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I don't mean to be a google apologist, but the changes basically align with Apple's browser/content APIs that they introduced in like 2016. Web extensions are a

I don't mean to be a google apologist, but the changes basically align with Apple's browser/content APIs that they introduced in like 2016. Web extensions are a massive privacy and security hole that users unwittingly opt themselves into. I mean, the articles explains how dangerous extensions are: > Manifest V3, or Mv3 for short, is outright harmful to privacy efforts. It will restrict the capabilities of web extensions—especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute alongside the conversation your browser has with the websites you visit. Yes. Exactly! That's the point - it restricts the ability for extensions to monitor, snoop, and steal content from every website you browse.

ComradeMatis 3y ago
Apologies for the late reply but let's assume we take what you say on face value, there is still a laundry list of limitations that the developer of uBlock Origin have outlined two years ago that the developers of MV3 have flat out refused to address - abritrary limits in terms of the number of filters, talking about regressions, Google flat out refusing to provide extensions for Chrome for Android not to mention when you try the MV3 version of the ad blockers they're a pale shadow of their former self - uBlock Origin Lite block ads but pop up windows still appear but with the message that it has been blocked (telling me after the window open kind of defeats the purpose of it in the first place), then I tried AdGuard which lets through huge numbers of ads etc. basically it is a crippled experience and the only one who benefits is Google's ad division.
ahartmetz 3y ago
What if you trust your extensions more than the websites you visit? You will have a few extensions and hundreds or thousands of websites.
- pvg 3y ago
  It's very difficult for users to make these decisions in an informed way, for either websites or extensions. The browser highly distrusts websites by default and doesn't give users many options to change that. Plus most people have some notion of how trustworthy 'the internet' is and act accordingly. This isn't the case for extensions and I think it's become clear over the years it can't be fixed with various trust knobs so they're left with fiddling with the capabilities/trying to fix the overly permissive design.
  - gustavus 3y ago
    The old "but think of the old people argument" used to remove our ownership of our devices and freedom to do what we want. Either it is my device that I own and I can make decisions for or it isn't, and if it doesn't belong to me then who does it belong to?
    - dwaite 3y ago
      Inter-networked connectivity made this style ownership model untenable though since the 90s - the amount of harm an application can do now that it can receive remote instructions and siphon off data has increased. Hence software publication tied to real-world identity, sandboxing to reduce access to local sensitive data, entitlements to enumerate needs for local capabilities and a review process both to restrict unnecessary entitlements and put additional non-technically-enforceable restrictions on software. Maybe if GDPR-like regulations were not laxly enforced or non-existent, the platforms would need to do less policing themselves.
  - duped 3y ago
    This is extremely patronizing to users.
    - kaibee 3y ago
      'users' is an extremely broad category. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution. There's probably some hundred million users who can, on average, make good decisions about extensions. There's also hundreds of millions of users who are children or are otherwise unable to make good decisions about extensions. Google, corporations in general, will force a 1 size fits all solution even when it doesn't, because it is cheaper/more profitable.
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      How am I supposed to understand whether extensions are stealing my data? I've made browser extensions and I find it difficult to make an informed decision!
    - 3y ago
- soraminazuki 3y ago
  Even more, what if you trust uBO more than Google Chrome?
  - NOWHERE_ 3y ago
    I do, that’s why I use firefox.
AlexandrB 3y ago
> Yes. Exactly! That's the point - it restricts the ability for extensions to monitor, snoop, and steal content from every website you browse. Does it though? The webRequest API still exists in MV3, but as read-only. So if you're interested in snooping everything you still can. > That’s because Manifest V3 doesn’t change the observational APIs available to extensions. (For extension developers, that means Manifest V3 isn’t changing the observational parts of chrome.webRequest.) In other words, Manifest V3 will still allow extensions to observe the same data as before, including what URLs users visit and the contents of pages users visit.[1] [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/googles-plans-chrome-extensions-wont-really-help-security https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/googles-plans-chrome-e...
- lima 3y ago
  With Manifest v3, you can get adblocking without having to trust your adblocker extension, like on Safari. That's a significant benefit. You can still opt into having your data stolen, but now it's no longer a requirement for adblocking.
