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Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#11

Post by Iolaum »

Ygg2 wrote: post #5
danShumway wrote: post #2

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard." Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensio…

> adblocker extensions to abandon Chrome. Ha. As if that will ever happen. They'll probably just pivot to something else. The reason Chrome can try to ditch ad blockers is that they are big enough, that your only choice is Chrome or GTFO.

Your choice can well be firefox and chrome as a fallback when a website doesn't work and you care enough to bother opening chrome for it. Chrome has already ditched adblockers on mobile, firefox with adblockers and reader mode is a MUCH better mobile web experience.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#13

Post by Jonnax »

wtallis wrote: post #9
zzzcpan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it rather discouraging to hear they are not removing the blocking API for now . It's basically an empty statement, not reassurance. They still may or may not remove the API, they don't want to promise anything or show any commitment to users' needs and priorities.

It's basically the same as what happened two months ago with Firefox for Android being EOL'd pending a major re-write that may or may not support extensions. Mozilla is not willing to publicly commit to keeping their key features alive, and they keep hinting at the possibility that they will be leaving users behind in an attempt to be more like Chrome.

A rewrite that is faster than Chrome for Android.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#14

Post by sorenjan »

> Cross-origin communication: In Manifest v3, content scripts will have the same permissions as the page they are injected in. We are planning to implement this change.

What will this mean for GM.xmlHttpRequest in userscripts? Adding content from several different sites with userscripts can be very powerful.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#15

Post by jefftk »

Iolaum wrote: post #11
Ygg2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> adblocker extensions to abandon Chrome. Ha. As if that will ever happen. They'll probably just pivot to something else. The reason Chrome can try to ditch ad blockers is that they are big enough, that your only choice is Chrome or GTFO.

Your choice can well be firefox and chrome as a fallback when a website doesn't work and you care enough to bother opening chrome for it. Chrome has already ditched adblockers on mobile, firefox with adblockers and reader mode is a MUCH better mobile web experience.

> Chrome has already ditched adblockers on mobile

nit: chrome has never had extensions (or ad blockers) on mobile

(Disclosure: I work for Google)

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#16

Post by lol768 »

wtallis wrote: post #9
zzzcpan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it rather discouraging to hear they are not removing the blocking API for now . It's basically an empty statement, not reassurance. They still may or may not remove the API, they don't want to promise anything or show any commitment to users' needs and priorities.

It's basically the same as what happened two months ago with Firefox for Android being EOL'd pending a major re-write that may or may not support extensions. Mozilla is not willing to publicly commit to keeping their key features alive, and they keep hinting at the possibility that they will be leaving users behind in an attempt to be more like Chrome.

And the other point of view, directly from Mozilla:

> We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now.

> We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20298143

This reads like FUD to me. The dev team know how important extensions are to their users. Can you provide a source that implies Fennec will be EOL before Fenix has extension and/or ad-blocking support?

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#17

Post by Ygg2 »

Iolaum wrote: post #11
Ygg2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> adblocker extensions to abandon Chrome. Ha. As if that will ever happen. They'll probably just pivot to something else. The reason Chrome can try to ditch ad blockers is that they are big enough, that your only choice is Chrome or GTFO.

Your choice can well be firefox and chrome as a fallback when a website doesn't work and you care enough to bother opening chrome for it. Chrome has already ditched adblockers on mobile, firefox with adblockers and reader mode is a MUCH better mobile web experience.

> firefox with adblockers and reader mode is a MUCH better mobile web experience

Oh, I fully agree. But just having a better, faster, less ad ridden browser is not enough. The sheer networking effect is propping up Chrome on Android.

I only had a few issues with some videos playing.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#18

Post by WhatIsDukkha »

The tone of this post concerns me.

What comes across is that Google is not collaborating with Mozilla over the Manifest v3 changes.

Instead of using and appreciating the engaged Firefox developer ecosystem we have PM conference rooms in Google mandating huge changes based on... well they've been shady so far about their choices on Manifest v3.

The other thing that keeps bugging me about this is -

We need a tiered App store for browsers. Part of the lockdown Google wants to do isn't wrong but its driven by having WAY too many bad actors and shoddy developers in their Chrome store.

If you have an opensource web extension, a reasonable community and with reproducible builds? You can use more powerful API versions.

If you are jrando bizplan #2000283 you get the kinda trusted tier.

Frankly if Debian had a web browser extension "store" with 20 things in it, I'd use that exclusively and turn off both the Chrome and the Firefox store 100%.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#19

Post by hajile »

Jonnax wrote: post #13
wtallis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically the same as what happened two months ago with Firefox for Android being EOL'd pending a major re-write that may or may not support extensions. Mozilla is not willing to publicly commit to keeping their key features alive, and they keep hinting at the possibility that they will be leaving users behind in an attempt to be more like Chrome.

A rewrite that is faster than Chrome for Android.

It may be faster than Chrome on Android, but it's certainly not faster than Firefox on Android with adblockers. Not loading/parsing multi-megabytes of Javascript and images is huge. Loads of ads these days incorporate entire JS framework toolchains resulting in a binary bigger than the page they're being injected into. Eliminating a few ads and the rest of your browser could be a lot less efficient and still perform well. That's all before discussing how adblockers also reduce who is tracking you everywhere.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#20

Post by purple_ducks »

Chrome's June 2019 statement about Manifest v3 in which they tell us all how much they really care about users and this totes isn't to weaken ad blocking(which directly affects their revenue - that's just a coincidence - pinky promise!):

https://blog.chromium.org/2019/06/web-request-and-declarativ...

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