uBlock Origin Minus: an experimental Manifest v3 compatible extension

Martin Brinkmann
Sep 9, 2022
Updated • Sep 20, 2022
Google Chrome
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Raymond Hill, the creator of the popular content blocker uBlock Origin, has published the experimental extension uBO Minus for Chromium-based browsers. (Update: it is now called uBlock Origin Lite)

ubo minus ublock origin

The experimental extension is based on Google's Manifest V3 for extensions, which changes things significantly for extensions such as uBlock Origin.

From January 2023 on, Google will block extensions that rely on Manifest V2 in Chrome. There is an Enterprise-policy that extends the cut-off date to June 2023. From June 2023 onward, Manifest V2 extensions are no longer supported. Installed extensions will not run anymore and new extensions can't be installed at all in Chrome anymore.

Google claims that Manifest V3 improves privacy by removing capabilities from extensions. Rogue extensions may use the capabilities to spy on users. A side-effect, or so it seems, is that privacy and content blocking extensions may run with limited functionality only. Google, earning most of its revenue from advertising, may benefit from this.

The experimental extension uBOMinus is compatible with Manifest V3. The minus indicates that it is not as powerful as uBlock Origin. Hill reveals that uBO Minus uses the declarativeNetRequest API exclusively, which Google introduced in Manifest V3 to replace more powerful APIs of Manifest V3.

The extension does not require any extra permissions, including the "read and change all your data on all websites" permission. The consequence of this is that certain features are not supported by it. Hill lists cosmetic filtering, scriplet injections, CSP, redirect and removeparam filters specifically.

The Chrome extension uBO Minus uses the same default filter set as uBlock Origin, but in optimized form to take into account the limitations of Manifest V3.

Chrome users who want to give uBO Minus a try may download and install it from the Chrome Web Store. New versions of uBO Minus will be released alongside the regular uBlock Origin extension for Chromium-based browsers and Firefox.

The extension has a simple interface, which highlights the number of blocked items only.

Closing Words

Chrome users who rely on content blockers may encounter major issues from January 2023 on. Some may want to check out other browsers, either those with built-in content blockers, such as Brave, Vivaldi or Opera, or Firefox, which will continue to support uBlock Origin fully.

Browsers based on Chromium face additional problems once the change lands. While it is in theory possible to alter the code to continue support for Manifest V2, or at least some of the available APIs, browser makers would have to launch their own extension repositories as the Chrome Web Store won't host any Manifest V2 extensions anymore after January 2023.

UBO Minus is the second extension for Chromium-based browsers that relies on Manifest V3 exclusively. AdGuard released AdGuard AdBlocker MV3 recently, which does as well.

Content blocking will be different when Manifest V2 support is dropped. Some users may not notice a difference, if they rely on basic filtering only. Those who subscribe to more filter lists or use multiple privacy extensions that do filter requests, may run into the artificial limitation.

Many Chrome users are probably unaware of the announced changes at this point. Those who know about it, may want to check out other browsers that won't be affected by the change.

Now You: what is your take on this?

Summary
uBlock Origin Minus: an experimental Manifest v3 compatible extension
Article Name
uBlock Origin Minus: an experimental Manifest v3 compatible extension
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Raymond Hill, the creator of the popular content blocker uBlock Origin, has published the experimental extension uBO Minus for Chromium-based browsers. 
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Pierre said on October 1, 2022 at 6:42 pm
    Reply

    I tried Ublock Origin Lite : it’s very bad, it doesn’t block anything, I supressed it
    I’ll to replace Ublock Origin by Adblock or Adblock Plus later

  2. Anonymous said on September 15, 2022 at 12:35 pm
    Reply

    “Firefox, which will continue to support uBlock Origin fully.”

    False. The Mozilla statement is

    “We will support blocking webRequest until there’s a better solution which covers all use cases we consider important, since DNR as currently implemented by Chrome does not yet meet the needs of extension developers.”

    https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2021/05/27/manifest-v3-update/

    This means that the manifest v2 uBlock Origin is based on for full support *will* be needlessly terminated by Mozilla too, obviously to be replaced with a more restrictive system for adblockers.

    The only thing Mozilla promised here, beyond that negative change similar to Chrome’s one, is that it may not be as negative as in Chrome, but we don’t know by how much and they won’t tell. And that’s assuming that Mozilla’s promises can be trusted, in spite of an history of lies and deceptions.

    1. Anonymous said on September 17, 2022 at 9:53 am
      Reply
      1. Anonymous said on September 18, 2022 at 1:23 am
        Reply

        And the 2022 update says the same but in an even more obfuscated language. The 2021’s

        “After discussing this with several content blocking extension developers, we have decided to implement DNR and continue maintaining support for blocking webRequest.”
        “We will support blocking webRequest until there’s a better solution which covers all use cases we consider important, since DNR as currently implemented by Chrome does not yet meet the needs of extension developers”

        has become in 2022

        “Mozilla will maintain support for blocking WebRequest in MV3. To maximize compatibility with other browsers, we will also ship support for declarativeNetRequest.”
        “We will continue to work with content blockers and other key consumers of this API to identify current and future alternatives where appropriate.”

        A mandatory restricted replacement for WebRequest will come, but when and what it will be is not yet known.

    2. Lucifer said on September 16, 2022 at 8:15 am
      Reply

      There was a French politician, from the Corsican people, a social conservative senator, who had said an extremely violent sentence in politics. In short : « vote for me, I’ll cheat you all the time ».

      His original sentence : « Promises only commit those who believe in them ! » Charles Pasquat.

      As he was from the Corsican people, people did not dare to stand up to him, France being a federation of several peoples with different languages; French being, not the official language, but the administrative language, because nobody can speak more than 140 languages.

      The Corsicans solve their problems either with guns or with dynamite, especially since before becoming a senator, Charles Pasquat had been Minister of Police, also a former resistance fighter against the Nazis, and therefore of dynamite, in fact, people kept quiet.

      He also said a very silly phrase : « We must terrorize the terrorists ! »
      I can hardly imagine sending civilians to blow themselves up in the middle of terrorists !

      For the moment, let’s remember : « Promises only commit those who believe in them ! » Charles Pasquat.

      However, it’s getting annoying that you all call yourselves Anonymous, as if it’s transcendentally original. We don’t know who’s who anymore, who answers to whom, and if any answer to themselves.

  3. Mindless Governor of the Irish Tundra said on September 14, 2022 at 3:05 am
    Reply

    A system DNS setup like Acrylic DNS on desktop or DNS66 on Android and Noscript or uBlockorigin or uMatrix on 3 different profiles on FF or PM, an optional privoxy to change the User Agent string and you could still use less-bloated -older- versions or aforementioned browsers. Also, where’s Icecat for windows? Should I compile for myself?

    Brave is too much a walled garden experience for my taste.

  4. Tony K said on September 12, 2022 at 1:59 pm
    Reply

    Firefox is better than Brave.

    1. Lucifer said on September 12, 2022 at 7:36 pm
      Reply

      Better, not really !
      Tastes and colors are not debatable!

      The basis of everything is Chromium
      https://www.chromium.org/Home

      Chromium is the basis for Google Chrome, Brave, Opera, Iriduim Borwser, etc.
      The project remains Google’s property, but it is cooperative; thus Google makes the community work for free, as it is used to say, for its own profit.

      This is what slavers did with both slaves and serfs, their free activities served to enrich them.

      “Better” depends on what you are looking for.

      Vivaldi, I find, is much better than Brave. It has an array of options that the others don’t have. We can choose almost anything, set it, including the appearance. It even has the ability to display the menu bar, which Chromium, Google Chrome, Brave no longer do. It blocks ads and trackers internally, without extension.
      https://vivaldi.com/

      For Firefox, there are Librefox and Waterfox, they are lighter and faster.

      1. Anonymous said on September 18, 2022 at 11:35 am
        Reply

        Librefox died more than 3 years ago. The successor is called Librewolf.

    2. Anonymous said on September 12, 2022 at 2:36 pm
      Reply
      1. Anonymous said on September 12, 2022 at 7:29 pm
        Reply

        Yes.

  5. Luke said on September 12, 2022 at 12:02 am
    Reply

    I know how the new declarative API works. The point is, the old webRequest API still exists, and can still see everything you do, they only removed its synchronous blocking capability. Thus their privacy excuse is clearly bunk.

  6. Lucifer said on September 12, 2022 at 12:00 am
    Reply

    The real question is : Why do people continue to use Chrome and Google ?

    It’s like entrusting your children to a pedophile for safety !

  7. Luke said on September 11, 2022 at 2:18 pm
    Reply

    Lots of Google shills in here. If you had researched the topic at all, you’d know that their excuse of security and privacy is a blatant lie, as extensions can still read every request your browser makes, they just can’t block or modify them in MV3.

    1. Iron Heart said on September 11, 2022 at 11:00 pm
      Reply

      @Luke

      > as extensions can still read every request your browser makes

      No, the extension only “hands” its rules to the browser under the new scheme, the browser is the only party seeing the requests and then handles them according to the rules drafted from the extension.

      > they just can’t block or modify them in MV3.

      Requests will be getting blocked, just by the browser instead of the extension itself now. And not being able to change the destination of a connection is a big security improvement.

      > Lots of Google shills in here.

      Has nothing to do with being a “Google shill” when you look at a change from all perspectives, which includes the benefits.

  8. Anonymous said on September 11, 2022 at 1:19 am
    Reply

    As a Firefox user my endgame (once Firefox dumps v2 which will essentially kill off uBO, you know they eventually will) is most likely going to be switching to Chrome + using AdGuard’s system-wide blocking that doesn’t care about v3

    1. Anonymous said on September 11, 2022 at 6:46 pm
      Reply

      lol

  9. Peterc said on September 11, 2022 at 12:05 am
    Reply

    My primary browser is Pale Moon and my fallback browser is Brave. I run uBlock Origin “firefox legacy” and eMatrix (a fork of Raymond Hill’s now-abandoned uMatrix) in Pale Moon, and uBlock Origin “chrome” and Brave shields in Brave. I *very rarely* see ads unless I take action to enable them.

    @Raymond Hill:

    In case you ever read this, the Pale Moon developer who was *by far* the most difficult for users and extension developers to deal with has *left the project*, and unless Pale Moon decides to abandon UXP (XUL) and its legacy-Firefox base, I don’t see them throwing up roadblocks like Manifest V3. What I’m saying is, it might be safe to start showing uBlock Origin “firefox legacy” some love again! (And who knows? Maybe Pale Moon’s userbase will start growing in the aftermath of Manifest V3.) I know some very hard feelings about Pale Moon persist — just bring up the subject with the folks at BSD and KeePassXC — but in the immortal words of Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Bon Scott, and Cherlene, “Baby, Please Don’t Go”!

    1. philly said on September 11, 2022 at 7:43 pm
      Reply

      Fantastic idea. Helping real alternatives with powerful control potential, a noble cause, instead of being used by corporations and controlled opposition until end of life while seeing your work strangled. An infrequent up to date refresh may even be enjoyable who knows.

    2. Anonymous said on September 11, 2022 at 6:48 pm
      Reply

      lol the Pale Meme is real

  10. Pierre said on September 10, 2022 at 2:17 pm
    Reply

    Sorry but UBO Minus doesn’t currently run. The icon remains grey and there is no access to the parameters

  11. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 2:57 am
    Reply

    As said above, browsers nowadays have built in ad blocking capabilites. From Brave to Vivaldi, you can just turn on the feature(Except Firefox), many also have tracker blocking system as well and some have custom filters feature.

    What v3 will do is making all those who use Chrome with uBo to change to alternative browsers. As far as I know, generally people don’t even install uBo.

  12. Rei said on September 10, 2022 at 12:34 am
    Reply

    I forgot to say, I am not even going to install this crap, I did install Adguard because I had to test features but not this crap, I wish it was never uploaded to be honest, it is a lame attempt from Gorhill to bring more fuel to the fire and pretend it is Manifestv3’s fault his extension is ‘minus’.

    1. DisID10T said on September 12, 2022 at 3:57 pm
      Reply

      @Rei

      Generally speaking, the more ignorant the person, the louder their declarations exhibit an undesirable internal status. It is unfortunate that consuming ignorance, belligerence, stupidity, and know nothing malfeasance are characteristics of every society. Pity the rest of us have to witness these declarations.

  13. Rei said on September 10, 2022 at 12:33 am
    Reply

    This is stupid, the attitude and drama from Gorhill, it is just weird and it will not do good uploading this lame experimental MV3 extension, I understand he is not happy, but he was lazy all these months not doing anything knowing the Manifestv3 is the future and he can’t do anything to stop it, not even Brave, Brave can only delay it.