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    Except then, like safari, the size of your blocklist is limited by what the browser allows. Manifest V3 versions of extensions like uBlock Origin will be less effective at blocking ads and trackers.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    Or, you could use Firefox and you could have both APIs available to you and you could choose whether you wanted strong adblocking or fewer extension permissions. Manifest V3 doesn't get rid of the permissions that allow an extension to spy on you. Yes, you can choose not to install extensions that use those permissions (although the current webextension permissions system is chock-full of holes and Manifest V3 still has many of those holes). But you can already make that choice. You can go to Firefox and install Ublock Origin Lite right now today if you want to make that choice: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin-lite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... It's available on both Chrome and Firefox and you can install it and only grant it the blocking permission and nothing else. Removing the blocking web request API in Manifest V3 does nothing to improve security. It doesn't offer you new choices, it just removes your choice to use a more powerful adblocker if you need one.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Awesome! So I can turn that off if I'm confident about a particular extension, right? No? OK so it's just another land grab taking more from users and giving it to Google. The enshitification continues, and apparently we should thank Google for the privilege.
babypuncher 3y ago
But it also restricts everyone's ability to write and use extensions that give better privacy on the internet. The existence of malicious extensions is worth having that ability.
danShumway 3y ago
> but the changes basically align with Apple's browser/content APIs that they introduced in like 2016 This, but Apple's changes are just as bad and should be used as evidence of how this kind of restriction can go wrong, not how it can go right. Adblocking capabilities on Safari are unarguably weaker than they are on Chrome and Firefox. People will occasionally get upset at me when I say this, but it's really not debatable, there is a reason why uBlock Origin is not on Safari. There is a reason why the best adblocking apps for Safari run as desktop applications and then communicate with an extension. Safari has a ton of other great privacy features, but adblocking is not one of them. So when we talk about how Manifest V3 is going to harm adblockers, we have good reason to make that claim -- we can look at Safari and see how it played out when Safari did the same thing. > That's the point - it restricts the ability for extensions to monitor, snoop, and steal content from every website you browse. Most of the changes in Manifest V3 are actually pretty good, especially changes around the permission models. Active click is great, the optional permissions improvements are good. I understand why people are phrasing this as "Manifest V3" because you need a name for it, but I hope it's not lost in this conversation that Firefox is also moving forward with its own implementation of Manifest V3 and it has the vast majority of the privacy improvements and almost none of the downsides. Getting rid of blocking request handlers doesn't really improve privacy. Active tab permissions and optional runtime permissions improve privacy. When people talk about Manifest V3 being bad, what they usually mean is the extra restrictions Google has imposed on top of the privacy stuff; restrictions that do very little if anything to improve privacy (seriously, it is still trivial to spy on users using Chrome's Manifest V3 across all sites) but that cripple adblockers. It's possible to get the privacy improvements without the downsides.
- dwaite 3y ago
  > There is a reason why the best adblocking apps for Safari run as desktop applications and then communicate with an extension. This is the only supported model for web extensions under Safari. There are no pure JavaScript distributions, they must be in an app.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    I'm not just talking about distribution (although you are correct to bring up that restriction, because it's also a kind of wild idea for extension security) -- I'm talking about just how much logic is fully moved outside of Safari. Adguard was (I haven't checked in a while, maybe it still is) one of the more popular Safari content blockers for Mac, and it shipped with an Electron app -- and one that had to actually be running with a tray icon and everything at the same time as the browser. This is not a model that any other browser maker should be trying to copy. I feel like if we're looking at browser adblockers and they're setting up system trays and system-level proxies just so they can do basic stuff like HTML rewriting, then that's not something the browser maker should be proud of. Congrats, people can't spy on your browser's web-traffic anymore, instead they have to MITM their entire computer. It's possible to make something so restrictive that the end result is that people are actually less secure, because they're forced to compromise security at much lower levels in order to get that basic functionality back. Safari's current extension ecosystem is a great example of that.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
The changes are great. I want those restrictions applied to 99% of all extensions. It's just that uBlock Origin is so important and trusted it should be an exception.
- hooverd 3y ago
  You could have a robust permissions models that disallows it by default, but Google would never want that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wvenable 3y ago
Browsers are massive privacy and security holes that users opt themselves into. My browser, with manifest v2 web extensions installed, is arguably more private and secure than your browser without them.
grotorea 3y ago
It is at most as dangerous, probably less, as any other software I install on my computer. Why should I be allowed to install arbitrary PC software but not extensions?
- orangecat 3y ago
  Why should I be allowed to install arbitrary PC software but not extensions? Well, we know Apple's answer to that...
- ragnese 3y ago
  Guess what they're going to come for next? Tangentially, I remember how utterly disgusted I was when I first started seeing people on Reddit chastising others for rooting their Android phones. They'd keep saying that it's a "security risk" for me to have root... on MY device. I can feel my blood pressure rising just from typing that...

