Why? Because blocking ads and tracking is a never ending race and content blockers are continuously adding new mechanisms to detect and block ads/trackers. Even if Manifest v3 was able to provide everything content blockers need today, it would still be bad. I think this is missing one of the most important points. If nobody follows Google in their efforts to push for MV3, then we'll be left with a limited browser with limited functionalities and nearly no extensions. MV3 should be the reason why developers should stop building extensions for Chrome, users should stop using Chrome, and other browsers should move to other web engines than Chromium. Google has been an evil company beyond redemption and with a net negative added value to the industry for too long and now it deserves to go down. ![]() Time to let them know that they can't really get away with everything. If they can periodically break the basic functionalities of web extensions however they like (HTTP calls within extensions, background scripts, ability to manipulate the DOM.) just to ensure that people won't manage to block ads and trackers, and they still get developers to build stuff for their browser and they don't lose a single user, they can really get away with EVERYTHING. The only reason why a mediocre ads company like Google is managing to mess up the web is that it has >90% of the browser's market share, if you include all Chromium-based browsers. And boycott any other Chromium-based browser altogether. Just boycott Chrome, as a user and as a developer. ![]() Perhaps if ads can be blocked, so too can updates. No doubt Google has some parallel construction type explanation why users need V3, but how many folks cannot see that they are letting the fox guard the henhouse. Perhaps users will someday "wake up" to realise that so-called updates are not necessarily being remotely installed for their benefit, but for the benefit of someone else. By accepting every "update" without question, the user is effectively consenting to being controlled. Users must "accept" updates which makes one wonder Google can pull this off. Why cannot a user say, "V3 sounds wonderful but I will stick with V2, thank you." A user has a version of a program that works for that user (e.g., with uBlock Origin), and Google can apparently forcibly stop that user from using that working version, through a process of "automatic updates". The idea of user choice in "updating" is completely absent. One of the interesing things about this story is that there appears to be no consideration of not "updating" to a new Chrome version. Manifest V3 removes a robust toolset that content blockers can use the react to all evasion techniques ad companies implement, and the rest of the extension ecosystem will be part of the fallout. Extensions used for page archival will also be impacted. This will no longer be possible to achieve with the current API of Manifest V3. I use this workflow in Search by Image to grab an image from the page context when no CSP headers are present for the asset, and the image is only served if a certain cookie and referrer is sent. Granular control over requests is completely lost in Manifest V3.įor example, with Manifest V2 we can initiate a request from a content script after we begin listening for it from the background script, pass a single-use token in the Accept header, identify the request from the background script based on the token, remove the token from the Accept header and edit other headers before the request is sent to the server, then manipulate the response for that single request and stop listening from the background script.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |