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Manifest V2 phase-out begins

• skilled 2y ago
  Related: Google resumes transition to Manifest V3 for Chrome extensions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292409) - Nov 2023 (131 comments) Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29502439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29502439) - Dec 2021 (375 comments) Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 Is Deceitful and Threatening (2021) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301801) - Nov 2023 (202 comments)
• dvh 2y ago
  Which reputable chromium fork will support v2 extensions?
  • tao_oat 2y ago
    Brave has said that they will: https://x.com/brave/status/1574822799700541446 https://x.com/brave/status/1574822799700541446
    • zerof1l 2y ago
      Anything other than Brave? I tried it for a couple of days and went back to Chrome. Brave is so bloated with random crap.
      • langsoul-com 2y ago
        You have to go to settings and disable everything non core browser related. Including their ad blocker. Then add unlock origin. That more or less makes it a good standard chromium browser.
        • lifeinthevoid 2y ago
          I'm not sure I agree, I run Brave with the standard ad blocking (agressive on Youtube though) and it has been smooth sailing, no ads. What's wrong with Brave's ad blocker according to you?
          • langsoul-com 2y ago
            Youtube detects the ad blocker and blocks watching videos. Might have changed now though
        • kaanyalova 2y ago
          Brave uses uBlock filters, you shouldn't see any difference between them, maybe your filters were outdated?
    • aryonoco 2y ago
      I think they asked for reputable
      • lifeinthevoid 2y ago
        Can you point to some sources for your claim please, I'm using Brave so I'm interested.
        • MyFedora 2y ago
          https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we... https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br... Brave's close association with cryptocurrency and Web 3 is also concerning. Most fraud occurs at the endpoints, not in the middle. While the centralized banking system has mechanisms like chargebacks to address fraud, the crypto space lacks such safeguards. Cryptocurrency has limited real-life utility and is largely sustained by con artists looking to scam people. Once people recognize one scheme as a scam, new crypto concepts, like NFT games, are quickly invented to keep the deception going.
    • LogHouse 2y ago
      But will UBO v2 be updated after manifest 3 goes live?
  • deeringc 2y ago
    Any reason it needs to be a chromium fork, and not simply FF?
  • chrismorgan 2y ago
    I would not trust any claims in this direction. Such things don’t tend to last very long or age very well, because the functionality was being removed for a reason, leading to increasingly large portions of the code base diverging, an ever-increasing maintenance burden, and missing out on genuine improvements from upstream. As an example of this sort of thing, consider when Firefox removed XUL extensions (Firefox 57, November 2017). This upset lots of people, and did kill many extensions that just couldn’t exist in the WebExtensions world, and hobble others. But it was done for a reason, and if you compare pre-Quantum and current Firefox you’ll find one of two is faster, more secure and more reliable: and it ain’t the old one. XUL extensions imposed a serious burden and prevented concrete technical improvements. Of course, other changes may have been made that you may or may not like so much (e.g. UI changes), but the removal of XUL/XPCOM has been a good thing for the browser in general. A number of forks retained XUL extensions, but most died fairly quickly because of code base improvements predicated on their removal. There are still a couple around, I think most notably Pale Moon; they’re all now necessarily hard forks. I don’t know what Pale Moon’s more recent web tech feature support is like—I don’t imagine it’s very good, because it can’t take advantage of Firefox’s efforts. https://www.palemoon.org/history.shtml https://www.palemoon.org/history.shtml paints a fairly bleak picture for the future: things have gone badly wrong already, and they admit that the project is in the long term basically untenable as a general web browser. (That entire article is also highly biased in its presentation of the entire thing, fairly heavily anti-Mozilla and anti-browser-vendors-in-general-though-they-frame-it-as-Google.) Such forks also rapidly decay in usefulness in another way: no one makes XUL extensions any more, and probably no one will be making Manifest v2 extensions any more. For a while, the likes of Pale Moon may have allowed you to keep using more extensions, but by now, using Pale Moon means that you get fewer extensions than Firefox, and so they lose their appeal. There are cases where forks succeed in becoming the primary version of the thing; for example, OpenOffice.org has over time essentially died, and its fork LibreOffice has succeeded. MySQL versus MariaDB is mildly similar, though MySQL’s failure is much less stark. There are also cases where forks have succeeded, with divergence of both. There’s even a good one in the web browser world: when Google forked WebKit into Blink. In that case, both engines were improved by the fork, because WebKit had been supporting two different directions to a degree, and now they could pursue their own individual goals with better focus (both were able to remove lots of code), and both had enough investment to survive. Over time, their code bases have become more and more incompatible. —⁂— So… in a few years’ time, probably no reputable Chromium fork will support v2 extensions, and you probably won’t have any reason to want one that does anyway.