    Why I say that Gorhill is being lazy? well, Adguard already showed to support most features from Adguard manifestv2 version.

    Let’s compare:

    uBlock minus pathetic lazy version says:
    – No cosmetic filtering (##)
    – No scriptlet injection (##+js)
    – No redirect= filters
    – No csp= filters
    – No removeparam= filters

    Well, Adguard supports Cosmetic Filtering, even Procedural Filtering.

    Adguard supports scriplet injection, even more than uBlock because Adguard implemented ABP ones.

    Adguard can redirect no problems and use all the resources available for it which you can easily find on their github.

    $csp doesn’t seem to be working in Adguard either, you create the filter and then it just blocks every script not what it is suppose to do.

    $removeparam works in Adguard no problem.

    So what I mean is, the reason this uBlock minus is not supporting like anything… it is because Gorhill being lazy to do any work knowing that manifestv3 is the future.

    It is stupid to complain when Adguard is showing what they can do, yes, it’s been a year since they talked about being working on a prototype but then that means that uBlock is behind not because Manifestv3 but because Gorhill decided it that way by not really working on it for years.

    So, anyone that complains about manifestv3 here and think it is the problem, it really isn’t. Adguard supports most features you can find in manifestv2 version, which are like really massive list of features.
    I would be using Adguard more if it didn’t use so much CPU doing procedurals compared to uBlock, also, the syntax they use are different in many cases, even if Adguard tries to convert them to adguard sometimes doesn’t work or uBlock supports different things etc.
    But since Brave is based on uBlock I decided to stick to uBlock for the missing features since I don’t need to really do anything, load my personal txt list and let it do its job.

    So this experimental crap of uBlock is will be just a terrible example, now people will pick this up to keep throwing the manifestv3 misinformation.
    Yes, manifest is not good in many things, but uBlock minus is minus because developer laziness or just stubbornness not to support what will be the future, even if he doesn’t like it.

    1. gwarser said on September 10, 2022 at 5:20 pm
      Reply

      uBO minus is not released to be used! It’s here to prove, that contrary to google claims, permission-less blocking is useless! Read this: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-1236416215

      1. Rei said on September 11, 2022 at 2:06 am
        Reply

        @gwarser if it wasn’t released to be used then what was the point? your comment literally doesn’t even make sense.

        I mean, did you read my comment, I already proved to you that ADGUARD MV3 SUPPORTS WHAT IT IS NOT SUPPORTED BY uBLOCK. why? because Gorhill only released it to complain, not because he really cares.
        I am not even going to open that link, I don’t want to read some BS excuses.

        If Gorhill doesn’t want to make a manifestv3 version, then he shouldn’t and just say he will move exclusively to Firefox until Mozilla removes the WebRequest API.
        Because again, you forget Firefox is also supporting MV3 the only difference is they will still support WebRequest API, and they said “for now” or some words that clearly says they will remove it someday.
        I mean Firefox literallly dropped support for a nicer extension API in favor of limited web extensions, so don’t come and tell me they are the good guys.

        I already have read that thread many times, and Gorhill was all talk and no action about MV3.

        Adguard already proved to you by releasing 90% of MV2 BLOCKING features (and even procedural cosmetics) but they started their prototype 1 YEAR ago.

        If Adguard can do it, then anyone can, doesn’t matter how much you want to excuse and think Gorhill wasn’t lazy not to go with the future, manifestv3 is the future when Google decided to implement it, you know, google, the ones who own most of the browser marketshare.

        the only furure adguard didn’t implement was CSP, do you use that? probably not, do any filter list use it? no. CSP is one of those features that don’t matter, so pretty much Adguard already supports like 99% of important features.

        Rewrite (redirect).
        Procedural cosmetics (not even Brave still supports that, and they support some interesting ones because of ABP).
        all the nice Scriptlets injection resources (they are way more than what uBlock offers today, since Adguard implemented ABP ones)

        literally almost all features are there, so stop making excuses dude. Gorhill didn’t work on it, he was lazy about it, he didn’t want to do it and now he looks like a clown for complaining about MV3 when Adguard has released a really capable adblocking extension after all the drama “google is killing balbalal”
        People keep moving the goal post to make Google the evil one, yeah they are not saints, but MV3 is not terrible as clowns think, ignorant ones and people who haven’t even tested crap.

        Adguard already said what it is missing and things they will have problems with and nothing really matters for 99% of people.
        Rule limits are not great but not too terrible, when most filter lists have obsolete rules.

        And things like Logger and how filter lists only load on the start of the browser and not ‘dynamically’ like before, don’t matter either. it can cause issues for some updates but nothing great.

        So stop making excuses and saying something was released not to be used, that’s like super braindead excuse for gorhill who was lazy not to work on something when MV3 is here to stay, he either keeps working on it or doesn’t, because even firefox will remove WebRequest API someday.

        Again, Adguard already proved everyone wrong, Adguard already proved gorhill crying and not working on MV3 for years, it is not good, but he doesn’t care so why should anyone care about this extension?
        I can’t believe people will still say MV3 blabla, when Adguard already showed it supports almost all features still in experimental state, a 0.3v extension, and they didn’t cry like gorhill is doing it.

        All those stupid articles saying how “adblockers are struggling” have never tested any feature to compare to Adguard mv2, but sure, keep believing MV3 is the problem and not gorhil!

  14. Gerrit said on September 9, 2022 at 10:02 pm
    Reply

    FU Google, FU Chrome

  15. Nessa said on September 9, 2022 at 6:50 pm
    Reply

    Do not use AdGuard!

    This software was created in Russia, it works “for free”, but what data it collects is unknown.
    + puts a dubious certificate that easy compromises your system, your data, your personal security.

    AdGuard — It’s a potential MITM trojan from militarys russians!
    This is a 100% internal security service project.

    Don’t trust the Russians!

    1. philly said on September 11, 2022 at 7:30 pm
      Reply

      >Do not use AdGuard!

      havn’t for a decade or whatever, isnt it way out of date?

      >militarys russians! … Don’t trust the Russians!

      under the bed amirite? but did you know the fox browser has a CTO hired to backdoor internet security for the n sa?, the Head of Trust and Security is a cia man, and obamas CTO is on the board of directors there and in some usa infowarfare club with jake sullivan, chertoff and others?

      actual spooks confirmed in a product with reach and influence is acceptable somehow.

