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"Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

developer.chrome.com

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Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#111
post #96
post #84

This submission title does not appear to be accurate. Here's what was actually said: > October 9th 2024: an update on Manifest V2 phase-out. > Over the last few months, we have continued with the Manifest V2 phase-out. Currently the chrome://extensions page displays a warning banner for all users of Manifest V2 extensions. Additionally, we have started disabling Manifest V2 extensions on pre-stable channels. > We wil…

They said "we have started disabling Manifest V2 extensions on pre-stable channels", and the "Chrome canary" referenced in the submission title is a pre-stable channel. The submission title is accurate, but narrowly highlighting only one facet of Google's update statement.

That's old news, as noted in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41810420

The change here is actually about the stable channel.

Also, the title makes it sound like MV2 code has been removed from the source, but that's not the case.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone jumping up and down about MV3 while using Mac or iOS are hypocrites, since MV3 is essentially doing the same thing Safari did years ago, finally matching the security and the privacy in that regard. The reduction in adblocking is so miniscule in aggregate - since declarative approach will always cover all the major advertisers - that it's not even a meaningful "trade-off".

> Anyone jumping up and down about MV3 while using Mac or iOS are hypocrites, since MV3 is essentially doing the same thing Safari did years ago, iOS I'll give you, but macOS can in fact run ex. Firefox. > finally matching the security and the privacy in that regard. "Matching" inferior security+privacy is not a good thing. The only way this is an improvement if you think the blockers are malicious; otherwise a usefu…

One of the most common API malware extensions use is what MV3 blocks, and adblock extension is one of the common malware vectors:

https://helpcenter.getadblock.com/hc/en-us/articles/97384768...

https://www.wired.com/story/fake-chrome-extensions-malware/

This has been never ending.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#113

Has anyone been using the v3 compatible version of uBlock Origin? Have you noticed much of a difference? From what I read there isn't supposed to be much of a difference?

I for one am just going to wait it out and see what the internet looks like nowadays without an adblocker, if it doesn't auto-update. It's been so long.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone jumping up and down about MV3 while using Mac or iOS are hypocrites, since MV3 is essentially doing the same thing Safari did years ago, finally matching the security and the privacy in that regard. The reduction in adblocking is so miniscule in aggregate - since declarative approach will always cover all the major advertisers - that it's not even a meaningful "trade-off".

> Anyone jumping up and down about MV3 while using Mac or iOS are hypocrites, since MV3 is essentially doing the same thing Safari did years ago, iOS I'll give you, but macOS can in fact run ex. Firefox. > finally matching the security and the privacy in that regard. "Matching" inferior security+privacy is not a good thing. The only way this is an improvement if you think the blockers are malicious; otherwise a usefu…

> The only way this is an improvement if you think the blockers are malicious

Extensions and in turn MV2 blockers can easily be malicious.

https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/dangerous-chrome-extensions-8...

Look at how many in Kaspersky’s list are advertised as ad blockers. The majority of users aren’t tech savvy like HN.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#115
post #25

Hopefully this is the inflection point for Chrome. Despite all their made-up "security" reasons, everyone knows this is solely about making adblock less effective. For many users, adblock is what makes chrome bearable - and if they make it unbearable, then those users will leave. Slowly but surely. Google seems much too sure of itself making this change. I hope their arrogance pays off just the same as Microsoft's di…

> making adblock less effective

adblocking still works just fine on Safari, which has been doing the same thing as Manifest V3 for years now.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#116
post #25

Hopefully this is the inflection point for Chrome. Despite all their made-up "security" reasons, everyone knows this is solely about making adblock less effective. For many users, adblock is what makes chrome bearable - and if they make it unbearable, then those users will leave. Slowly but surely. Google seems much too sure of itself making this change. I hope their arrogance pays off just the same as Microsoft's di…

> everyone knows this is solely about making adblock less effective I thought I knew that. Then I switched from uBlock Origin to uBlock Origin Lite in Chrome, which is compatible with Manifest v3. I was prepared for the horrible onslaught of ads, expecting at least a quarter would start getting through, ready to switch to Firefox... ...and didn't notice a single change. Not a single ad gets through. And at the same t…

This is just because Google was especially insidious about how they crippled ad blockers in v3.

