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Ad-block developers fear end is near for their extensions:
Seven months from now, assuming all goes as planned, Google Chrome will drop support for its legacy extension platform, known as Manifest v2 (Mv2). This is significant if you use a browser extension to, for instance, filter out certain kinds of content and safeguard your privacy.
Google's Chrome Web Store is supposed to stop accepting Mv2 extension submissions sometime this month. As of January 2023, Chrome will stop running extensions created using Mv2, with limited exceptions for enterprise versions of Chrome operating under corporate policy. And by June 2023, even enterprise versions of Chrome will prevent Mv2 extensions from running.
The anticipated result will be fewer extensions and less innovation, according to several extension developers.
Browser extensions such as Ghostery Privacy Ad Blocker, uBlock Origin, and Privacy Badger, along with scripting extensions including TamperMonkey, which are each designed to block adverts and other content and/or protect one's privacy online, are expected to function less effectively, if they can even make the transition from Mv2 to the new approach: Manifest v3.
"If you asked me if we can have a Manifest v3 version of Privacy Badger, my answer is yes, we can and we will," said Alexei Miagkov, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a phone interview with The Register. "But the problem is more insidious. It's that Manifest v3 caps the certain capabilities of extensions and cuts off innovation potential."
Google argues otherwise and maintains its platform renovation will meet developers' needs, including those making tools for content blocking and privacy. The internet titan, which declined to comment on the record, maintains that Mv3 aims to improve privacy by limiting extensions' access to sensitive data and that it has been working with extension developers to balance their needs with those of users.
Google points to past endorsements, such as remarks provided by Sofia Lindberg, tech lead of ad amelioration biz Eyeo, which makes Adblock Plus. "We've been very pleased with the close collaboration established between Google's Chrome Extensions Team and our own engineering team to ensure that ad-blocking extensions will still be available after Manifest v3 takes effect."
[...] Google began work on Manifest v3, the successor to Mv2, in late 2018, ostensibly to make extensions more secure, performant, and private. The company's extension platform renovation was necessary – because extension security problems were rampant – and immediately controversial. An ad company making security claims that, coincidentally, hinder user-deployed content and privacy defenses looks like self-interest.
And Mv3 remains the subject of ongoing debate as the extension platform capabilities and APIs continue to be hammered out. But it has been adopted, with some caveats, by other browser makers, including Apple and Mozilla. Makers of Chromium-based browsers inherit Mv3 and Microsoft has already endorsed the new spec.
Others building atop Chromium like Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi have indicated interest in continuing to support Mv2, though it's unclear whether that will be practical beyond June of next year. If Google removes the Mv2 code from Chromium, maintaining the code in a separate Chromium fork may prove to be too much trouble.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @03:32PM (3 children)
Firefox, here they come.
Trouble is we might be in a race to the bottom. There are already ominous signs like the sponsor links on FF's start page. I went fee-for-service on e-mail a few years ago to avoid the ever-growing nightmare of ads and scripts. Might the browser be the next stop? Could the fee-for-product software business model come off life support and stomp "freemium" and ad-supported? Never say never.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @04:28PM
Firefox already once adopted Chrome's limited extension design back when Quantum first appeared. Why think they wont do the same again?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by owl on Friday June 10 2022, @09:51PM
While a mass exodus to Firefox would be nice, don't bet on seeing one at the beginning.
The number of people who browse the web without any ad blocker is surprisingly larger than those of us here realize. Just read through HN threads watching for the comments about "those ad's were so distracting" from a HN post, and HN likely attracts a more technical crowd than average. If those more technical folks are not blocking ads, you know full well joe average is not.
What will more likely happen is the enthusiast users who do run ad blockers will gradually begin to shift away, slowly at first. But, the "average joe" user typically uses whatever his/her enthusiast friend recommends, so once the 'enthusiast' starts migrating to Firefox, the 'average joe's' will start seeing more recommendations to use Firefox, and then we might begin to see some change in the market-share percentage numbers. But, that change will be time delayed from the Manifest V3 cut over point by enough time that google will likely not realize that MV3 was possibly the driver.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday June 13 2022, @02:50PM
Some of us never stopped using Firefox. I developed an anti-ad attitude many years ago and have been seeking out ways to remove them from my life. Firefox has been a major part of that.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.