    2. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 9:24 am
      Reply

      I’d rather have Russia watching me than Google shoving garbage in my face.

  16. Coriy said on September 9, 2022 at 5:07 pm
    Reply

    There is another Google decision that will impact all Android users starting 1 November 2022. Google is going to disallow VPNs listed in the Play Store from blocking ads. I know some of you are thinking, “So what, I can install an ad-blocking VPN from another repository or manually.” And yes, you can. For now.
    Remember Play Protect? It’ll probably be modified to remove any active VPN that also blocks ads unless you disable Play Protect. FYI, I disabled Play Protect years ago, after having Google remove software that I side loaded, and having Play Protect remove something from F-Droid.
    More information on the new policy is at https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/google_play_vpn_rules_changed/
    Hey Martin, what’s your take on this?

    1. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 2:06 am
      Reply

      @Coriy maybe if you stop reading headlines and read Google documentation, you will understand they didn’t even mention anything about blocking ads, it is people who are speculating (like you) when there is not even evidence what apps Google will remove or not, until an apps is not removed, people shouldn’t assume anything and so you.

      Do you even know how VPNs work? all your connection goes through servers you have to trust, they can do anything they want and log anything you see, and then modifying anything they want.
      Do you think that’s okay? well, Google documentation is clear in wanting to stop companies from doing that.

      Did you even read google words?

      The VPNService cannot be used to:

      -Collect personal and sensitive user data without prominent disclosure and consent.
      -Redirect or manipulate user traffic from other apps on a device for monetization purposes (for example, redirecting ads traffic through a country different than that of the user).
      -Manipulate ads that can impact apps monetization.

      Manipulate ads doesn’t exactly mean BLOCKING ads.

      Definition of Manipulate:
      To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or another body part or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner: synonym: handle.
      To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously.
      To tamper with or falsify for personal gain.

      Do you think manipulate is blocking? well for Google it might but not by the definition of manipulating, I am sure it is all about how VPNs can make you see ads that will benefit the VPN service while affecting others, you know, taking advantage of the VPN having all the control to serve whatever they want and getting all the money.

      Manipulate is not the same as blocking, just like blocking a script with uBlock is not the same as modifying the script and then use $redirect to be able to replace a resource. Of course Google can do it if they desire, but until then maybe don’t stop reading after headlines and try to use the brain to analyze what Google is even talking about, I mean, you can always wait to have more evidence to support your claims, and not some dumb article from dumb authors that just want some clicks.

      Also policies are not like words set on stone, it is like when even the smallest extension says “we might collect data blabla” and they probably don’t do it but they still mention it in case they do it later, so people don’t complain it wasn’t there. Again, you talk like if it was happening, and Google, Microsoft, Apple and everyone is always updating their policies and ToS and whatever document they have.
      It doesn’t mean they do what they say, and it surely doesn’t mean blocking ads fall in the ‘manipulate’ category, it’s not like you can’t use Adguard public DNS or NextDNS and block most ads from android apps using your simple router or you know, the out of the box DNS server anyone have.

      I mean, they are talking about the VPNService, not about anything else, so I really don’t understand why people can’t have comprehension reading skills, read something and then believe it is like every app will get affected. Obviously they talk about VPNs services, the ones that will have total control over your connection so Google wants to make sure they have in their document policies for devs that upload their apps and might affect users privacy and security and benefit from the ignorance of people who blindly trust them.

      Again, you can’t just assume base on text on policies that can be interpreted as anything, but I am sure if Google meant blocking they would have added more words and not just “manipulating” which as you can see, doesn’t mean anything remotely to “block”.

  17. Tony said on September 9, 2022 at 4:21 pm
    Reply

    I for one greatly appreciate the effort Raymond Hill is putting forth to deal with this mess. Also, reading the comments here, I also appreciate the efforts of Brendan and Mozilla to keep v2.

  18. Janne said on September 9, 2022 at 2:53 pm
    Reply

    Hows about Edge? Perhaps it can continue to support v2, because it have its own extension page.

    1. Anonymous said on September 9, 2022 at 4:55 pm
      Reply

      @Janne
      Microsoft in general is even worse, so don’t expect anything good.

  19. Jontev said on September 9, 2022 at 2:33 pm
    Reply

    You thought Google one of the most advanced Big Tech company would aim to give people and developers more freedom with their advanced technology. Instead this Manifest v3 going backward and placing more restriction, with some excuses of more privacy-effective. Since when they care about privacy? Google only care about get to know you more so as to better serve you, definitely want to know everything about you.

    Put it simple:

    More freedom without jeopardizing security = improvement or progression
    More restriction on advanced new tech = regression with excuses

    Since when the old Manifest v2 run into security concern with more freedom? Nothing is proven to be a concern.
    Placing more restriction with the new tech API manifest v3 to give you more security. Since when the users of internet really care about “more security”?

    Google really think anyone is stupid enough to buy into their regression going backward new tech Manifest v3.

    These are very smart people in Google, very cunning and manipulative as well. Smart and manipulative always go hand-in-hand, as smart people always like to play mind game and “manifest” their mind game into reality, and they are rich and powerful enough to do so. Very egoistic. There is nothing normal people can do about this. You can only be aware of this.

    They have 65% of world market share with Chrome. Most of these 65% users don’t even care. Remind me of the movie Experimenter 2015. Most people just worship and obey authority big tech like Google without knowing it.

    1. Jay said on October 26, 2022 at 9:28 pm
      Reply

      Very well said, the truth behind this whole fiasco is money. It will always be money and nothing else. For a company like Google, they will stop at nothing to expand their invasive practices to every corner or the internet in the name of “introducing the world to our amazing products”. Manifest V3 is just another gimmick to advance this agenda.

  20. IgnoredFeedback said on September 9, 2022 at 1:34 pm
    Reply

    I appreciate Raymond Hill making the effort to create a manifest v3 version. As of right now, it falls short of the Globemallow and AdGuards manifest v3 extensions in reliability. Pages load more slowly and a surge of advertising appears. I’m hoping he’ll figure it out and Google will remove these nonsensical manifest v3 limitations in the next few months.

