Google implements controversial Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary 80

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 13, 2019
Updated • Nov 12, 2019
Google Chrome
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69

Google has implemented an initial version of the controversial extension manifest V3 in the latest Chrome Canary (and Chromium) builds. Developer Simeon Vincent announced the inclusion on the Chromium Extensions group on November 1, 2019.

Developers may use it to test their extensions against the upcoming specification that the company hopes to roll out in 2020 to stable versions of the web browser. The version that is implemented in Chrome Canary should be considered "early alpha" according to google. Many features are not set in stone including the changes that affect content blocking or changing extensions.

Extensions will be able to use the manifest V2 as use of manifest V3 is optional at this point in time. Google has not revealed yet when it plans to make the use of V3 mandatory for extensions.

chrome adblocking changes

The company published an initial draft of the third major version of the extension manifest for Chrome back in January 2019. Google was criticized heavily for the draft as it changed features that certain extensions relied upon for their functionality.

The most controversial part of the new manifest limited the webRequest API that content blockers used to block trackers and advertisement on the web to monitor connections only. The APIs capabilities to modify requests were removed in the draft and a new API, called declarativeNetRequest, was created by Google as an alternative for extensions that needed to work with connections.

The new API gives the browser control over modifying content whereas the old provided the extensions with the capabilities. More problematic than that was the initial hard limit of 30,000 rules that the API supported.

Popular filter lists, lists that point to tracking or advertising related resources on the Internet, have more than 70,000 rules and if a content blocking extension supports multiple filter lists, could cross the six digit mark easily. Google increased the maximum limit of the API to 150000 in mid 2019; sufficient for running content blockers with default configurations.

Other browser makers spoke out against the API change. Mozilla revealed that it had "no immediate plans to remove" the original API and companies like Brave and Vivaldi revealed that they would not follow Google either. Microsoft did not make a public statement; the company's upcoming new Microsoft Edge browser is based on Chromium and thus affected by the changes that Google implemented unless Microsoft makes custom modifications to the browser.

Only time will reveal if Google will change parameters surrounding the  launch of Manifest V3 before the final version lands in Chrome Stable and potentially other Chromium-based web browsers.

Google published a migration guide for extension developers here.

Now You: What do you think will happen going forward in regards to the new Manifest? (via Bleeping Computer)

Summary
Google implements controversial Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary 80
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Google implements controversial Manifest V3 in Chrome Canary 80
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Google has implemented an initial version of the controversial extension manifest V3 in the latest Chrome Canary (and Chromium) builds.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. oren vardy said on February 20, 2020 at 10:55 am
    Reply

    Hi I wonder in light of the recent changes how is that likely to affect user side scripts popular add-ons like Tamper Monkey

    1. nonW00t said on March 19, 2020 at 8:30 am
      Reply
  2. kubrick said on January 4, 2020 at 4:08 pm
    Reply

    I have chromium installed on my puppy linux and sorry mozilla but it runs better than firefox.I have subsequently removed firefox quantum for several reasons and use palemoon now alongside chromium.

    Just out of interest how long would chromium 79.0.3945.79 on linux be web compatible.?
    I do use UBO in chromium and am thinking of just simply not updating chromium and see how it pans out.

  3. Koala said on December 17, 2019 at 2:02 pm
    Reply

    In Microsoft’s Reddit AMA, Microsoft pretty much said that they chose to move to Chromium for a reason and that they won’t be forking Chromium. They’re also a part of the Coalition for Better Ads (with Google and FB).

    And Mozilla has said on their addons blog that they moved to WebExtensions for a reason and that they want to maintain Chromium extension compatibility. They will “diverge from Chrome where it makes sense”.

    The future of adblocking, user choice and frankly, performance (my reason for adblocking) is bleak. Fingers crossed Vivaldi and Brave really do keep the manifest v2 APIs.

    I currently use Edge Canary and I’ve really liked it. It’s just Chrome Canary with a different theme, squarer elements, Microsoft services, a mute tab button and other small tweaks but it’s nice. I really love that I can mute tabs. I use uBO and Nano Defender as well as extensions for the old Twitter, YouTube and Google Images.

  4. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 9:51 am
    Reply

    Hey Editor, SHILL is not a slur, it’s a description of someone who is paid to post.

    Ghack never used to ban the word shill or calling someone a shill.

    Ever since Martin sold Ghack to Softonic, it’s been getting worse & worse.

    I didn’t have an opinion, when Martin first posted about Ghack being sold, but now I see everyone else was right & Softonic is cancer.

    I hope they fire the editor, or that Softonic goes bankrupt, so Martin can go back to running the site.

    1. ShintoPlasm said on November 15, 2019 at 8:15 am
      Reply

      “Shill” is a pejorative word, especially when used repeatedly by the likes of yourself, essentially accusing people of being corrupt liars and hypocrites. I don’t like the term myself, and prefer engaging with arguments rather ad-hominem attacks.

    2. TheFutureIsDark said on November 14, 2019 at 12:06 pm
      Reply

      Those that called people “paranoid” while Google slurps all their data and make millions out of it EVEN when they don’t use any of their “Free services”.
      Censoring words, like “Shill”, using some made up BS like “Hate Speech” as excuse.

      All of them doubt what is certain, justify paying a big price and always end up unhappy, disappointed.

    3. Anonymous said on November 14, 2019 at 11:14 am
      Reply

      There are other posts on this page with the shill word, that were not redacted. You have probably added some slur next to it and are trying to make it look like it’s the shill word that was the problem. I trust Ghacks more than your word on such an issue.

      In these times, influential internet discussion places are infested with company shills posing as independent posters, often even at moderation positions. It’s a gigantic hidden battlefield of corporate propaganda, and here is not an exception, but at least the moderation seems safe at this time.

      1. Lord-Lestat said on November 17, 2019 at 3:08 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous That is fully right. In earlier times Mozilla would never have seeing the need that Moz-corporate-propaganda-guys are advertising Firefox.

        Mozilla in the past had well mannered power-users who had extraordinary intelligence, delivered real arguments – when it was still possible to argue that Firefox had more powerful, well crafted and spirited features, not that dumbed-down simple users compatible feature set which is meant to appeal to all the simple-minded leftist/social justice supporters, who expect that also their software is fully “inclusiveness compatible” so that nobody with “less intelligence feels possibly offended by a feature they do not understand and therefor call bloat”

        When software is in that way changed that it suddenly excludes all the people who have been able to handle also more complex features, that it excludes users who are also willing to support feature sets of leftist/social justice users without getting humiliated or offended that ALSO simple functions exist (what leftist/social justice users are unable to do in combination with powerful features!) – all what can be said is…

        How times have changed… For sure not for the better!

  5. TinyTank said on November 13, 2019 at 11:31 pm
    Reply

    This is very scary. I’m using Firefox side by side now my other browser just in case.

  6. chesscanoe said on November 13, 2019 at 1:48 pm
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    Edge DEV version still has rough spots to smooth out by early 2020, and if they can circumvent manifest V3 when they release a stable Edge Chromium, Microsoft might reverse decades of browser decline.

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 9:43 am
      Reply

      Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, moved Edge from Trident (Microsoft’s browser engine) to Blink (Chromium’s browser engine) to save money, PERIOD.

      Nadella says the future of Microsoft is Cloud services (Microsoft Azure), not Windows.

      There’s no way Nadella is spending any money of maintaining a fork of Blink. Nadella recently fired the entire testing team for Windows (now Windows Insiders do all the beta testing), to save money.

      Edge will use Manifest v. 3, because they use the Blink engine, controlled by Goolag, which is an advertising company. Goolag has no interest in ad blocking, which interferes with their primary income stream.

      1. ShintoPlasm said on November 15, 2019 at 8:13 am
        Reply

        Could we please stop with the juvenile name-calling (“Goolag”) – what are you, six?

    2. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 9:17 pm
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      The PR strategy of Microsoft with Edge does not involve posing as user rights-friendly like Mozilla and more recently Apple, they rule by force only, not manipulation, so I speculate that they will not attempt anything against manifest v3, not even symbolically.

    3. Jack said on November 13, 2019 at 6:35 pm
      Reply

      I doubt it, bing is making serious money for them today.

  7. Tom Hawack said on November 13, 2019 at 12:55 pm
    Reply

    E=gp^2, where g=GAFA and p=population. Resistance concerns a minority (p minus majority), problem is the minority/majority ratio is decreasing. As said and repeated here and elsewhere when we read/participate to privacy & security topics we seem to be all concerned but we remain a decreasing minority when more and more accept to go where he GAFA pushes them. Quite depressing indeed. I nevertheless remain confident that alternatives will continue to emerge. No life without hope unless a chaotic one.

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 9:37 am
      Reply

      Whatever nonsense you posted Tom, there’s only 2 choices.

      Option 1 (the smart option) – You can use Firefox & benefit from the best ad blocker using the best ad blocking technology on the planet (uBlock Origin).

      Option 2 (the sheeple/retarded option) – You can use any of the Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, etc.) & use their crippled Manifest v. 3 ad blocking.

      I’m not an idiot, I’m choosing Option 1, you can do whatever you want.

      1. Lord-Lestat said on November 16, 2019 at 7:57 pm
        Reply

        @notanon

        Blablabla… Brave will keep it’s own ads-blocking solution, with or without this Manifest V3 – Actually this is not a kind of engine change, so it IS possible to isolate the changed code-part, store it and restore it when there is a browser-update.

        Which enables Brave, Vivaldi and others to find ways around this issue.

        Enough of this simplicity/minimalism/social-justice/leftist Mozilla-propaganda. We had enough propaganda-zealots during World War II – and look what it brought for a large mess in the end.

      2. Tom Hawack said on November 14, 2019 at 2:26 pm
        Reply

        @notanon, it’s like if I had written ‘Roses are red and violets are blue’ and your reply would have been ‘Scrambled eggs are the best’. Quite surrealistic unless to consider using one’s comment to bounce on our own. I was referring to the power of Gafa (not to mention Microsoft : it should be ‘Gafam’), in the scope of the article and this power being exponential to the wide majority of users who follow the trend hence increase it (snowball effect). Your comment refers to alternatives we’re all aware of… ‘we’ precisely is a minority. How about giving your brains a chance? :=). It’s really getting a pain to read totally disconnected answers … this is likely the last time I reply to non-answers.

      3. ShintoPlasm said on November 15, 2019 at 8:12 am
        Reply

        Well said, Tom. notanon has been attacking readers on this site left right and centre, just for expressing views with which he/she disagrees. His/her response to my comments is very similar.

    2. ULBoom said on November 13, 2019 at 2:15 pm
      Reply

      Yeah, even kids are sick of being the same as everyone else, peer pressure has become corporatized. Phone culture isn’t doing well at all.

  8. Cor said on November 13, 2019 at 12:30 pm
    Reply

    Quite a few upcoming changes over at YouTube as well (terms of service). Upcoming elections aside, looks like Google’s going all-in to please decade late mainstream media and advertisers.

  9. Manny said on November 13, 2019 at 10:57 am
    Reply

    I thought Chromium was open-source. If people don’t want Manifest v3, what right does Google have to force it into Chromium?

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 9:26 am
      Reply

      LOL @ Ironheart & Jack!

      Ascrod is correct.

      It’s a monumental task to write & maintain a browser engine, that’s why Opera (Presto), Vivaldi (former Opera CEO’s project), & Edge (Trident) gave up & adopted Blink (browser engine for all Chromium based browsers).

      Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc., don’t have the financial resources to properly maintain a browser engine (they can fake it short-term, until Goolag gets rid of the Manifest v. 2 fallback, but they don’t have the financial resources to properly maintain it long-term).

      Look at how Pale Moon (based on pre-Quantum [old] Firefox 38 ESR, AFAIK), & Waterfox (needed to split into 2 versions, because they will need to drop the deprecated XUL-based Firefox in the near future, so they are trying to wean their user base to the extension version) is failing on maintaining their fork, right now.

      The last SUCCESSFULLY maintained fork was Blink (forked from Webkit) by Goolag, one of the biggest, wealthiest corporations on the planet.

      If you believe Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc. can successfully maintain a fork of Goolag Blink, then I have some land to sell you on the Moon, LOL.

      Microsoft moved to Blink to avoid the development cost of maintaining the Trident browser engine, there’s no way Satya Nadella is throwing money on maintaining a browser fork of Blink, when Nadella is touting cloud services as the future of Microsoft (Nadella had the entire testing team for Windows fired, now Insiders do the beta testing for Windows).

      TLDR – ALL the Chromium clones will use Manifest v. 3. Firefox is the only salvation.

      1. nonW00t said on March 19, 2020 at 8:21 am
        Reply

        @Lord-Lestat : Wow, that was the best Firefox promotion I read here!

      2. Lord-Lestat said on November 14, 2019 at 12:25 pm
        Reply

        @notanon Brave has it’s own ad-blocking solution which will not be affected by this manifest crap, like Vivaldi has it’s own customizable UI which is not going to vanish when Chromium is updated.

        What means.. You CAN and are ABLE to keep things – even with Chromium and it’s simplicity and minimalism only development strategy.