• sharpshadow 2y ago
  I missed this transition phase and don't know what the changes are. Why does Google mention only ad related addons in their blog post? Another comment here posted some previous headlines like "Manifest V3 Is Deceitful and Threatening" which give a clue to the direction I guess. What are Google's intenions with Manifest v3?
  • bakugo 2y ago
    > Why does Google mention only ad related addons in their blog post? Because the main goal of the transition to V3 is to effectively kill adblockers.
    • dualogy 2y ago
      Well at least the techie crowd can still use /etc/hosts (or the equivs on Mac/Win) which, if frequently-enough (weekly, biweekly, even monthly is enough) updated with the https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts (or similar other projects if they exist), seems to "block" ads sufficiently well (no in-page DOM node removals of course, just network-unreachable image/script/iframe/popup URLs).
      • skrause 2y ago
        Even Manifest V3 ad blockers are still a lot more powerful than DNS based blocking.
• michael9423 2y ago
  "This will be followed gradually in the coming months by the disabling of those extensions. Users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store, where they will be recommended Manifest V3 alternatives for their disabled extension." Soon, more than 50 million users of uBlock Origin will have their extension deactivated and directed to "alternatives" chosen by Google. This will be the end of an era where users still had control. gorhill, probably understandably, refuses to update uBlock Origin to comply with V3, as a result he will use the majority of the userbase. The name of his new extension, "uBlock Origin Lite", will also not help with adoption. I wonder whether it would be a wise decision by gorhill to replace uBlock Origin with a V3-compliant version when V2 is phased out.
  • karma_pharmer 2y ago
    > uBlock Origin Lite This guy has two incredible gifts: writing amazingly awesome adblockers, and picking increasingly-awful names for them. I salute you, sir!
    • dspillett 2y ago
      Ignoring that uBlock Origin isn't a good name to start with, uBlock Origin Lite seems perfect for a cut down version of it.
  • emayljames 2y ago
    This is why I do not use any chromium based browsers. Firefox is a solid browser with none of this interferance by a monopolistic advertising company.
    • Fredkin 2y ago
      Firefox receives funding from google. In 2022, 81% of Mozilla's revenues were derived from Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google Use LibreWolf instead.
      • 2y ago
• adamomada 2y ago
  Wouln't it be amazing if Chrome blocking ad-blockers directly causes the renaissance of Firefox?
  • guerrilla 2y ago
    How can we help make sure this happens? What practical steps can we take?
    • Rinzler89 2y ago
      The first step is for Mozilla to finally stop shooting Firefox in the foot by dumbing it down into oblivion, adding unnecessary stuff nobody asked for or removing features people stayed on Firefox for, angering it's loyal userbase in the process and loosing market share. And then we can talk about what WE can do. What I can do, is criticize them and hope they listen. I'm not gonna use a product I dislike just of charity, to boost their marketshare, while they're swimming in those sweet Google dollarydoos and ignoring their long term users.
      • guerrilla 2y ago
        There isn't anything we can do about that. We need to accept it's our best alternative despite being imperfect and figure out what we can do to popularize it.
        • Rinzler89 2y ago
          It's not my job to do any of that as I'm not a Mozilla employee. It's their job. I'm a user, and as a user I use the best tool for me because it's a tool, not a religion I must preach to others.