    1. Anonymous said on September 9, 2022 at 2:28 pm
      Reply

      @IgnoredFeedback
      “Google will remove these nonsensical manifest v3 limitations in the next few months.”
      I’m sure an ad company will do that

  21. Bradley said on September 9, 2022 at 12:27 pm
    Reply

    The CEO of Brave appears to imply that Brave may continue to support uBlock Origin and uMatrix for their users through the Brave “component updater”. Although, I think for Brave users, long-term they will likely just use the native content blocker built-into Brave – so an extension won’t be required.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32650154

    “…You mean MV2. I’ve said we’ll keep support uBO and uMatrix uses of it, at least. This means we’d have support from the maintainers for their builds to produce extensions we can add to our component updater as optional for our users. We are discussing this now with uBO/uM maintainers.”

  22. Bradley said on September 9, 2022 at 12:25 pm
    Reply

    “The extension does not require any extra permissions, including the “read and change all your data on all websites” permission. The consequence of this is that certain features are not supported by it. Hill lists cosmetic filtering, scriplet injections, CSP, redirect and removeparam filters specifically.”

    Is this a self-inflicted restriction by the uBlock Origin developer? If so, I don’t understand why he would cripple his own extension. As far as I’m aware, the Manifest V3 version of the AdGuard browser extension doesn’t do this.

  23. owl said on September 9, 2022 at 9:57 am
    Reply

    Ghacks Article
    > From January 2023 on, Google will block extensions that rely on Manifest V2 in Chrome. There is an Enterprise-policy that extends the cut-off date to June 2023. From June 2023 onward, Manifest V2 extensions are no longer supported. Installed extensions will not run anymore and new extensions can’t be installed at all in Chrome anymore.

    In fact, the application of “V2” has made many popular browser extensions (e.g., Text Legibility, and many others) unusable (or forcibly removed, even if users are still using them) on Chromium.

    Even if it is a countermeasure against “malicious intent,”
    FOSS (free and open-source software), and other individual developers and small businesses must bear new extra costs and troublesome work, etc., in conforming to “V3” compatibility (creating a dilemma that must be borne by those without malicious intent).
    Because (Malicious intent is cunning, and workarounds are destined to be devised), many developers of free apps are hesitant to respond to “V3,” which is practically meaningless (Abandon, or Make it shareware, specialize in AMO, etc.).

    If users are using browser extensions, whether they are compatible with “V3” will be an issue for many in terms of user experience, usability, and eventually “user rights”.

    1. owl said on September 9, 2022 at 10:26 am
      Reply

      The mission of a “corporation” is to return profits to shareholders, and corporate value (business volume and profitability, growth potential) is its lifeblood.

      Microsoft and Google are thoroughly “Re-Structuring” to increase profitability and are replacing (human) with machines.
      Due to this relationship, the review of applications is not manually checked by humans, but by AI.

      In the past, “unfair apps” were rampant, and as a countermeasure, (promoting mechanization) Microsoft and Google established the Extension Manifesto v2 (at the time, they bragged about a perfect API, but it was cruelly tossed aside by malicious intent), and V3 will inevitably suffer the same fate. Because malice is cunning, and “proverb: Evil never dies” then “proverb: Honesty makes fools of us all.
      Extensions should be reviewed manually by humans, and Microsoft and Google have ample capital to do so, which is their natural responsibility.

      It is the servant-like Google’s gofer who espouses the corporate “V3” opportunism.

      1. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 10:40 am
        Reply

        @owl

        > Extensions should be reviewed manually by humans, and Microsoft and Google have ample capital to do so, which is their natural responsibility.

        You can’t “review” all Chromium extensions, because the Chrome Web Store or Edge Store are not the only source for them. You can install CRX files or unpacked ZIPs from third party sources as well! And just like that, your argument bursts into a thousand bubbles, unless you want an Apple-style system where you can only get your “apps” (extensions in this case) from one source – the store. Sounds very unhealthy to me.

        > read and change all your data on all websites” permission

        …is a security issue waiting to be fixed. The declarativeNetRequest API, minus the artificial rule limit obviously, is the saner way to do it. Why should extensions be able to directly monitor and redirect connections? This is a door wide open for all sorts of malicious activity.

      2. Wooden heart said on September 9, 2022 at 3:55 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart
        You are wrong. Firefox is better than Brave.

      3. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 6:44 pm
        Reply

        @Wooden heart

        > You are wrong. Firefox is better than Brave.

        What aspect of it is better? You need to be more precise if you want to convince me.

  24. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 9:43 am
    Reply

    > uBlock Origin Minus

    Good graces, the salt must be real with Raymond Hill… uBlock Origin Minus? Really? Surely this is meant to hint at the reduced capabilities, but the sheer saltiness of gorhill at Google’s decisions certainly didn’t escape me.

    I think he will throw in his lot with Firefox, which will be the beginning of the end for his project. Not many people care about adblocking at all, some do and Manifest V3 could be good enough for them, and some want strong adblocking capabilities – the last group has other options outside of Firefox as well though, e.g. Brave. I don’t think Firefox will experience a high influx of users at the end of the day. If FF continues to decline, and uBO is FF-exclusive, that will also mean trouble for uBO. But this is the risk you run into as an extension developer, you are at the mercy of the browser developer and the capabilities given to you (which were not at all only used for good in case of the webRequest API really).

    1. Anonymous said on September 9, 2022 at 10:15 am
      Reply

      @Iron Heart

      well, he is obviously a pro-firefox person, seen by his “why ublock is better in firefox” thing, he never really supported Windows even if it is the biggest desktop OS, someone else has to upload the extension to Edge Extension store.

      He is really idealist which I don’t care, I mean, it is fine for me.

      I guess he just wishes he didn’t have to do this and go to MV3, Adguard supports almost all features in MV3 than MV2 so gorhill is just being negative because it is just few features that he might have trouble with.
      Like logger, Adguard already talked how they will workaround to bring it back, but I am sure it is boring to have to re-do something that was already done and worked great.

      But it is the future so he can’t do anything about it, Firefox supports MV3 so it is not like Adguard MV3 or this uBlock will be only for Chromium browsers. Only because Mozilla said they support Web Request API and added the “for now” or something, doesn’t mean they are willing to have it always, especially with all the money they get from Google.
      I mean, they already got rid of their nice extensions in favor of webextensions because of Google.

      So, Firefox will eventually remove web request API and then what? well, that means gorhill and everyone has to adapt or close the gates.