        Vivaldi and Brave – or the people from Waterfox, Seamonkey, Otter-Browser, Falcon, Qutebrowser or Pale Moon are still trying to offer unique and creative features – and not bowing down like Mozilla or Opera towards Gooogle’s concept.

        Mozilla and Opera are jealous and grumpy miserable developers, who only care for money and numbers instead of morality and user opinions. Which is also exactly what Google devs do.

        Seeing you declare Mozilla as the hero on it’s white horse… This is just to laugh about :D

      3. ShintoPlasm said on November 15, 2019 at 8:10 am
        Reply

        @Lestat: not sure why you include Opera in this. Yes, the devs decided to ditch Presto for cost and web compatibility reasons, but they still offer some interesting and creative ideas in their Blink-based browser. In any case, Opera’s devs are not jealous and grumpy and miserable; in fact, 99% of the Presto-era devs are no longer there so what should the current pool be so grumpy about?

    2. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 8:10 pm
      Reply

      It doesn’t really matter that a small fork of Chromium remains compatible with manifest v2, if the Chromium extensions developers do not wish to support those small forks because they do not have enough users. It’s not that simple to evade Google’s monopoly.

    3. Ascrod said on November 13, 2019 at 3:05 pm
      Reply

      Because Google still owns the project, so they decide what direction it goes in. Being open source just means that means anyone can *look* at the code. But only Google can *change* the code (or approve of changes submitted by others). For Google, it’s free code review/testing and good PR with the developer crowd.

      1. Iron Heart said on November 13, 2019 at 3:56 pm
        Reply

        @Ascrod of the Pale Moon project

        You are either uninformed or lying. One can clone the Chromium code and modify it at will, that’s why projects like Brave and Vivaldi can exist in the first place. You are forbidden from using Google’s trademarks like “Chrome”, but that doesn’t have any impact on the code of course.

      2. Ascrod said on November 13, 2019 at 7:34 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart, @Jack,

        Forgive me for not clarifying further. Yes, anyone can clone the Chromium code and do whatever they like with it, but they must adhere to the license terms when publishing or distributing it. Typically this means that they can’t use the original trademarks or branding, as you said; sometimes there are other restrictions as well.

        What I meant by my previous statement is that those downstream changes do not make their way back into upstream without the approval of Google, and only Google. So, when yet another project goes to fork Chromium, they will get Manifest v3 instead of Manifest v2.

        If browsers such as Vivaldi, or Brave, or even Firefox reject Manifest v3 and stick with v2, how long do you think they will commit to the burden of maintaining that API independently of Chromium development? It is not an impossible task, but it’s not an easy one either.

        (Also, I am not a member of the official PM project team, I am merely a contributor. And I am as concerned about privacy and freedom on the internet as anyone else in this thread.)

      3. Jack said on November 14, 2019 at 7:26 am
        Reply

        Ascord. This is happening on all open source projects. An example. Kodi. Team Kodi decides if your pull request will be accepted. They have every right to accept it or reject it. They decide if it fits the goals of the project. That’s why forks exist. Open source projects are not a synonym of anarchy.

      4. Jack said on November 13, 2019 at 6:39 pm
        Reply

        Ascord, you have no idea what you are talking about lol. Everybody can do whatever they want with chromium code. There isn’t any open source program without a team or a single person behind it approving the pull requests lol.

      5. Ascrod said on November 14, 2019 at 2:13 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart @Jack Either my reply got lost or it’s really late. I’ll try to recall what I wrote previously.

        Yes, anyone may fork Chromium and change it, but it’s up to Google to accept those changes, which is what I was trying to say earlier. Many of the changes in these forks won’t make it back into Chromium, e.g. retaining Manifest V2, because Google ultimately doesn’t want that. And, maintaining a non-trivial fork of a well-established and well-funded browser is… well, not impossible, but it’s not easy. Just ask your favorite (or least favorite) browser fork teams.

        Anyway, I care about privacy and freedom on the internet as much as you hopefully do, so I’d appreciate it if you kept that in mind before calling me a lair. Finally, I’m not on the official PM team, I’m only a minor contributor and add-on developer.

  10. Paul(us) said on November 13, 2019 at 10:07 am
    Reply

    The signs that Google there only wish is to become dictator of the (Internet) world are becoming with every move Google is making, more obediently clear.
    Now they have the quantum computer at there disposal they also have the means to implement there wish of becoming the one and only dictator.