ComradeMatis 3y ago

Apologies for the late reply but let's assume we take what you say on face value, there is still a laundry list of limitations that the developer of uBlock Origin have outlined two years ago that the developers of MV3 have flat out refused to address - abritrary limits in terms of the number of filters, talking about regressions, Google flat out refusing to provide extensions for Chrome for Android not to mention when you try the MV3 version of the ad blockers they're a pale shadow of their former self - uBlock Origin Lite block ads but pop up windows still appear but with the message that it has been blocked (telling me after the window open kind of defeats the purpose of it in the first place), then I tried AdGuard which lets through huge numbers of ads etc. basically it is a crippled experience and the only one who benefits is Google's ad division.

ahartmetz 3y ago

What if you trust your extensions more than the websites you visit? You will have a few extensions and hundreds or thousands of websites.

pvg 3y ago
It's very difficult for users to make these decisions in an informed way, for either websites or extensions. The browser highly distrusts websites by default and doesn't give users many options to change that. Plus most people have some notion of how trustworthy 'the internet' is and act accordingly. This isn't the case for extensions and I think it's become clear over the years it can't be fixed with various trust knobs so they're left with fiddling with the capabilities/trying to fix the overly permissive design.
- gustavus 3y ago
  The old "but think of the old people argument" used to remove our ownership of our devices and freedom to do what we want. Either it is my device that I own and I can make decisions for or it isn't, and if it doesn't belong to me then who does it belong to?
  - dwaite 3y ago
    Inter-networked connectivity made this style ownership model untenable though since the 90s - the amount of harm an application can do now that it can receive remote instructions and siphon off data has increased. Hence software publication tied to real-world identity, sandboxing to reduce access to local sensitive data, entitlements to enumerate needs for local capabilities and a review process both to restrict unnecessary entitlements and put additional non-technically-enforceable restrictions on software. Maybe if GDPR-like regulations were not laxly enforced or non-existent, the platforms would need to do less policing themselves.
- duped 3y ago
  This is extremely patronizing to users.
  - kaibee 3y ago
    'users' is an extremely broad category. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution. There's probably some hundred million users who can, on average, make good decisions about extensions. There's also hundreds of millions of users who are children or are otherwise unable to make good decisions about extensions. Google, corporations in general, will force a 1 size fits all solution even when it doesn't, because it is cheaper/more profitable.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    How am I supposed to understand whether extensions are stealing my data? I've made browser extensions and I find it difficult to make an informed decision!
  - 3y ago
soraminazuki 3y ago
Even more, what if you trust uBO more than Google Chrome?
- NOWHERE_ 3y ago
  I do, that’s why I use firefox.

AlexandrB 3y ago

> Yes. Exactly! That's the point - it restricts the ability for extensions to monitor, snoop, and steal content from every website you browse. Does it though? The webRequest API still exists in MV3, but as read-only. So if you're interested in snooping everything you still can. > That’s because Manifest V3 doesn’t change the observational APIs available to extensions. (For extension developers, that means Manifest V3 isn’t changing the observational parts of chrome.webRequest.) In other words, Manifest V3 will still allow extensions to observe the same data as before, including what URLs users visit and the contents of pages users visit.[1] [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/googles-plans-chrome-extensions-wont-really-help-security https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/googles-plans-chrome-e...

lima 3y ago
With Manifest v3, you can get adblocking without having to trust your adblocker extension, like on Safari. That's a significant benefit. You can still opt into having your data stolen, but now it's no longer a requirement for adblocking.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  Except then, like safari, the size of your blocklist is limited by what the browser allows. Manifest V3 versions of extensions like uBlock Origin will be less effective at blocking ads and trackers.
- danShumway 3y ago
  Or, you could use Firefox and you could have both APIs available to you and you could choose whether you wanted strong adblocking or fewer extension permissions. Manifest V3 doesn't get rid of the permissions that allow an extension to spy on you. Yes, you can choose not to install extensions that use those permissions (although the current webextension permissions system is chock-full of holes and Manifest V3 still has many of those holes). But you can already make that choice. You can go to Firefox and install Ublock Origin Lite right now today if you want to make that choice: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin-lite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... It's available on both Chrome and Firefox and you can install it and only grant it the blocking permission and nothing else. Removing the blocking web request API in Manifest V3 does nothing to improve security. It doesn't offer you new choices, it just removes your choice to use a more powerful adblocker if you need one.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