      Adguard has shown how the biggest problem with MV3 will be the rules limit, not the features they can implement anyway. So I think gorhill is just being dramatic about the whole MV3, but understand he not wanting to do it and then having to re-implement stuff when he does it for free, unlike Adguard that has money to do this, must be annoying.

      I wish he was a little flexible and would join Brave, making sure Brave pays him big bucks for his brain, he might not agree with Brave BAT business, maybe? I don’t even like it, but it is better than what Firefox does, Brave adblocker is heavily based on uBlock anyway but he would help to make it better for sure without google or mozilla affecting crap.
      At least Brave is the only one that doesn’t have an ‘acceptance’ program for ads, which he has talked about, even Vivaldi does, kind of, because it is about the ‘partners’ which means search deals, ABP has it and Opera does too. Adguard doesn’t but they charge money for others products.

      But yeah, I think he will be happy eventually being like Firefox only, which I don’t care because in some way I am sure MV3 has accelerated Brave’s adblocker development, so I hope in few more months Brave will get the features to be like 100% compatible with uBlock lists, and maybe procedural cosmetics too, I would like to see how they perform against uBlock for sure, you know Native vs API.
      Right now Brave is faster for sure and uses tiny little less CPU. So I don’t care what he does as long as Brave can keep forking his work and adding it to Brave adblocker.

      1. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 1:11 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous

        I don’t think Raymond Hill will directly work for Brave at some point. Brave is a for-profit company* and Raymond Hill does not even accept user donations for his work on uBO. He seems to think that accepting money in any shape or form could “compromise” him, so I just don’t see him at Brave even though Brave Software is committed to adblocking – its for profit nature will prevent any kind of employer-employee relationship from happening. Anyway, currently Brave Software is working with @gorhill to try and see what can be done about Manifest V2 support:

        https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/x967w5/ubo_minus_mv3/inmq7bu/

        *Note that I am not at all unhappy with their basic idea / business model – a privacy-respecting local ad matching mechanism that can serve as an alternative to Google’s business model that is based on the collection and analysis of user data on remote servers (which is what Brave is committed to block also). Adblockers, of whichever shape or form, be it Brave’s native adblocker, uBlock Origin, AdBlock Plus or what have you, are basically enabling freeloading, by taking income away from content creators. The obvious alternative here would be paywalls, but this is not something we would like to see, right? So there needs to be an alternative content creators can flock to, which is what Brave offers. They make money with that? Fine by me, they need to sustain the company after all.

        Back to uBO: As I’ve already alluded to in a comment above, I think this is a mistaken approach. The webRequest API allows for all sorts of malicious activity. Despite the understandable cries of @gorhill, his extension is not THAT important when thousands upon thousands of malicious extensions use the very same API for stealing and selling user traffic data, or for directing users to malware-laden destinations. People should accept that taking this ability away is a very effective countermeasure and security improvement first and foremost. Of course you can always elusively state that “evil will find a way” (kinda reminds me of Jurassic Park), like @owl does, but identifying a browser vulnerability and writing an exploit for it is non-trivial, compared to just using an official extension API with its extensive documentation. Loopholes used by exploits are also subject to being immediately fixed by the browser developer of course, so not as attractive for malicious actors as extensions that might stay undetected for a while. I categorically don’t think you can explain away a security improvement by saying “malware will somehow find its way”, this is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

        Now, of course there is a conflict of interest here that we cannot possibly ignore – Google makes money with its ad business primarily, so with change, while arguably being a security improvement, they are also neutering adblockers, which I believe was 100% intended by them as well. We also know that they won’t change course, so we need to think about how to react to it. Trying to patch the webRequest API back in could be a solution, but might be hard depending on how much Google breaks it in future updates. There is also the question of distribution, some browsers aiming to keep it don’t have their own extension store yet. Another way that would IMHO be preferable would be to lift the artificial hard rule limit of the declarativeNetRequest API, after all it should exist somewhere in the codebase, right? This should fix the biggest limitation – the number of rules a user can use.
        A third possibility would be the creation of native adblockers, which is what all Chromium-based browsers aside from Chrome and Edge have done for a while now. Those could easily be as powerful as uBlock Origin given enough time. This would also move the important task of content blocking to the browser core, and remove one party to trust – the extension developer. While I do trust Raymond Hill (has had an impeccable track record so far), I do not need to look far to find parties I wouldn’t trust under any circumstances, e.g. the Eyeo GmbH and their AdBlock Plus extension, which uses a paid-for whitelists that allows some ads and trackers to go trough on purpose, in exchange for money.
        While removing a party to trust is good in theory, it would also be desirable for multiple browsers to ship with built-in adblockers, so that competition will “keep things honest”, so to speak. Fully relying on Brave’s internal adblocker means fully relying on Brave Software by extension, and while I trust them as of now, competition would certainly be great to keep them committed.

        One last and important point of criticism of the new declarativeNetRequest API is that moving the actual act of blocking from the extension to the browser – the extension now “hands” its rules to the browser, which does the blocking based on these rules – could enable browser-level censorship of rules. That means, if the adblocker has a rule to block Google Analytics, the extension can no longer directly enforce it – Google could overwrite this at the browser level and allow Google Analytics to run based on their own internal rules. While this is serious, we need to ask ourselves how such browser-level censorship of rules would get implemented? If (big IF) they do implement such a thing in Chromium directly, it would be easy for user-friendly Chromium-based browsers to remove this. If they create a closed source blackbox (which I hardly believe, it’s in violation of the open source licensing I believe), it too can be eliminated from the codebase. If something like this should happen, it would happen in Chrome most likely since Chrome is already closed source anyway. This, however, would mean that it is no longer the concern of other Chromium-based browsers (aside from Chrome itself of course).