    I personally advice everybody to read the article from Deborah Netburn that is called:
    “What Google’s ‘quantum supremacy’ means for the future of computing”
    https://phys.org/news/2019-10-google-quantum-supremacy-future.html

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 8:53 am
      Reply

      Fight back!

      Use Firefox!

    2. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 9:06 pm
      Reply

      Mostly hype. Not only quantum computing won’t be a big deal before many, many years, but even your link explains that Google has significant competitors on this technology.

    3. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 12:16 pm
      Reply

      Interesting. If they have achieved ‘quantum supremacy’, maybe they deserve to become a dictator. Old corporations like Microsoft and Apple should invest to interesting stuff to stay relevant instead of selling only xboxes and iphones.

  11. nealis said on November 13, 2019 at 9:33 am
    Reply

    “We have no immediate plans to remove blocking webRequest”

    Typical Mozilla, no spine or principals. Look at their addon page through the years and how they highlighted adblocking addons like ABP and Ublock. If they remove webRequest, I am done with the browser.

    Hope the Ublock Origins and ABP people migrate to the other browsers stores even if they are Chromium clones, but who knows at this point.

    1. nealis said on November 15, 2019 at 1:04 am
      Reply

      Don’t take my word for it and don’t listen to Mozilla’s cheap slogans. Judge based on their actions. Mozilla sold out the internet for a long time making excuses like they have to do things like use webkit prefixes to stay relevant.

      Really what does Mozilla do that Chrome can’t? If Mozilla embraces Manifest V3, which is very possible given the wording and Mozilla track record, then Mozilla might as well go Blink.

    2. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 8:51 am
      Reply

      nealis = another [Editor: removed, please be polite]

      Posting lies about Mozilla.

      Mozilla is not adopting Manifest v. 3 for Firefox.

      Chrome is adopting Manifest v. 3 to cripple the best method of ad blocking, because Goolag is an advertising company.

      Goolag is evil.

      Sheeple will stay with Chrome.

      Smart people will be using Firefox.

      1. Lord-Lestat said on November 14, 2019 at 12:01 pm
        Reply

        @Notanon

        Radical leftists and social justice jerks without manners are using Firefox these days.

        What else to expect from a browser developer who has since long time embraced the dark side instead of supporting geeks and nerds who had culture, manners and who stood for REAL diversity, not the fake one what Mozilla and it’s trolls today are selling.

        You support Google-2 – thats what Mozilla is.

    3. ShintoPlasm said on November 13, 2019 at 10:09 am
      Reply

      As far as I can tell, the AdGuard devs sound more optimistic (though not necessarily in agreement) about Google’s changes. Probably because they have a larger team and a profit-making business model, as opposed to gorhill. Hopefully this means that at least AG can find a way forward for its browser extensions.

      1. Tarmin said on November 13, 2019 at 12:57 pm
        Reply

        > the AdGuard devs sound more optimistic (though not necessarily in agreement) about Google’s changes.

        Because they have Adguard For Windows, Adguard for Linux and Adguard for Mac which will not be affected by anything done to any browser, so this is their backup plan. There’s nothing they can do about manifest v3 either. They will simply tell people to either move to Firefox or another browser which will resist v3 or buy their Adguard for Windows/Linux/Mac product. Simple as that. They’re a for-profit company waiting to gain from this situation, no wonder they are optimistic.

      2. Iron Heart said on November 13, 2019 at 1:45 pm
        Reply

        @Tarmin

        > Firefox or another browser which will resist v3

        As if Google’s lapdog Mozilla would even consider resisting… In case you didn’t know, Google finances Mozilla. They do so in order to avoid antitrust charges coming their way (ostensibly they pay Mozilla to be Firefox’s default search engine, but when Mozilla switched to Yahoo temporarily, most users flipped the engine back to Google immediately – so that’s not the real reason). Mozilla, being controlled opposition and largely useless when it comes to user’s rights, will comply in time.

        If you really think Mozilla will resist, then you have much to learn.

      3. Iron Pussy said on November 13, 2019 at 4:31 pm
        Reply

        > If you really think Mozilla will resist, then you have much to learn.

        They will. They already made an announcement like Brave did. If you really think they won’t, it’s you who has much to learn, Mozilla hater. Mozilla already diverged on how it implemented manifest v2 comparitively to how Google did.Taking Google’s money doesn’t oblige them to do anything they do. Keep your “speculation” and condescending attitude in your pants.

