7 ms·

Manifest V3 changes are now available to test in Microsoft Edge

43 points by jiripospisil 6y ago

TimTheTinker 6y ago
Does this mean uBlock Origin will stop working in Edge as well as in Chrome? Or will Edge still support v2?
- ehsankia 6y ago
  Does it actually stop working, or will it just be slightly more limited?
  - danShumway 6y ago
    As far as I know, Gorhill has no interest in porting it to use a separate API, so effectively it will stop working even if in theory you could have a more limited fork. I might be wrong on that though, please jump in if there are plans I don't know about. It's surprising to me that Microsoft is planning to deprecate the old API, I thought their plan was to support both in parallel. Surprising and disappointing, I haven't seen any indication that the fundamental problems with the declarative API were ever addressed.
    - kgwxd 6y ago
      I don't think it's that Gorhill doesn't want to port to a separate API, it's that they have no interest in making a crippled blocker.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Manifest V3 as specified by google isn't a slight limitation. You must ship your much smaller block list with your extension and only update it with extension updates and due to effectively being limited to only providing a slightly different list of sites to block instead of methodology of blocking your ability to block an evolving threat will be limited to how fast google an ad company opts to evolve their technology to block their own revenue stream. It only wont immediately appear as the total destruction of adblocking because it will require months for people to all adopt new browser versions and developers are likely to take months to adapt their tech to the point where your adblocker effectively stops working for 90% of ads after which it will basically never work again.
- eznzt 6y ago
  Aw! I hope not. I switched to Edge recently and I've been happy with it. That would mean having to go back to Vivaldi :/
  - amanzi 6y ago
    I switched to Edge from Firefox for a couple of weeks. Works well but I'm back on Firefox now - there are a couple of Firefox features I've come to rely on like the containers and the sidebar.
    - cute_boi 6y ago
      Yep I must say containers are best thing in firefox.
  - TimTheTinker 6y ago
    Have you tried Brave?
dessant 6y ago
It's unfortunate that Microsoft has joined the webRequest API deprecation club, though it's not too surprising, after all they are also in the advertising business, and it makes no sense to maintain a Chromium patch that could actually be detrimental to their revenue. Innovation around ad blockers will now be largely constrained by browser vendors evolving the declarativeNetRequest API. Mediocre ad blockers like Adblock Plus will happily adapt to the new limited API to fill in any void created by uBlock Origin, and most users will not immediately notice the damage that has been done.
- danShumway 6y ago
  Has Firefox's position on this changed? Do they still plan to keep the blocking webRequest API supported, at least for now?
  - dessant 6y ago
    Mozilla has not yet taken a clear and supportive position on the issue of blocking with the webRequest API, though they are planning to implement Manifest V3 in some form.
    - dblohm7 6y ago
      https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-manifest-v3-faq/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-manifest...
      - dessant 6y ago
        I'm aware of the blog post, but "no immediate plans" is not as reassuring as it needs to be for users to switch browsers, and for extension developers to invest in the platform. > 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. I think stronger language is needed to reassure people that continuing to offer powerful extension APIs is truly important for Mozilla.
blibble 6y ago
well, there goes the only reason for considering using Edge over Chrome or Chromium
acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago
The worse Chromium gets the better. It will take decades to reverse the damage that HN and many web developers did by pushing a single browser engine instead of fighting back. Next, Microsoft needs to get on top again and show Google how it's done. OG monopolism. Finally some blood!
- keanebean86 6y ago
  I'm holding out for Opera to open source Presto. Those sick of Chrome's stranglehold come together to modernize and promote Presto Reborn. Really though I agree. Now is far better that the darkest IE days but we're heading down a really bad path.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Here lies any hope that Microsoft would handle their fork with more decency and user respect than Google's version. It boggles the mind why Microsoft is bothering to fork Chrome at all if they're going to go through with Manifest V3.
wayneftw 6y ago
According to Wired [0] > the new API will limit extensions to 150,000 rules each, a big jump from the old limit of 30,000 rules per extension Couldn’t someone make separate extensions for each block list and break them into 150k chunks? [0] https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blockers-extensions-api/ https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blockers-extens...
- gorhill 6y ago
  That article is more than one year old, I prefer to rely on current documentation for reference[1], which says maximum number of rules is 30,000. * * * [1] https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetRequest#property-MAX_NUMBER_OF_RULES https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReques...
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    Thanks. How many filters are there in total? We could still have an extension that splits lists up into 30k chunks. I’ll gladly install 10-20 extensions if I have to, along with a master extension that handles cosmetic filtering.
    - jsmith45 6y ago
      Currently for EasyList, once one removes element hiding rules, since those don't work via network blocking, you are left with about ~33k rules. The list could easily be shrunken by combining some of those rules into regex based rules. Indeed, enormous regex based rules used to be common in the early days, but seem to have fallen out of favor. I'm guessing that it turns out that they were slower, or one of the major extensions did not support them or something. There is some form of complexity limit for regex based entries, and only 1000 of them are allowed per extension's static list (an additional 1000 are allowed for the dynamic blocklists). But I'd be pretty surprised if they were so limited they could not bring EasyList back within the 30k limit. So basically, if there is no global limit being applied, one would probably need about one extension per major blocklist, with smaller blocklists potentially being able to be combined into shared extensions.
XzetaU8 6y ago
"Opera, Brave, Vivaldi to ignore Chrome's anti-ad-blocker changes, despite shared codebase" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20137669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20137669
cute_boi 6y ago
Yea yea ad company like microsoft and google are ruining the world. Ads Sucks. and specially nude ads on twitch. I am sorry but ads sucks in reality.

