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AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

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Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#331

Post by ehsankia »

nfriedly wrote: post #299
ehsankia wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's off topic? I'm tired of seeing every single thread about MV3 turn into "Switch to Firefox". Yes, we know about that obvious solution, it's been shouted ad nauseum, I'm interested to see and hear about how ad blockers will work on MV3, not the existing alternative we've already heard about a billion times. Just look at this very thread, every other comment is just about Firefox and not the content of th…

Sure, I'm "preaching to the quior" here, but given Firefox's current market share, I'm not sure we've gotten the word out much beyond our circle. The article mentioned Safari a couple of times, I don't see why the fact that Firefox will support both V2 and V3 indefinitely doesn't deserve a single mention. Moreover, manifest V3 was essentially a massive middle finger from Google to everyone else (except advertisers),…

> I'm not sure we've gotten the word out much beyond our circle

I can guarantee you that the people that need to be converter won't be reading this article, any more than they will be visiting HN.

> The article mentioned Safari a couple of times

Hmm, I only see it mentioned once, and it makes sense in context, because Safari suffers from the same Declarative API issue (they actually did it long before chrome did).

> it feels almost dishonest to discuss it wothout mentioning that there are better options out there

Again, that discussion has been had ad nauseum, nothings being contributed by mentioning it again.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#332

Post by Fatnino »

MikeHolman wrote: post #278
dont__panic wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not fight fire with fire? Consider checking for the Chrome user agent on your personal website. When you detect it, either: 1. Display a screen that encourages to use a browser that respects their privacy, such as Firefox. 2. Show a popup explaining that "for an ad-free experience, try Firefox + uBlock" and add a bunch of fake (or real) ads to a special Chrome-exclusive piece of the site. If enough of us do this…

>If enough of us do this with personal websites, more and more people will stop using Chrome and start using Firefox. You don't even have to cut Chrome users off from the content -- just annoy them a little, and suggest Firefox. It's a nice idea, but your personal website doesn't matter. Most people go to a Google website at least a few times a day, and they already tell you to switch to Chrome for the best experienc…

Only the Google homepage tries to push you back to Chrome, iirc. And there is no reason to ever visit it since search is built in to all browsers now.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#333

Post by Fatnino »

taiiat wrote: post #292
Fatnino wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If suddenly there was no ad blocking available on Chrome cold turkey we would see nearly all users who are accustomed to an ad free experience go looking for a new browser. Coordinate this with a marketing blitz from Firefox and essentially you can take nearly all the Chrome ad block users and turn them into Firefox users. And from there it's word of mouth even from the non-techies. Good ad blocking is an essential p…

If suddenly there was no ad blocking available on Chrome cold turkey we would see nearly all users who are accustomed to an ad free experience go looking for a new browser so.... Utopic best case scenario, 30% of the users? and that's if 100% of People using AdBlocking across the entire Planet were to make a move. and those are the users that don't provide any Revenue back to the Owner, anyways. the average user is u…

I meant all ad-blocking users.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#334

Post by Fatnino »

tsimionescu wrote: post #310
Fatnino wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If suddenly there was no ad blocking available on Chrome cold turkey we would see nearly all users who are accustomed to an ad free experience go looking for a new browser. Coordinate this with a marketing blitz from Firefox and essentially you can take nearly all the Chrome ad block users and turn them into Firefox users. And from there it's word of mouth even from the non-techies. Good ad blocking is an essential p…

Unfortunately, we have a negative case study for this belief, one that proves the impact would be minimal: Android. Chrome on Android doesn't support any adblockers, while Firefox does, with perfectly simple installation. Still, Firefox Android is only a tiny sliver of the pie. (posted from Firefox on Android)

That's because most people haven't ever experienced ad-free mobile browsing. Get them to try Firefox with adblock and they get addicted.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#335

Post by DangitBobby »

unethical_ban wrote: post #280

I have no clue what Manifest V3 is, and more importantly, why Mozilla or anyone except Chrome and Chrome extension developers need to care. It sounds like it is the extension API and process manager for Chrome. In what ways would an end user or website owner notice or care about this change, other than their extensions not working? How does it change default behavior?