      4. JW said on November 13, 2019 at 11:29 pm
        Reply

        This site is just full of PaleMoon diehards that criticize Mozilla for every decision they make

      5. Lord-Lestat said on November 17, 2019 at 3:31 pm
        Reply

        @JW Who else than people who had also used Firefox as it was still called Phoenix have the right to criticize Mozilla?

        They have seen how Mozilla moved away from a true social-justice/inclusiveness supporting developer to a supporter only for fake new age social justice/leftist users today.

        They have seen Mozilla slamming them a door in the face with the message “we do not need/want you any longer, accept or move away”

        It does not matter if people now using Waterfox, Pale Moon, Otter Browser, Vivaldi, Seamonkey, Brave, Qutebrowser or Falcon – the point is that kind of people have all right to complain, because they have been excluded from a developer to which that kind of people have been all the time fully loyal.

        Mozilla of today are nothing less than autocratic anti-feature fascists. And most of their remaining users – but of course not all of them – are the same zealots like the Firefox developers. Somehow it remembers one of the WWII situation! Exactly that – Nothing more, nothing less.

      6. Lord-Lestat said on November 14, 2019 at 12:17 pm
        Reply

        @JW

        Well, Mozilla earns to be critizised – selling out their origin user-base to attract Chrome users with “simplicity and minimalism and design” and being a lame follower instead of a leader… Embracing radical leftist/Social justice ideology and supporting only users with that kind of opinion instead of moderate ones.

        This is hardly a browser developer for which one can root for. Mozilla is a sell-out developer with radical leftist tendencies. To modify a Star Trek episode title – Worst of both worlds!

        Mozilla=Radical Anti-choice and anti-feature developer with an autocratic attitude!

      7. Anonymous said on November 14, 2019 at 2:03 pm
        Reply

        “Embracing radical leftist”

        Banning some forms of racist speech from a corporate store is not radical, it’s mainstream US capitalism. Or are you one of those radical rightists who think that Twitter, Google, Facebook, or Apple are all radical leftists ?

        Doing discrimination on hiring based on race and political opinions is not radical either, it’s mainstream US capitalism. In fact, in spite of what the trumpists whine about non stop, this last one is not even a typical left thing, it is a practice that is more common among the right, they just do not do make it official and most of the time, do not brag about it.

        Same for your “anti-choice” and “autocratic” criteria. From US fascist coups against democratic nations in Latin America to US capitalist tyranny on their workers, directly or through state repression, these concepts belong mostly to the right-wing field. Enough with your whiny revisionism.

      8. Lord-Lestat said on November 16, 2019 at 7:50 pm
        Reply

        @anonymous Well… who brought real innovation and who destroys progress for the benefit of “inclusiveness and social justice”?

        It has been conservative developers all along who laid the ground-work for all the modern progress we have. Developers of Amiga, Atari, C64 – none of them have been radical leftists, they have been Conservatives.

        Also Mozilla believed in the past in “conservative development” – to give people powerful tools in the hands so people can learn to use them.

        Now switching forward when Google and the leftist trend entered the building! Features have been removed because someone could feel “humiliated and horrified if one had to realize that they would lack enough understanding to handle certain stuff”

        It is not the conservative side which destroys and limits innovation – it is the leftist side which plans and acts and restricts because of social justice and inclusiveness reasons. This is no progress and advancement – it is just shifting things from the intellectual direction into the direction of the least common denominator – as people have become highly intolerant towards options and choice – and became unable to handle criticism and other opinions and casting out and attacking everything which is not leftist mainstream!

        What we have today is no progress – it is more like back to the mental stone-age – and the leftist audience is applauding and cheering to it, and only the conservative user-base is seeing the truth!

      9. owl said on November 15, 2019 at 2:52 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous said on November 14, 2019 at 2:03 pm:
        👍
        Absolutely right!

      10. Lord-Lestat said on November 13, 2019 at 10:59 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Pussy

        That is Mozilla’s user-base of today. A bunch of trolls who put others nickname into the dirt. Customization and choice haters who happily embrace conformity and do not realize that Mozilla will follow Google in almost every footstep as they are jealous of Google’s success and growth – and would do anything to imitate/mimic them to become number one market share wise themselves.

        Mozilla does nothing other than lie. They lied to their add-on/theme developers, they lied and betrayed their geek user-base which made Mozilla big.

        Mozilla has mastered the art of double-speech well enough, that all the die-hard left political spectrum fans which are the rest of Mozilla’s user-base today – have embraced too to the highest point of perfection.