Adblockers do multiple things:

1. Visibly block ads from the user

2. Block the user tracking that's attached to those ads

3. Protect the user from malware

4. Save bandwidth and cpu cycles by not loading all that junk

5. Allow control to users over how a webpage is displayed to them

Arguably uBlock Origin Lite can only accomplish some of #1 and a sprinkle of #2 now. And even those abilities are compromised by artificially low limits imposed by chrome in v3 that will eventually allow ad networks to overwhelm those limits and get ads through to users.

Google is 100% boiling the frog here and you/the average user is left in the pot unaware.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#117
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extensions have to predefine the rules for blockin And there's a limit of 5000 such rules.

The limit is 330000 rules: "Based on input from the extension community, we also increased the number of rulesets for declarativeNetRequest, allowing extensions to bundle up to 330,000 static rules and dynamically add a further 30,000." https://blog.chromium.org/2024/05/manifest-v2-phase-out-begi... .

even if it was infinite that wasn't really the issue, you can't express the algorithms uBlock Origin is using as a static list

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#118
post #25

Hopefully this is the inflection point for Chrome. Despite all their made-up "security" reasons, everyone knows this is solely about making adblock less effective. For many users, adblock is what makes chrome bearable - and if they make it unbearable, then those users will leave. Slowly but surely. Google seems much too sure of itself making this change. I hope their arrogance pays off just the same as Microsoft's di…

Agreed on hoping this is the inflection point, but only partial agreement that it's about adblock. For sure Google wants adblock to die, but I think it goes even deeper than that. I think it's part of a much bigger trend in tech in general but also in Google: Removing user control. When you look at the "security" things they are doing, many of them have a common philosophy underpinning them that the user (aka device…

The technologies themselves are mostly a good idea. The problem is that the companies designing them also like to abuse them.

Take, for example, hardware attestation on android. There's not really any serious issue with this feature, it can be used to ensure your device is not compromised. This is for example how GrapheneOS enables its use with the auditor application.

But, on the other hand, Google abuses the feature to ensure that you are running a google signed OS if you want to use Google Pay. Meanwhile you can use banking apps which also use hardware attestation (although, from their perspective, they don't use enough of it to ensure it isn't being spoofed, and even then...) without any problem on GOS. Moreover, before Google Pay completely killed all of its competition, it was possible to even find third party banks which would provide you with the ability to pay with your phone without using google pay.

Likewise, secure boot is a great concept if you want to be more sure about the integrity of your laptop throughout its lifetime. But some companies have abused it to force you to use Windows. If you want to set up your own signing keys for secure boot, you end up having to deal with poorly managed UEFI keys from third parties which weaken the security of your machine. The feature, as it's implemented, is rarely designed with helping end user's secure their machines. But the core of the design is fine.

I think limiting root on a phone is also a really good idea, the issue is that Google likes to give themselves and their "system apps" special privileges. If APIs were exposed to allow you to bless your own applications with the right permissions, you would probably not care so much about root restrictions.

So all in all, fundamentally, most of these features are fine. They're genuinely great for security. But the main problem is how they're abuse by the companies in control and how little effort is put into allowing power-users to use those features for their own benefit.

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#119
post #23

Darn, ublock also no longer works on Firefox for YouTube. At the beginning of each video there is one forced ad and sometimes the video stops for no reason. I suppose they want everyone to stop using the Internet and read books.

You probably need to update your filter lists. There is a megathread on Reddit for this issue, because it can have a lot of other causes also.

https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1etvawp/youtu...

Re: "Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

#120

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

I love Mozilla, but I’m concerned about its future. Since 80% of its income reportedly comes from the Google search deal, do they have a plan to replace it after the recent ruling? And can they maintain their current level of autonomy while doing so?

The Android version of Firefox still doesn't have working keyboard shortcuts after 13 years or a way to delete individual history items to prevent broken auto complete. The money is going into lots of other things than the browser.
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