It gives extension developers less control and flexibility, making some features more difficult or simply impossible. Notably, it nerfs functionality that ad blockers rely on, so the suspicion is that's pretty much the only reason the change is being made. This will impact you because your ad blocker will suddenly not do as good a job blocking ads, or be more cumbersome to use.

The upside is some poorly behaved extensions will have less impact on browser performance.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#336

Post by guerrilla »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #87
gorhill wrote: post #71

One of the stated goal of MV3 by Google[1] was to avoid extensions with broad permissions: > our new declarativeNetRequest API is designed to be a privacy-preserving method for extensions to block network requests without needing access to sensitive data This MV3-based AdGuard extension still requires a broad permission to "read or modify host data" on all sites[2]: "host_permissions": [ " " ], So what you have now i…

For context, gorhill is the veteran author of original uBlock, and current uBlock Origin. He knows what he's talking about as author, maintainer and one of the community leader/voice of probably the single best and only conflict-of-interest-free ad-blocker currently in existence. His past post[0] was reposted and generated quite a discussion on HN [1]. For further details on why uBO is conflict free, this is the READ…

How is it able to be free without seeking donations? Asking for a friend who's about to get into something.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#337

Post by mastazi »

BrendanEich wrote: post #301
mastazi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's what Brave staff keep repeating but in the meantime all other extensions that need v2 are a pain to install, for example this one https://libredirect.github.io/ requires you to enable dev mode, load the extension and then apply any updates manually. They announced a Brave Extensions Store years ago and there are no news as of today. I'm actually thinking to go back to Firefox because of this.

We never announced an extension store. I said we'd support uBO and uMatrix at least, and we're discussing that with their maintainers now.

> We never announced an extension store.

OK, but IMHO that makes the situation worse, not better

(and by the way, some of your employees did say publicly that work was being done towards it)

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#338

Post by dmos62 »

ehsankia wrote: post #293
nfriedly wrote: post #259

Wow, that whole article and not a single mention of Firefox! Firefox still supports Manifest V2, which allows for more efficient and accurate blocking of advertising. (Among other things.)

Because that's off topic? I'm tired of seeing every single thread about MV3 turn into "Switch to Firefox". Yes, we know about that obvious solution, it's been shouted ad nauseum, I'm interested to see and hear about how ad blockers will work on MV3, not the existing alternative we've already heard about a billion times. Just look at this very thread, every other comment is just about Firefox and not the content of th…

Firefox is the obvious solution to this problem, as you've pointed out. You shouldn't be upset that it's discussed in relation to this.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#339

Post by e3bc54b2 »

guerrilla wrote: post #336
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, gorhill is the veteran author of original uBlock, and current uBlock Origin. He knows what he's talking about as author, maintainer and one of the community leader/voice of probably the single best and only conflict-of-interest-free ad-blocker currently in existence. His past post[0] was reposted and generated quite a discussion on HN [1]. For further details on why uBO is conflict free, this is the READ…

How is it able to be free without seeking donations? Asking for a friend who's about to get into something.

Not everything is about money. Sometimes its principles, sometimes its about giving back to the world, sometimes its the fun of it, or just raw boredom.

I do not claim to know what motivates gorhill, but so far none of his motivations in building uBO seem to be against my own motivation to use it, so it is fine.

Re: AdGuard publishes the first ad blocker built on Manifest V3

#340

Post by Markoff »

Melatonic wrote: post #281
moonchrome wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why not create a ad-free/privacy fork of Chromium. Especially on Mobile, I'd use that for sure. Existing ones have huge strings attached. Mozilla is basically FUBAR at this point.

Firefox on mobile works great for me and has for years?

Does it support such basic features as pull down to refresh or it's still planned for release in 2035? Does it support any extension I wanna use?
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