        Nobody loves mimicry browsers and developers. And face it, Mozilla and Opera are the number one in that field. In all other fields, both are just pure spineless sell-out companies.

      11. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 8:01 pm
        Reply

        “They will. They already made an announcement like Brave did.”

        Mozilla shill spotted, time for fact checking. No, they haven’t made any announcement containing the actual information of what they will implement or not, mostly empty PR bullshit as usual. And “no immediate plans to remove” doesn’t mean that they will not follow Google. I do not understand why Ghacks keeps misunderstanding this sentence.

        My bet is that Mozilla would have loved to follow Google verbatim, but because there was enough backlash, they will only implement some of its nefarious parts, for example denying us the right to modify all the request headers, but otherwise not fully removing the webrequest API blocking ability. Or something like that. And no doubt that Google will pull a manifest v4 or equivalent later.

        “Mozilla already diverged on how it implemented manifest v2 comparitively to how Google did”

        Yes, on a single point AFAIK, I think that it was to allow extension scripts to act before the page or something like that. But they have also followed Google by ditching classic extensions to adopt their restricted extension system and by disabling extensions by default in private browsing mode. Looks like taking Google’s money influenced them to do some of the things Google does against extensions, in fact.

        Outside of extensions too, Mozilla has a long history of betraying users for Google: the default search engine of course, that is selling their private life to Google for profit, the address bar turned into a keylogger to Google, the removal of the search bar by default like in Chrome, the invasive search telemetry, but also the safebrowsing data (by default, Google is informed of lots of our downloaded files for example), those pricks even include Google analytics tools in the browser (!) and on their sites. And there are also many examples of them copying anti-user changes introduced in Chrome. Just browse this site to get some.

        “Keep your “speculation” and condescending attitude in your pants.”

        It’s not enough that you spread lies and lick Google’s butt for money to deprive your users from their rights, you need to send your drones calling the users you angered pussies and haters too ? Classy, Mozilla.

  12. ShintoPlasm said on November 13, 2019 at 9:20 am
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    It is quite depressing, really. Chrome’s control of the browser market is so strong that whatever regression they push through will have to be picked up by everybody else, sooner or later. Mozilla have really dropped the ball on this by making themselves less attractive to devs with their (at times) nonsensical tinkering, instead of being seen as the clear choice for Chrome-disappointed users.

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 8:47 am
      Reply

      ShintoPlasm = [Editor: removed, please be polite]

      Firefox is not adopting Manifest v. 3 (stop lying).

      Blaming Mozilla for Goolag’s evil Manifest v. 3 is something only a Goolag Shill would post.

      1. ShintoPlasm said on November 15, 2019 at 8:06 am
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        @notanon: I have not said any that stuff. I suggest some ear-syringing to clear out some of that hard wax.

    2. John Fenderson said on November 13, 2019 at 3:32 pm
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      @ShintoPlasm: “Mozilla have really dropped the ball on this”

      I couldn’t agree more. This is the main reason that Firefox and Mozilla sadden me these days.

  13. Anonymous said on November 13, 2019 at 8:59 am
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    Chrome is today’s IE6.
    What Microsoft did 10+ years ago, Google does today: same nonstandardization, same monopoly, same lack of customization.

    1. notanon said on November 14, 2019 at 8:44 am
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      Chrome is worst.

      Google is an advertising company.

      Google is trying to cripple the best method of ad blocking via Manifest v. 3.

      Microsoft was advertising agnostic.

      1. Q said on November 14, 2019 at 10:09 am
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        @notagon
        Microsoft was never advertising agnostic, they sell ads since 2006.
        Microsoft is an advertising company. That’s why they make it hard to change Bing in Edge.

        Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads, Microsoft adCenter and MSN adCenter) is a service that provides pay per click advertising on both the Bing and Yahoo! search engines. As of June 2015, Bing Ads has 33% market share in the United States.

        wikipedia . org / wiki/Microsoft_Advertising

    2. Iron Heart said on November 13, 2019 at 12:18 pm
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      Sorry, but this is just not true. Chromium is open source software, Google is not in sole control of it. Anyone can fork the codebase and reuse it, and some projects already did (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, new Microsoft Edge etc.). If one doesn’t like a change introduced by Google’s developers (who are, again, not the only ones contributing to the codebase) then one can take it out.

      This was not possible with Internet Explorer back in the day, which was closed source and solely controlled by Microsoft.

