Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#71

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

kreetx wrote: post #17

pkulak wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption is that Firefox will be implementing the standard, but not the restrictions. Am I wrong there?

I'd guess even if Firefox did keep extensions unrestricted then slowly they would die away - given how much smaller the user base will be. We need some new power to emerge in this space.

If Firefox keeps full extension capability, as a superset of Chrome's gimped implementation, then extension developers can decide how they want to handle the incompatibility.

I don't really get how the extension ecosystem works anyway -- extension developers are usually just sharing something they use to be helpful/make a point, and then some tack on donations thing, right? Since nobody is doing this to get rich I suspect they won't chase marketshare.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#72

Post by NewEntryHN » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

kreetx wrote: post #17

pkulak wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption is that Firefox will be implementing the standard, but not the restrictions. Am I wrong there?

I'd guess even if Firefox did keep extensions unrestricted then slowly they would die away - given how much smaller the user base will be. We need some new power to emerge in this space.

There is surely a bias between users of extensions of uBlock Origin and users of Firefox. The userbase is still smaller, but maybe not enough to completely throw away development.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#73

Post by readflaggedcomm » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

power78 wrote: post #59

donatj wrote: post #47

I miss the early days of Firefox extensions (circa 2004) where an extension could in very powerful ways completely change the layout/functionality of your browser; when they had near unlimited access to the XUL and could change anything and everything. I used a ton of very useful extensions then. Nested tabs were one of my favorites. These days I've got a password manager, a bookmark checker, and a tab manager I wrot…

I wish Firefox would have left the old extension abilities. They could have easily added the WebExtensions standard to allow for cross-browser compatibility and not removed the old functionality.

They basically did, until the underlying browser became incompatible. That was the point: to have a stable API instead of extensions relying on implementation details, which includes multiple processes.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#74

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #5

If Chrome can kill uBlock and use its dominance to do user-hostile stuff, and Firefox goes along "in the interest of cross-browser compatibility", then what the hell's the point of Firefox in the first place?

They should probably just special case uBlock Origin at this point. It's too important an extension to allow it to be limited.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#75

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

dessant wrote: post #55

xxpor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do people get this sense of entitlement from? Please cite one law you believe Google has broken.

> Where do people get this sense of entitlement from? Please cite one law you believe Google has broken. Just like Amazon (your employer), Google has also been fined several times in the past decade for illegal business practices. Their illegal activities are extensively documented, and in some cases they were forced to change course due to regulatory intervention. Feel free to look it up, I don't think there is a ne…

No you have to understand, as long as a company doesn't commit enough crimes to be literally run out of business, we have to pretend it is good for some reason.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#76

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

One option is to just move away from browsers entirely. We can take some of the good things. Like maybe a small subset of HTML and web assembly. Add some minimal IO to web assembly.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#77

Post by NewEntryHN » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #68

ineptech wrote: post #5

If Chrome can kill uBlock and use its dominance to do user-hostile stuff, and Firefox goes along "in the interest of cross-browser compatibility", then what the hell's the point of Firefox in the first place?

If they do that, it will be forked.

Firefox has already been forked multiple times because of decisions from Mozilla, see [Pale Moon](https://www.palemoon.org/) or [Waterfox](https://www.waterfox.net/). Few people use those forks, for the simple reason that what has been removed from Firefox is not game-changing enough to mandate an exodus. However I agree that removing support for uBlock Origin will surely be another story.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#78

Post by readflaggedcomm » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #26

The security argument seems pretty simple. The end goal is that legit extensions that people regularly install should not need to ask for dangerous permissions, because a) it teaches the users that it's normal and b) since the extensions can become compromised later and abuse the permissions. Adblockers are probably the most common kind of extension, and are currently granted effectively unlimited access to read and…

The browser team could implement the ad blocker itself, instead of relying on third-party code. But even the apparently-best one of those (Brave) has a lousy interface for it.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#79

Post by hippofever » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #47

I miss the early days of Firefox extensions (circa 2004) where an extension could in very powerful ways completely change the layout/functionality of your browser; when they had near unlimited access to the XUL and could change anything and everything. I used a ton of very useful extensions then. Nested tabs were one of my favorites. These days I've got a password manager, a bookmark checker, and a tab manager I wrot…

Take a look at http://nyxt.atlas.engineer/.

It's written to be extensible/introspectable, and the extension language is Common Lisp.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#80

Post by celdon25 » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

NewEntryHN wrote: post #77

tomjen3 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they do that, it will be forked.

Firefox has already been forked multiple times because of decisions from Mozilla, see [Pale Moon]( https://www.palemoon.org/ ) or [Waterfox]( https://www.waterfox.net/ ). Few people use those forks, for the simple reason that what has been removed from Firefox is not game-changing enough to mandate an exodus. However I agree that removing support for uBlock Origin will surely be another story.

Just wanted to leave a reminder here that low user count does not necessarily imply low utility. The goal of a fork isn't to become the next monopoly.