        I also believe you are right on the money re. Mozilla. They’ve said that they have no plans to ditch the webRequest API at this time, but when I hear phrases like “so far”, or “at this time”, or “as of now”, I get the feeling that such thing is temporary in nature. One big reason for the introduction of WebExtensions back in 2017 was to achieve 100% compatibility / parity with Chromium’s extension APIs, so that cross-browser extension development becomes easier. By leaving that path, Mozilla would put the original reasoning behind WebExtensions (and the benefits, i.e. more cross-browser extensions) into question. Not to mention that they are in close cooperation with Google and Apple in a standardization body for extension APIs, kinda of makes me question their commitment to “diverging” from what the other two are doing, you know. What you said about Mozilla’s financials are also true, they depend on Google’s ad money, and if Google threatens to withdraw funding from them in case they don’t comply, who knows what will happen then. Between Google’s millions and Raymond Hill, I am afraid Mozilla could very well give hill the end of the stick – which could be a bitter awakening for him after he goes all in on Firefox. Mozilla also has never been THAT committed to adblocking, if they had been, they would have shipped an adblocker like uBO by default, similar to what Brave does… but then, ad money, I guess. uBO being a third party extension limits its exposure to the user base because you have to specifically seek it out. Mozilla is now celebrated as the savior of adblocking, I say let’s wait and see. The meltdown will be epic should they actually go the same direction, which there absolutely is a non-zero chance of.

        All in all, I am following these developments somewhat relaxed, because whatever happens to uBO, internal adblockers will continue to work and I consider Brave’s adblocker to be fairly close to the quality of uBO. I also try to give a fair and balanced(!) view of the situation here, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of these changes, and trying to discuss possible reactions to them. I am sure I will be accused of “defending Google” or “promoting Google” for saying that the change is not all bad, from a security perspective at least, but this is whatever to me. I hope people trying to understand these changes find my posts informative after all.

      2. Harry Ballz said on September 14, 2022 at 4:26 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart
        Good analysis. Thanks.

    2. m3city said on September 9, 2022 at 10:00 am
      Reply

      @Iron Heart
      AFAIK mr Hill does not make money from ublock and does not accept donations. So, I guess he may continue or stop development at his own will, pretty much regardless of applicable browsers, market share or whatever. No lost money pressure – no problem.

  25. Klaas Vaak said on September 9, 2022 at 7:25 am
    Reply

    In the case of Brave, do we even need uBO anymore? As an experiment I disabled uBO in Brave but have not seen/experienced a difference: ads are still blocked and page loading is more or less equal.

    1. Guest said on September 11, 2022 at 3:35 pm
      Reply

      In the case of Brave, you should not be using it, as it sells your data.

      1. Iron Heart said on September 11, 2022 at 10:29 pm
        Reply

        @Guest

        > In the case of Brave, you should not be using it, as it sells your data.

        Bullshit post.

        You can’t sell what you don’t have in the first place: https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-deemed-most-private-browser-in-terms-of-phoning-home/

        Your fake news won’t stick here because gHacks readers usually know their stuff. Unless you have actual proof for what you claim, just shut up.

      2. Wagner said on September 21, 2022 at 2:46 pm
        Reply

        Firefox has opt-out telemetry settings but I don’t like that user have to do it.

    2. ShintoPlasm said on September 11, 2022 at 12:45 am
      Reply

      Brave’s adblocking is still inferior to uBO in some cases – e.g. I can see promoted posts in Twitter and LinkedIn, which uBO does block.

      1. Iron Heart said on September 11, 2022 at 2:13 am
        Reply

        @ShintoPlasm

        Such assertions will always depend on the actual lists you are subscribed to. If you run Brave with the default lists only and without setting the adblocking to “aggressive”, then it’s no wonder that something gets through. You need to up your game there.

      2. ShintoPlasm said on September 11, 2022 at 8:42 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        Brave adblocking is set to Aggressive, and I’ve tried this with a number of additional filter lists. Did you have any particular ones in mind?

      3. Iron Heart said on September 11, 2022 at 10:31 pm
        Reply

        @ShintoPlasm

        I have the adblocker set to aggressive, and I have all lists Brave ships with enabled. I don’t see what you see. You also need to look at the settings under the address…

        brave://settings/socialBlocking

        …as you have specifically mentioned Twitter and Linkedin. Cheers.

    3. MeH said on September 9, 2022 at 2:38 pm
      Reply

      Damn MV3! I can’t live online without uBO :(
      I use Edge and Brave where I disable Shields and use uBO instead.
      Internet becomes a crappy place without uBO :(

    4. Anonymous said on September 9, 2022 at 10:00 am
      Reply

      @Klaas Vaak

      I would say yes and no.

      Brave adblocker is good, since last time I tested it it seems they finally let you use all the supported features in Custom filters, which will improve things. But Brave is still far from perfect, that’s why uBlock is needed.
      Resources and syntaxes and all, are uBlock based, Brave even forks uBlock.

      Also, Brave is still missing few little features uBlock supports, I am talking about $popup for example, which is important, but also it needs to be supported because if a filter has $popup it gets completely ignored so you don’t get to even block like the domain or something like Adguard MV3 does (Adguard MV3 seems to be missing that but blocks the domain).

      There are also the procedural cosmetics but they are not important because cosmetics all they do is hide, they don’t block, which most people can’t seem to understand. But procedural cosmetics are nice to have and hopefully Brave will support them soon.

      I actually use uBlock but disabled generic filters and most lists, just leaving uBlock in case something is not supported or not properly supported by Brave.

      The thing is while Brave supports more scriplets from uBlock, like I tested most and they worked fine for the few tests I could get, sometimes it is really hard to find the perfect site to test them, and the testing pages ABP and uBlock and Brave has are not enough for every feature.

      I actually tested Adguard MV3 and I realized how people really talk out of their butts, besides the Rules limit, Adguard supports most features Adguard MV2 does, it is still missing few ones but they even support the ones not even uBlock does because they are ABP only and then Adguard added support for them.

      Compared to Vivaldi or Opera, Brave is like the best native adblocker for sure, Vivaldi or Opera don’t even let you write custom filters and they are really behind uBlock/ABP/Adguard in terms for features.

      Because while many of the features are like not used everywhere, they are useful for many things.

      for example aopw is the one I came up with first than anyone to stop this clipboard issue: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/27/websites-may-write-to-the-clipboard-in-chrome-without-user-permission/

      I think vivaldi supports that, but not the other most advanced ones https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Resources-Library

      And the list of ABP and Adguard is even greater and more advanced than that.

      But anyway, it seems aopw wasn’t working as acustom filter in Brave recently but somehow now it does and I saw Brave adding it to their lists.

      I tested most things even the $redirect, also recently Brave supported the $redirect-url and I think it works also in custom filters, I guess since everything else gets supported.

      There was a point when I was told custom filters were different than internal lists, so that’s why custom filters couldn’t use all the features but now they do, then they are the best native adblocker, because it was already advanced but not having the ability for you to make your own rules is annoying.