Awesome! So I can turn that off if I'm confident about a particular extension, right? No? OK so it's just another land grab taking more from users and giving it to Google. The enshitification continues, and apparently we should thank Google for the privilege.

babypuncher 3y ago

But it also restricts everyone's ability to write and use extensions that give better privacy on the internet. The existence of malicious extensions is worth having that ability.

danShumway 3y ago

> but the changes basically align with Apple's browser/content APIs that they introduced in like 2016 This, but Apple's changes are just as bad and should be used as evidence of how this kind of restriction can go wrong, not how it can go right. Adblocking capabilities on Safari are unarguably weaker than they are on Chrome and Firefox. People will occasionally get upset at me when I say this, but it's really not debatable, there is a reason why uBlock Origin is not on Safari. There is a reason why the best adblocking apps for Safari run as desktop applications and then communicate with an extension. Safari has a ton of other great privacy features, but adblocking is not one of them. So when we talk about how Manifest V3 is going to harm adblockers, we have good reason to make that claim -- we can look at Safari and see how it played out when Safari did the same thing. > That's the point - it restricts the ability for extensions to monitor, snoop, and steal content from every website you browse. Most of the changes in Manifest V3 are actually pretty good, especially changes around the permission models. Active click is great, the optional permissions improvements are good. I understand why people are phrasing this as "Manifest V3" because you need a name for it, but I hope it's not lost in this conversation that Firefox is also moving forward with its own implementation of Manifest V3 and it has the vast majority of the privacy improvements and almost none of the downsides. Getting rid of blocking request handlers doesn't really improve privacy. Active tab permissions and optional runtime permissions improve privacy. When people talk about Manifest V3 being bad, what they usually mean is the extra restrictions Google has imposed on top of the privacy stuff; restrictions that do very little if anything to improve privacy (seriously, it is still trivial to spy on users using Chrome's Manifest V3 across all sites) but that cripple adblockers. It's possible to get the privacy improvements without the downsides.

dwaite 3y ago
> There is a reason why the best adblocking apps for Safari run as desktop applications and then communicate with an extension. This is the only supported model for web extensions under Safari. There are no pure JavaScript distributions, they must be in an app.
- danShumway 3y ago
  I'm not just talking about distribution (although you are correct to bring up that restriction, because it's also a kind of wild idea for extension security) -- I'm talking about just how much logic is fully moved outside of Safari. Adguard was (I haven't checked in a while, maybe it still is) one of the more popular Safari content blockers for Mac, and it shipped with an Electron app -- and one that had to actually be running with a tray icon and everything at the same time as the browser. This is not a model that any other browser maker should be trying to copy. I feel like if we're looking at browser adblockers and they're setting up system trays and system-level proxies just so they can do basic stuff like HTML rewriting, then that's not something the browser maker should be proud of. Congrats, people can't spy on your browser's web-traffic anymore, instead they have to MITM their entire computer. It's possible to make something so restrictive that the end result is that people are actually less secure, because they're forced to compromise security at much lower levels in order to get that basic functionality back. Safari's current extension ecosystem is a great example of that.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

The changes are great. I want those restrictions applied to 99% of all extensions. It's just that uBlock Origin is so important and trusted it should be an exception.

hooverd 3y ago
You could have a robust permissions models that disallows it by default, but Google would never want that.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wvenable 3y ago

Browsers are massive privacy and security holes that users opt themselves into. My browser, with manifest v2 web extensions installed, is arguably more private and secure than your browser without them.

grotorea 3y ago

It is at most as dangerous, probably less, as any other software I install on my computer. Why should I be allowed to install arbitrary PC software but not extensions?

orangecat 3y ago
Why should I be allowed to install arbitrary PC software but not extensions? Well, we know Apple's answer to that...
ragnese 3y ago
Guess what they're going to come for next? Tangentially, I remember how utterly disgusted I was when I first started seeing people on Reddit chastising others for rooting their Android phones. They'd keep saying that it's a "security risk" for me to have root... on MY device. I can feel my blood pressure rising just from typing that...