          • guerrilla 2y ago
            This is a terrible attitude. It has nothing to do with anyone's job. It's in our interest to make sure we have an alternative to use.
• magicalhippo 2y ago
  The #1 reason I run ad blockers is to defend against malware and such. There have been several documented cases where compromised ad networks have served exploits causing major issues, like getting your bank accounts drained. Thus a sufficiently good ad blocker is non-negotiable for me. So far Firefox has been serving me very well as my primary browser both on desktop and mobile for a long time now.
• guilhas 2y ago
  Chrome thought process Random websites: "they need access to your filesystem, USBs, GPU, Bluetooth..." Extensions installed by the user, and reviewed by google to be in the store: "those are too dangerous, need to be limited" Personally I am rooting for the retun of host wide Ad blockers like Proxomitron, privoxy, with https support
  • andyferris 2y ago
    It makes more sense when you see it from Google’s perspective. The danger is to their ad revenue, not the user. Giving more of your PC to websites means you’ll likely use the web more and consume more ads.
• vitonsky 2y ago
  Manifest V3 will affect on UX of many extensions. For an instance, i've built a Linguist, is a full featured translation in browser that may translate even offline (with embedded Bergamot translator of Mozilla) https://github.com/translate-tools/linguist https://github.com/translate-tools/linguist One of important Linguist features is that user able to use custom translators, it means user may insert their javascript code that implements a translator class, and then use their custom translator. So it is possible to use ChatGPT as translation module in Linguist, or even local instance of LLAMA, any proprietary translation service API, etc. But with manifest V3, google also ban RCE (remote code execution), so probably when i will implement a feature "custom translators store" where will be present a lot of custom translators from a github, and this feature will fetch their code when user press "install", a google will ban this version, and i will be forced to roll back this feature for chrome, and leave it as is in Firefox. As result, a Chrome users will always have a "simplified" versions of features and we will have inversed case with Browser API features (when site tell you "go chrome to run my features"). An extensions will notify their users "go firefox to have all features like a custom translators store or ads blocker". Is this a distributed and balkanized web3?
  • afiori 2y ago
    If you include a hash/signatures of the js scripts in the store in the source of your app and only import maching sources does it still count as RCE? In a sense one could claim that the hash is a "compressed" version of the code. I am not saying that it is a good solution or anything, just wondering about how "Remote" is defined.
    • vitonsky 2y ago
      I think it will does not work. Here their explanation: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/remote-hosted-code https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate... Of course I will fight to keep features in both browsers, but chrome really fight for money and against a good UX
• lifeinthevoid 2y ago
  I'm very worried over the fact that Google is more and more becoming the de facto gatekeeper to the internet. There's still Firefox and Safari, but Firefox feels like it's dying, while Safari's user numbers will take a hit after the EU's decision to loosen iOS browser restrictions. The internet almost feels as important than the real, physical world. Imagine being bombarded with ads in real life. A lot of the tech-savy people use adblockers to make the internet experience tolerable, but once Google figures out how to stop all ad blocking and no other browser exists, it's game over. I hope that situation will spark a flame in the tech community to do something about the ad-driven internet as it exists today.
• defrost 2y ago
  Apparently users with the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will be spared until June 2025. https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#ExtensionManifestV2Availability https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#ExtensionManifestV... That's setting a registry value and having Chrome settings pages telling you that "Your browser is managed" for another six months of V2 uBlock Origin.
• renegat0x0 2y ago
  Will Firefox and its derivatives follow? Is it already official? I would be interested in transition to waterfox if Firefox ditches manifest v2
• DamnInteresting 2y ago
  I have a Manifest v2 extension in the Chrome Web Store, it works absolutely fine, and there is no reasonable reason to change it. But Google says they'll de-list it if I don't rewrite it for Manifest v3. I don't wish to donate my scarce free time to a multi-billion dollar corporation so they can make the world worse.