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Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#251

Post by jconnop »

Karunamon wrote: post #245
winternett wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has just been getting worse and worse over time, but if you can recall, Firefox was also a slug when it was at a peak of market dominance and before that MSIE... The problem is that orgs and companies stop caring once they gain the primary market share. They also start dictating standards to everyone and ignoring user feedback. It's symptomatic of our current software development driven economy. I recall when…

Mozilla never seemed to get out of that "the user is an idiot, best ignored" mindset even as their market share falls lower than a vendor-specific mobile browser. It's mind-boggling how just about everyone except the people calling the shots in that org can point out the problem.

I've used Firefox as a daily driver for over 15 years, and while I do think it treats me more like an idiot than it used to, and don't like that, I still feel far more in control, trusted, and able to configure it than I do with chrome.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#252

Post by mappu »

aembleton wrote: post #171
mappu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary part is gorhill is able to sell or hand over the extension - as he has done in the past - to someone with looser morals and/or goals. How much do you think NSO Group would pay for this kind of access? If you ran uBlock Origin, would you like to retire early? Jbk from the VLC project has a lot of stories about turning down 6, 7 figure payments to bundle malware in VLC. Not everyone has the strong morals and…

It's a good point. Probably best to build it into the browser and let me add my own lists for it to use. That would be a good move for Firefox, they could have it off by default but it would help to reduce the chance of a compromised extension have too much access.

This is almost exactly what Manifest V3 is - it reduces the extension to just be a list manager for a built-in blocker.

The only real complaint is that Chrome did not anticipate how large these lists need to be in 2021, and the limits are too low.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#253

Post by Helmut10001 »

AnonC wrote: post #229

A lot of comments here are wondering what Firefox will do and if uBlock Origin would be made useless in Firefox like it would be in Chrome (once Mv3 is implemented). Short answer: Firefox is adopting various parts of Mv3, but will continue to support blocking webrequest, which is used by extensions like uBlock Origin. So uBlock Origin would become useless in Chrome, possibly Edge and a few other browsers, but not on…

Get a DNS Sink (such as pfblockerNG-devel). Works without Add-Ons or client config and in any browser. uBlock Origin is really only used on my computer for when I am not at home.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#254

Post by Eelongate »

kelnos wrote: post #140
anewguy9000 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize Firefox only exists because it serves Google's interests right? And while Brave might be based on Chromium, it is distinct; in addition to not crippling nativewebrequest as chrome will, it's native adblocker is compatible with the same lists as ublock origin. So I would go with Brave :)

> You realize Firefox only exists because it serves Google's interests right? Ironically, though, the larger Firefox's market share, the more Google will pay to be the default search engine in Firefox. Yes, it's perverse and a little gross that we depend on Google to such a large degree to keep Mozilla and Firefox funded, but having more users increases Mozilla's leverage over Google. Anyway, your point isn't really…

> Ironically, though, the larger Firefox's market share, the more Google will pay to be the default search engine in Firefox.

The smaller Firefox's market share, the more Mitchell Baker gets paid.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#255

Post by [deleted] »

AnonC wrote: post #229

A lot of comments here are wondering what Firefox will do and if uBlock Origin would be made useless in Firefox like it would be in Chrome (once Mv3 is implemented). Short answer: Firefox is adopting various parts of Mv3, but will continue to support blocking webrequest, which is used by extensions like uBlock Origin. So uBlock Origin would become useless in Chrome, possibly Edge and a few other browsers, but not on…

[deleted]

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#256

Post by charrondev »

fooey wrote: post #132
csdvrx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more likely, towards Edge, by virtue of requiring almost no effort to deploy the same set of extensions in a very similar browser in the hands of a company who doesn't require destroying privacy as much as google does to keep making money.

Edge seems to be trying very hard to kill all the momentum they've gained They recently baked in a "feature" to hijack online shopping with some Pay Later garbage: https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-keeps-making-its-edge-browser-... Now they're running gross little popups if you browse to the Chrome installer in Edge: https://gizmodo.com/seriously-what-is-going-on-with-microsof... > “Microsoft Edge runs on the same techno…

Too be honest I don’t think the messages to use edge over chrome are really in the same category as the others. Googles plaster their homepage with a big banner of “hey chrome is so much better than what your using” and did for years.

A bit tit for tat in my book.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#257

Post by Qub3d »

jefftk wrote: post #188
Qub3d wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safari change absolutely kneecapped content blockers. Ublock dropped it[0], and the remaining few providers, like AdGuard, have to do all sorts of trickery[1] to get even close to the same performance. If you're going to argue this is better, don't point us to such a clearly worse result. [0]: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 [1]: https://adguard.com/en/blog/safari-adblock-extensions.html

I'm not arguing that V3 is better -- I think that's a complicated question, and I was trying to describe some of the tradeoffs. What I am arguing is that V3 does, contra my parent, support request blocking.

Fair point, apologies if I came off a bit harsh. I'm just really frustrated in the direction Google has taken with this whole thing.

I understand the average user probably shouldn't be able to easily hand over so much control to extensions, but on the other hand, dynamic ads shouldn't be able to serve malware or cryptominers.

I'd be a bit more open to the idea of a locked-down manifest if we had seen more good-faith attempts from AdTech to change the paradigm that makes content blockers almost a requirement.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#258

Post by tptacek »

It's hard to take EFF seriously when they write so hyperbolically. What's clearly also the case is that Chrome extensions are one of the great modern security and privacy challenges --- to the point where multiple tech company security teams have people whose job it is just to screen them. Another detail that EFF doesn't want to share is that ad blockers are some of the worst offenders --- they demand maximal access to user data (think about how they work), and there are lots of them, not all of them, uh, implemented scrupulously.

EFF doesn't want to give you the other side of this story, because they're not an honest interlocutor.

If you had the other side of the story, you might still think Manifest v3 was a bad deal. Random ad blockers are very dangerous, but there are ad blockers that everyone trusts, and you might not want to make it harder for them to maintain their projects.

But EFF doesn't trust you to make that decision on your own.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#259

Post by smaudet »

KevinMS wrote: post #201

I remember the old days when HN users would promote the hell out of chrome. They loved it, couldn't get enough of it. A few others, including myself, were like... um guys, this browser is created by a company that makes its money from advertising that shows in browsers, do you really think this is going to turn out well?

Tech geeks forgot that pointy nosed bosses exist, y'know, the bad ones that seems to invariably hired for "accounting" reasons.

The google of old might have been OK, but at this point its as tedious to hear that they are "responsibile" as it was to hear that Microsoft Windows was "more customizable" than a mac and therefore somehow better. (I still know a lot of so called geeks that are ms fans for this reason).

A generation of socially unaware engineers got too popular and laid the groundwork for a behemoth that we let get too large...

Don't worry, FAANG still exists and is a major problem, the lesson shouldn't be that we need another player, just that monopolies, or things approaching them like big business, are always bad.

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