"Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable" • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by Uehreka » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

undercut wrote: post #61

Rychard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The widespread adoption of Chrome was largely driven by word of mouth, people like you and I installing it on our friend's/relative's computers and telling them it was safer/faster/better. Nothing stops us from doing the same thing again. I've been recommending Firefox to all my family/friends/colleagues for years (ever since I've seen the writing on the wall for Chrome). While Firefox isn't perfect, it's in a much b…

>The widespread adoption of Chrome was largely driven by word of mouth No, it was driven by having a banner in the most privileged spot of the Internet, Google.com (the most visited site in the world with 0 ads on the homepage) saying that was faster and more secure than the alternatives. In fact Firefox benefited from some free ads on Google.com against Internet Explorer before Google developed Chromium.

Yeah, I feel like in general we on HN give ourselves way too much credit in terms of our ability to drive public opinion or affect purchasing/usage patterns among the public. The idea of the “nerd-led revolution” may have had some impact in the past, but I think the days of that are over. Large corporations now know what they’re doing in ways that they hadn’t figured out in the 2000s or even the early 2010s.

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

#162

Post by kuhsaft » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:41 PM UTC

eikenberry wrote: post #144

crazygringo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If I remember right then the difference is more about ad-tracking/privacy than blocking. V2 allowed UBO to find and intercept the calls to the ad servers before the calls were made. Where V3+UBL still makes the calls it just doesn't display the results. So while you might not see the ads, the ads see you.

On the contrary, MV2 used onBeforeRequest which let extensions see what requests you were making. They could then take that data and use it for malicious purposes.

MV3 doesn’t allow extensions to know what requests are being made, so extensions can’t use your data maliciously.

Requests to ads that are blocked are blocked.

I think you’re thinking of Privacy-preserving ad measurement which is an option in Firefox and Safari. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...

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

#163

Post by madeofpalk » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #66

madeofpalk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Webkit GPL? How is it not open source?

https://webkit.org/licensing-webkit/ WebKit is part LGPL, and part BSD. So I think from purely a licensing point of view, they are probably not in violation. Provided that the way they are linking the LGPL-licensed code is compatible with the LGPL. But like the other commenter said, I too would not run any web browser that was not fully open source, like this Orion browser.

If they are forking Webkit, like they say, doesn't that require they distribute the source to their fork? Even if they don't have to distribute the browser linking to it?

Or do I not understand the obligations of LGPL?

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

#164

Post by lapcat » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #155

lapcat wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of your comments have actually provided evidence for this assertion It's not an assertion. It's simple reading comprehension. How else can you interpret this? "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-s…

> I don't know if it was publicized, until now. So you literally don't know if it was news before now, but you're insisting on calling it "old news", apparently based solely on Google using past tense in their announcement.

> So you literally don't know if it was news before now, but you're insisting on calling it "old news"

That was just a figure of speech, which I don't wish to quibble over. I don't insist on using that phrase. The point, from the beginning, is that the HN submission title is not good.

It actually doesn't matter when exactly that Google began disabling MV2 extensions in Chrome canary, because what's the justification for focusing on canary in the submission title when the announcement says, "We will now begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"?

[EDIT:] I see that the submission title has now indeed been changed, so this argument has become redundant.

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

#165

Post by HDThoreaun » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #48

drivebycomment wrote: post #38

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".

I see boatloads of ads in Safari on iOS. To the point that web browsing on my phone is intolerable, so I don't do it.

Which adblocker are you using? I have adguard and dont get ads on most safari sites but its just static DNS blocking so first party ad servers like youtube dont get blocked.

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

#166

Post by kuhsaft » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:02 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #60

sho wrote: 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…

> To all the engineers working on this stuff, I hope you're happy that your work is essentially destroying the world that you and I grew up in.

That was a world where the user base was much more limited and devices were less capable. Now we have children, grandparents, educated, and uneducated users with access to web connected devices. These devices now contain everything about you. Compromise of a device can destroy someone’s life.

Not only that, but compromise of a device can cause collateral damage to other devices on the same network.

We now have to cater to every user. Not just to the technologically adept. Look at what people believe on social media. The bar is so low to con people into compromising their device.

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

#167

Post by neoromantique » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

vinnymac wrote: post #13

codetrotter wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Orion FAQ: > Is Orion open-source? > We’re working on it! We’ve begun with some of our components and intend to open more in the future. > Forking WebKit, porting hundreds of APIs and writing a browser app from scratch has been challenging for our small team. Properly maintaining an open-source project takes time and resources we’re short on at the moment, so if you want to contribute at this time, please co…

I won’t be touching this binary with a ten foot pole until every line of code is open. Many excellent alternatives already exist that are also open and free, I don’t see a compelling argument to use this software on any device at the moment.

Fair play, but by that logic you shouldn't touch Mac OS as well, so the whole thing is moot since Mac OS is the only OS that is supported by Orion.

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

#168

Post by bberrry » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:08 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #75

Anyone using a PiHole to block on their network? I've been aware of it, but honestly, ad blocking was good enough that I didn't go down that route. Is PiHole good enough? Is there a big problem with false positives?

It can't handle YouTube ads unfortunately.

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

#169

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

Spunkie wrote: post #116

crazygringo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acco…

I don't think any of that is accurate though.

Manifest v3 blocks user tracking -- if the request is blocked, any tracking attached to it is blocked. I'm sure it's not 100% perfect, but it's certainly working well enough in practice.

And what malware are you talking about? If a request is blocked, it's blocked. It doesn't matter if it's an ad or malware.

Manifest v3 is better at #4, because the junk isn't loaded, and the blocking is more efficient in terms of CPU.

And then #5 I don't know what you're talking about. I use Stylus and Tampermonkey to customize webpages and they continue to work great.

So I just don't see the evidence that "Google is 100% boiling the frog here". That's what everyone was saying, but now that Manifest v3 has come out, I just see adblocking that continues to work and uses less CPU to do it.

I see a lot of fearmongering around Google, but now that the results are in with Manifest v3... they just don't seem true. You're making all these claims, but I just don't see the evidence now that we're seeing how it works in practice.

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

#170

Post by jauntywundrkind » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

kuhsaft wrote: post #166

freedomben wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> To all the engineers working on this stuff, I hope you're happy that your work is essentially destroying the world that you and I grew up in. That was a world where the user base was much more limited and devices were less capable. Now we have children, grandparents, educated, and uneducated users with access to web connected devices. These devices now contain everything about you. Compromise of a device can destro…

Still a shit poor pathetic excuse to screw over the userscript/grease monkey users.

The browser is called a user agent, but this shift to absolute security no matter what, no say about it is a shift to native apps, is a shift to the developer is in control, is a shift to this being Google and the sites browser, not ours, and that being done unilaterally with nearly no opt outs is the sort of mega tectonic shift that ruins this magical special unique place in software where users had some say in what was happening. We cannot pander to imagined ever worsening users forever.

It feels like the things being done in the name of security are really building an immense prison. The work being done to allow verified age and identity checking ranks up there highly in the this corals humanity, area, not giving us agency.