5 ms·

There is no such thing as non-Google Android. At most you have people applying tiny patches on top of AOSP, but 100% of the code in the underlying project is st

by paxys 9mo ago

There is no such thing as non-Google Android. At most you have people applying tiny patches on top of AOSP, but 100% of the code in the underlying project is still Google-approved, and none of the alternatives have control over that. It's the same as the situation with Chrome/Chromium. There are a million "de-Googled"/"privacy focused" alternatives to Chrome all using the same engine, and when Google pushed manifest v3 changes to block ad-blockers every single one of them was affected.

microtonal 9mo ago
At most you have people applying tiny patches on top of AOSP, but 100% of the code in the underlying project is still Google-approved, and none of the alternatives have control over that. You are making an orthogonal point. Yes, Google maintains AOSP. No, that does not mean that AOSP OSes that are not in Google's Android program (calling it that to avoid semantics games) have to adopt this change. If you want to hear it from the experts: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116103732687045013 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116103732687045013
- paxys 9mo ago
  Unless these different Android flavors all have the resources to indefinitely rewrite AOSP and remove all Google code they don't agree with - no, they pretty much have to adopt the changes (see the earlier Chromium example). And if they do somehow manage this after a point all the patching basically becomes a fork, which is exactly what I started the conversation with.
  - microtonal 9mo ago
    I see your point, but it all hinges on when you consider the changes to be a patch set and when a fork. I don't think there is a very clear definition, except I don't think most of these projects would call themselves AOSP forks. At any rate, this particular Google anti-feature does not require a large patch (or maybe none at all).
  - kelvinjps10 9mo ago
    I think is good to extract the value of billionaire companies, why not use it?
    - fsflover 8mo ago
      Because they're not stupid and will use you instead. See: Google and XMPP story.
Tharre 9mo ago
> and when Google pushed manifest v3 changes to block ad-blockers every single one of them was affected. That's just objectively wrong, both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2 and are committed to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Even Edge apparently still has it, funnily enough.
- paxys 9mo ago
  Nope, actually "both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2" is objectively wrong. Brave does NOT support manifest v2. They have instead hand picked exactly 4 manifest v2 extensions (AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix) and have hard-coded special support for them. They quite literally say in https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ that all other v2 extensions will go away from Brave once Google fully removes support for them (which may have happened already, since it was posted a while ago). As for Opera (https://blogs.opera.com/news/2025/09/mv2-extensions-opera/ https://blogs.opera.com/news/2025/09/mv2-extensions-opera/): > MV3 extensions are the new standard and will offer a more stable and secure experience. Opera itself will shift to an MV3-only extension store.
  - Tharre 9mo ago
    > They have instead hand picked exactly 4 manifest v2 extensions (AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix) and have hard-coded special support for them. They quite literally say in https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ You're misreading that page, they have special cased the hosting of those 4 extensions, because they do not have their own addon web store and are relying on Chrome's instead. You can still install any manifest v2 addon manually, not that there are going to be many outside of those 4 that care about v2. As for Opera: "Today, we reiterate what we said back in October 2024: MV2 extensions are still available to use on Opera, and we are actively working to keep it that way for as long as it’s technically reasonable."
    - paxys 9mo ago
      > for as long as it’s technically reasonable Read: for as long as Chromium allows this via a flag.

by paxys 9mo ago

microtonal 9mo ago

At most you have people applying tiny patches on top of AOSP, but 100% of the code in the underlying project is still Google-approved, and none of the alternatives have control over that. You are making an orthogonal point. Yes, Google maintains AOSP. No, that does not mean that AOSP OSes that are not in Google's Android program (calling it that to avoid semantics games) have to adopt this change. If you want to hear it from the experts: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116103732687045013 https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116103732687045013

paxys 9mo ago
Unless these different Android flavors all have the resources to indefinitely rewrite AOSP and remove all Google code they don't agree with - no, they pretty much have to adopt the changes (see the earlier Chromium example). And if they do somehow manage this after a point all the patching basically becomes a fork, which is exactly what I started the conversation with.
- microtonal 9mo ago
  I see your point, but it all hinges on when you consider the changes to be a patch set and when a fork. I don't think there is a very clear definition, except I don't think most of these projects would call themselves AOSP forks. At any rate, this particular Google anti-feature does not require a large patch (or maybe none at all).
- kelvinjps10 9mo ago
  I think is good to extract the value of billionaire companies, why not use it?
  - fsflover 8mo ago
    Because they're not stupid and will use you instead. See: Google and XMPP story.

Tharre 9mo ago

> and when Google pushed manifest v3 changes to block ad-blockers every single one of them was affected. That's just objectively wrong, both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2 and are committed to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Even Edge apparently still has it, funnily enough.

paxys 9mo ago
Nope, actually "both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2" is objectively wrong. Brave does NOT support manifest v2. They have instead hand picked exactly 4 manifest v2 extensions (AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix) and have hard-coded special support for them. They quite literally say in https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ that all other v2 extensions will go away from Brave once Google fully removes support for them (which may have happened already, since it was posted a while ago). As for Opera (https://blogs.opera.com/news/2025/09/mv2-extensions-opera/ https://blogs.opera.com/news/2025/09/mv2-extensions-opera/): > MV3 extensions are the new standard and will offer a more stable and secure experience. Opera itself will shift to an MV3-only extension store.
- Tharre 9mo ago
  > They have instead hand picked exactly 4 manifest v2 extensions (AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix) and have hard-coded special support for them. They quite literally say in https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ You're misreading that page, they have special cased the hosting of those 4 extensions, because they do not have their own addon web store and are relying on Chrome's instead. You can still install any manifest v2 addon manually, not that there are going to be many outside of those 4 that care about v2. As for Opera: "Today, we reiterate what we said back in October 2024: MV2 extensions are still available to use on Opera, and we are actively working to keep it that way for as long as it’s technically reasonable."
  - paxys 9mo ago
    > for as long as it’s technically reasonable Read: for as long as Chromium allows this via a flag.