      Last but not least, let’s not forget that, within the realm of software, the general trend is to create monopolies. Why is that? It’s because of efficiency reasons. There is e.g. no point in having more mobile OSes than Android and iOS, because developers have better things to do with their time and money than investing said time and money in yet another version of their application for yet another OS. That’s why Windows Mobile failed miserably. The same is true for browsers; maybe users diversity anymore, because Chrome just works and does everything they want already, and developers are happy to save quite some time and effort by having to test their websites for one browser only. And again, we are still better off than we were in the early 2000s, because Google does NOT control the Chromium codebase alone, in fact anyone can fork it if there is a feeling that (part of) Google’s contributions are not desirable anymore.

      I strongly dislike the fear / uncertainty / doubt spread by Firefox users who are angry that their open source project crashed due to bad leadership (neglecting the dev tools web developers need everyday was one primary example of failure) being replaced by another open source project (Chromium) of which Chrome is just the biggest offshoot.

      1. Muhammad Firza said on December 1, 2019 at 8:56 am
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        Today’s Chrome is now not good, those controversially features is included & the privacy and security is under jeopardy by the next release certainly.

      2. ULBoom said on November 13, 2019 at 2:08 pm
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        Chromium is only partly open source, a large portion of it can’t be modified. Google owns Chromium, they allow some portions of the code to be modified. More and more privacy aspects of Chromium are being sunk into fixed portions of the code, such as webRTC, long ago.

        Good thing is, with system level blockers/anti-trackers, Google’s fiddling can be overridden. Most users couldn’t care less, though, and are happy if their devices just work.

        Firefox’s privacy is maybe a bit better out of the box; it has to be reconfigured significantly for major gains. It can be locked down much better than any Chromia if one puts in the effort to do so.

        Otherwise, all the browser whining is silly, I challenge the complainers to develop their own private, no tracking browsers. People will pay for them! Good luck.

      3. Anonymous said on November 14, 2019 at 6:44 am
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        @ULBoom

        Ah, the ol’ “if you don’t like it, let’s see you do better” argument.

      4. Iron Heart said on November 13, 2019 at 3:04 pm
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        @ULBoom

        > Chromium is only partly open source, a large portion of it can’t be modified. Google owns Chromium, they allow some portions of the code to be modified.

        The portions that can be modified are enough to allow completely functional browsers like Brave and Vivaldi to exist, so I’d argue that the parts which can’t be modified are irrelevant.

        > More and more privacy aspects of Chromium are being sunk into fixed portions of the code, such as webRTC, long ago.

        It’s not like you can remove the WebTC code in Firefox easily, either. You can disable it in about:config, but how many people really do that? Also, about:config could be removed in the future and 99% of the Firefox user base wouldn’t notice.

        > Otherwise, all the browser whining is silly, I challenge the complainers to develop their own private, no tracking browsers. People will pay for them! Good luck.

        Already exists. Ungoogled Chromium doesn’t phone home as far as I can tell, add uBlock Origin to it and you are good to go. Your challenge is pointless. If you are extremely paranoid, use Tor.

      5. SpywareFan said on November 13, 2019 at 6:51 pm
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        Why people who care about privacy (security) are often called “paranoid”?

        “the parts which can’t be modified are irrelevant”
        Wrong, the parts which can’t be modified are the only reason to not install chromium based browsers (and tweak to the impossible firefox).

        “add uBlock Origin to it and you are good to go”
        Sadly uBO can’t prevent background unwanted connetions.

      6. Anonymous said on November 14, 2019 at 11:24 am
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        “Sadly uBO can’t prevent background unwanted connetions.”

        And sadly uBO could block more background unwanted connections in Firefox than in Chrome in the past, but when Firefox enforced the Google webextension standard it became no longer possible. The problem was exactly the same as now with manifest v3, it was slowly killing extensions to reduce our ability to fight tracking, the browser’s own ads and other aggressions, with the excuse of security.

    3. JohnIL said on November 13, 2019 at 12:07 pm
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      Yes, I would agree in some ways that Chrome has become the modern day Internet Explorer with one exception. Back then IE was mostly it, today we have many browsers to choose from. Yes they mostly run Chromium for a web engine but clearly they all have unique features and target users. We also still have a active Firefox (Gecko) and Safari (WebKit) development. So while I do think Google has developed a significant advantage in terms of browser market share. Chromium is still a open sourced project and honestly not everything is bad about having a dominate browser engine standard.

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