43 points by jiripospisil 6y ago

TimTheTinker 6y ago

Does this mean uBlock Origin will stop working in Edge as well as in Chrome? Or will Edge still support v2?

ehsankia 6y ago
Does it actually stop working, or will it just be slightly more limited?
- danShumway 6y ago
  As far as I know, Gorhill has no interest in porting it to use a separate API, so effectively it will stop working even if in theory you could have a more limited fork. I might be wrong on that though, please jump in if there are plans I don't know about. It's surprising to me that Microsoft is planning to deprecate the old API, I thought their plan was to support both in parallel. Surprising and disappointing, I haven't seen any indication that the fundamental problems with the declarative API were ever addressed.
  - kgwxd 6y ago
    I don't think it's that Gorhill doesn't want to port to a separate API, it's that they have no interest in making a crippled blocker.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Manifest V3 as specified by google isn't a slight limitation. You must ship your much smaller block list with your extension and only update it with extension updates and due to effectively being limited to only providing a slightly different list of sites to block instead of methodology of blocking your ability to block an evolving threat will be limited to how fast google an ad company opts to evolve their technology to block their own revenue stream. It only wont immediately appear as the total destruction of adblocking because it will require months for people to all adopt new browser versions and developers are likely to take months to adapt their tech to the point where your adblocker effectively stops working for 90% of ads after which it will basically never work again.
eznzt 6y ago
Aw! I hope not. I switched to Edge recently and I've been happy with it. That would mean having to go back to Vivaldi :/
- amanzi 6y ago
  I switched to Edge from Firefox for a couple of weeks. Works well but I'm back on Firefox now - there are a couple of Firefox features I've come to rely on like the containers and the sidebar.
  - cute_boi 6y ago
    Yep I must say containers are best thing in firefox.
- TimTheTinker 6y ago
  Have you tried Brave?

dessant 6y ago

It's unfortunate that Microsoft has joined the webRequest API deprecation club, though it's not too surprising, after all they are also in the advertising business, and it makes no sense to maintain a Chromium patch that could actually be detrimental to their revenue. Innovation around ad blockers will now be largely constrained by browser vendors evolving the declarativeNetRequest API. Mediocre ad blockers like Adblock Plus will happily adapt to the new limited API to fill in any void created by uBlock Origin, and most users will not immediately notice the damage that has been done.

danShumway 6y ago
Has Firefox's position on this changed? Do they still plan to keep the blocking webRequest API supported, at least for now?
- dessant 6y ago
  Mozilla has not yet taken a clear and supportive position on the issue of blocking with the webRequest API, though they are planning to implement Manifest V3 in some form.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-manifest-v3-faq/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-manifest...
    - dessant 6y ago
      I'm aware of the blog post, but "no immediate plans" is not as reassuring as it needs to be for users to switch browsers, and for extension developers to invest in the platform. > 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. I think stronger language is needed to reassure people that continuing to offer powerful extension APIs is truly important for Mozilla.

blibble 6y ago

well, there goes the only reason for considering using Edge over Chrome or Chromium

acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago

The worse Chromium gets the better. It will take decades to reverse the damage that HN and many web developers did by pushing a single browser engine instead of fighting back. Next, Microsoft needs to get on top again and show Google how it's done. OG monopolism. Finally some blood!

keanebean86 6y ago
I'm holding out for Opera to open source Presto. Those sick of Chrome's stranglehold come together to modernize and promote Presto Reborn. Really though I agree. Now is far better that the darkest IE days but we're heading down a really bad path.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Here lies any hope that Microsoft would handle their fork with more decency and user respect than Google's version. It boggles the mind why Microsoft is bothering to fork Chrome at all if they're going to go through with Manifest V3.

wayneftw 6y ago

According to Wired [0] > the new API will limit extensions to 150,000 rules each, a big jump from the old limit of 30,000 rules per extension Couldn’t someone make separate extensions for each block list and break them into 150k chunks? [0] https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blockers-extensions-api/ https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blockers-extens...

gorhill 6y ago
That article is more than one year old, I prefer to rely on current documentation for reference[1], which says maximum number of rules is 30,000. * * * [1] https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetRequest#property-MAX_NUMBER_OF_RULES https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReques...
- wayneftw 6y ago
  Thanks. How many filters are there in total? We could still have an extension that splits lists up into 30k chunks. I’ll gladly install 10-20 extensions if I have to, along with a master extension that handles cosmetic filtering.
  - jsmith45 6y ago
    Currently for EasyList, once one removes element hiding rules, since those don't work via network blocking, you are left with about ~33k rules. The list could easily be shrunken by combining some of those rules into regex based rules. Indeed, enormous regex based rules used to be common in the early days, but seem to have fallen out of favor. I'm guessing that it turns out that they were slower, or one of the major extensions did not support them or something. There is some form of complexity limit for regex based entries, and only 1000 of them are allowed per extension's static list (an additional 1000 are allowed for the dynamic blocklists). But I'd be pretty surprised if they were so limited they could not bring EasyList back within the 30k limit. So basically, if there is no global limit being applied, one would probably need about one extension per major blocklist, with smaller blocklists potentially being able to be combined into shared extensions.

XzetaU8 6y ago

"Opera, Brave, Vivaldi to ignore Chrome's anti-ad-blocker changes, despite shared codebase" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20137669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20137669

cute_boi 6y ago

Yea yea ad company like microsoft and google are ruining the world. Ads Sucks. and specially nude ads on twitch. I am sorry but ads sucks in reality.