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Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

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Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#271

Post by hendersoon »

AsusFan wrote: post #100
me_me_me wrote: post #34

Meanwhile me laughing in Firefox. I hope no one here is surprised by this G was more and more anti ad-blocking for years now. This is only natural conclusion after u are a de-facto browser monopoly.

You won't be laughing for long, I believe. See this FAQ: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-manifest... Note how they say: "We have no immediate plans to remove blocking webRequest and are working with add-on developers to gain a better understanding of how they use the APIs in question to help determine how to best support them." "No immediate plans" is weasel-speak, as is "[we] are working with add…

Mozilla will certainly support manifest v3 to maintain Chrome compatibility. That was never in question.

The question is whether Mozilla _removes_ support for webRequest like Google did. And you're right, they weaseled their way out of answering that question.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#272

Post by fauigerzigerk »

malvosenior wrote: post #260
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t think anyone could be naive enough to believe ads help the open web I don't think assuming bad faith with absolute certainty is a productive form of debate. [Edit]: As a matter of fact, I don't believe that advertising is entirely replaceable as a funding mechanism for the open web at this point in time. That doesn't mean we have to accept all its excesses without resistance. >Most other employers don’t have…

> I don't think assuming bad faith with absolute certainty is a productive form of debate. It’s not a debate though, Google is removing these user friendly features and sprinkling some marketing speak over their actions. It’s right to call them out on that. Also, if your job is to be the face of that marketing speak, you should expect people to question what you say. [edit] Funding and openness are tangential. A syst…

>Funding and openness are tangential

I don't think open source is a viable solution for all currently ad funded services. Some services cost a lot of money to run and many indirect funding sources come with their own downsides. Open source projects are often leveraged by some of the largest corporations for their own strategic purposes that don't necessarily help openness.

But my original point was simply that this is a non-trivial debate in which all sorts of opinions can be honestly held.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#273

Post by hendersoon »

vkizl wrote: post #147
moomin wrote: post #15

This is the point in the dominance cycle where the dominant player decides they no longer need to be the fastest or the most secure and that their dominance will allow them to coast along doing their thing. There’s nothing particularly inevitable about what happens next, but let’s hope they get an IE6-sized kick in the teeth.

They still are the fastest and the most secure, and Manifest v3 is faster than uBlock Origin since no javascript code needs to run. I won't be using Chrome anymore once they implement this since I like my element-hiding rules which I wrote myself, but for the common rabble, Manifest v3 will be an improvement.

The speed difference is only noticeable in benchmarks. It's completely meaningless for humans. Manifest v3 will not be an improvement for anyone previously using uBlock Origin.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#274

Post by blibble »

blep-arsh wrote: post #221
vbezhenar wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not trying to kill advertisements. They want to replace API to provide better performance. That's about it. ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge.

Incidentally these new declarative rulesets are useless against some very simple tricks. I know people who are working full time on defeating ad blockers and the new Manifest v3 seems to have made their lives so much easier.

this change is intended to move control over the blocking process from the extension author to Google

once they're in total control of how the blockers can operate: I doubt they'll be responsive to what the developers of the blocking extensions want...

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#275

Post by Ygg2 »

fastball wrote: post #213
mcv wrote: post #170

I'm in the process of switching as much as possible to Firefox. I now use Firefox Mobile on my smartphone, and my new laptop doesn't even get Chrome. And in many ways, it's been a breath of fresh air. Firefox gives my much more control over my privacy, and even recommends some extensions to improve it further. A couple of websites are sadly broken on my Firefox setup, but I can live without them. I want to get back t…

Why not something like Brave which has the performance of Chromium (still better than Firefox imo) because it's a fork but probably won't make similar business decisions to Google?

Because they will probably follow Chromium and remove ad blocking once the pain of forking is too great.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#276

Post by goalieca »

jfoster wrote: post #201
johnpowell wrote: post #86

Back in the IE 6 days I was in charge of fixing my families computers, and my family's friends computers. I was dealing with a few things a week, some requiring a full re-install. This was back in the early 2000's. Eventually I snapped and started charging hourly unless people switched to Gmail and Firefox. I started getting a lot less calls since Gmail was pretty good about filtering out malicious attachments and IE…

Back then, that was pretty good advice. IE was so insecure your entire system was at risk if you were exposed to the wrong content. Google made their browser quite secure and fast, which negates some of the reasons why people used ad blockers. There are other reasons people might use them, but these days you're much, much safer on Chrome than you ever were on IE.

Maybe the attacks were less sophisticated back then. I've seen so many windows computers completely owned by people using chrome to stream tv shows or perhaps visiting the wrong site while looking for discounts on shopping.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#277

Post by vkizl »

hendersoon wrote: post #273
vkizl wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still are the fastest and the most secure, and Manifest v3 is faster than uBlock Origin since no javascript code needs to run. I won't be using Chrome anymore once they implement this since I like my element-hiding rules which I wrote myself, but for the common rabble, Manifest v3 will be an improvement.

The speed difference is only noticeable in benchmarks. It's completely meaningless for humans. Manifest v3 will not be an improvement for anyone previously using uBlock Origin.

Disagree. Chrome feels snappier. Firefox stalls sometimes when rendering and can't achieve 60 fps on some websites I use. (Not Google properties)

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#278

Post by tablethnuser »

I'm the one who switched my whole family to Chrome back in the day to get them off IE. I have no problem doing it again this holiday season. Firefox for everyone.

No idea what Google is thinking. In one short decade they've become the new villains of the internet.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#279

Post by Ygg2 »

bambax wrote: post #50

> Simeon Vincent, a Google Developer Advocate for Chrome Extensions One has to love and admire the use of Newspeak by big companies... How is this Mr Vincent an "advocate"? He's in charge of destroying extensions! On his Twitter bio [1] he also says he likes "helping people" and "the open web". The cognitive dissonance must be hard to bear. [1] https://twitter.com/dotproto

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

Re: Google Begins Testing Extension Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary

#280

Post by Liquid_Fire »

jtbayly wrote: post #134
kretor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Google's new API, all ads can still be blocked. There will be a limit for network request blocking rules, but it's very high so that normal users don't reach it. And for those that reach it, only network requests are affected, so adblockers can still use other APIs to hide the ads.

This is the first time I’ve heard the suggestion that there are ways around this by using other API’s. Can you elaborate?

You can use other APIs to hide ads (i.e. prevent them from being displayed), but they would still be downloaded so you lose the privacy, performance and security benefits of the ad blocker.
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