      Brave is faster and better than Extension API for sure, and Brave supports CNAME uncloaking making it the only Chromium browser to do that.

      But Brave is where it is thanks to uBlock and Adguard and ABP and the big guys, I mean, MV3 won’t stop innovation like people think, but devs surely will need to find workarounds for many of the advanced features.

      Brave adblocker is not perfect even if it supports the features though, sometimes it behaves not 100% like uBlock would, and there are some regex rules that fail because Brave doesn’t support regex 100% like uBlock I guess does.

      But I mean, nothing Brave team won’t improve or fix eventually.

      uBlock logger is amazing, and the element picker is really useful unlike Brave’s one which I disable with –disable-brave-extension. I usually use Devtools to create my cosmetic filters anyway, but uBlock makes it nice to test things.

      So that’s why I say yes and no, until Brave doesn’t improve adblocker even more and brings the ‘cool’ and ‘normal’ features, then there will always be the need of Adguard or uBlock to fill the gap.

      I think Adguard mv3 is great, but obviously missed some features and has the rules limits which might be a problem for some people who subscribe to every list in the world even if rules are duplicated or obsolete and useless. I am sure uBlock MV3 will always do well, so it is good gorhill finally bringing something to the table.
      It is the future anyway, so that’s why it is good uBlock and Adguard and others exist so Brave can bring their innovations to the native adblocker.

      But for now, Brave is still not 100% there, I would say like 90% there, then they can work on adding other stuff uBlock has but are really not used much just in really specific occasions like matches-css or xpath and stuff like that.

      Also Brave still gets detected unlike uBlock, so I always disable shields and I still get stuff blocked because uBlock then does the job.

      Brave will literally do 98% of the job anyway, even if some ignorant people say otherwise, and it is in rare moments where Brave will brake a page or something, sometimes it is not even the Adblocker that brakes anything but the fingerprinting protection or the 3p cookies being blocked (stored in the Ephemeral storage).

      But I doubt people really know what they talk about, last time someone was saying how Adguard MV3 was better because it does procedural cosmetics and the person kept saying how Brave can’t ‘block’ promoted tweets, which is dumb since cosmetics just hide and don’t block anything, I would say procedurals are used rarely compared to the native browser css selectors, which always be recommended.
      The best way would be for Google to stop being lazy and add at least :has or :has-text to chromium. but I guess it will always be the job of the adblockers to bring custom JS to do the job.

      It’s getting there for 100% compatibility with uBlock filter list for sure but not there yet.

      1. Klaas Vaak said on September 9, 2022 at 12:23 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous: wow, that’s quite a detailed reply. I have Brave Trackers and ad blocking set to standard, and that already seems to keep the ad noise out. I am afraid that if I set it to “aggressive” it’ll break too many sites.

        I have not added any addtional filters, just added a check mark to a few in the native list.

        I have also installed AdGuard MV3 (it is still experimental) to see how it goes.

        Thanks for your input.

      2. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 2:18 pm
        Reply

        @Klaas Vaak

        > I have Brave Trackers and ad blocking set to standard

        You can safely set it to “aggressive” – the sole difference between “standard” and “aggressive” is that “standard” only blocks 3rd party ads and trackers, while “aggressive” also blocks 1st party ads and trackers in addition. “Aggressive” has nothing to do with “more aggressive against all JavaScript”, if this makes sense.

        You’ve said above that you can’t add lists to Brave without getting a download error. I am getting my filter lists from here:

        https://filterlists.com/

        Click on the list you need –> blue square at the left –> then click “View” at the right side of the screen. This will lead you to the list’s URL, copy this URL and add it to Brave.

        Also note my reply to @Anonymous below, I am discussing the Manifest V3 issue there, I think I am doing it fairly and from all possible angles.

    5. gwarser said on September 9, 2022 at 9:20 am
      Reply

      There is the answer from Brendan Eich: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/discussions/14544#discussioncomment-3490321

      >uBO does more by default, and has more knobs for its users, than Brave shields has or will likely ever have….

      1. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 11:04 am
        Reply

        @gwarser

        > There is the answer from Brendan Eich

        In the comment you linked to, he also says that they are committed to keep uBlock Origin (and uMatrix) going. You’ve knowingly omitted this, buddy. It’s an extraordinary commitment on their part because Brave users are not really in need of uBO, as the browser already ships with a capable adblocker.

      2. imagine using brave LMFAO said on September 9, 2022 at 11:43 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart, Brendan Eich also said supporting Mv2 is not something they feel like doing because of how much work it will take to support it. They could technically do it, but since they are also an ad company, I very much doubt it.

      3. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 12:21 pm
        Reply

        > imagine using brave LMFAO

        Ah yes, this already gives me the impression that I am about to read something that is both fair and well-researched. /s

        > Brendan Eich also said supporting Mv2 is not something they feel like doing because of how much work it will take to support it.

        We shall see. Until mid-2023 the webRequest API will just be behind an enterprise flag which they can just activate. After that, who knows. Supporting an API is not that hard to do and Google would also have to go out of their way to break code that they no longer care about (since it is gone in their version of the code).

        Anyway, IMHO Eich is mistaken in trying to keep support for the WebRequest API (which is a security issue). I would just try to find the 300K rules hard limit of the new declarativeNetRequest API in the code, and lift that limit. But hey, that’s just me.

        > ad company

        Brave blocks all online ads without compromise. They make money via privacy-preserving local ad matching technology that they’ve come up with in an effort to create an alternative to Google’s spying business model. While Brave can technically serve ads, it is fully opt-in and not privacy-invasive. They make surplus with that? Good for them, they are fighting the problem at the root.

        PS: Mozilla receives the vast majority of their annual income from Google… How is that not ad money? Wake me up when they actually throw their weight behind uBO by including it in the default installation (similar to what Brave does), in opposition to Google’s wishes. Until then, ciao.

    6. Allwynd said on September 9, 2022 at 8:20 am
      Reply

      Many websites have big or small breaks with the Brave Filters, I use:

      – Brave Filters aggressive
      – uBlock Origin
      – Privacy Badger
      – Decentraleyes
      – additional filter lists for Brave in about:adblock

      On some webpages I have to completely turn Brave Filters off, because they don’t work, if I did not have uBlock Origin, I’d have to deal with the ads there.

      Brave alone is not enough to block everything, especially on Android where you can’t install extensions. There the king is still Kiwi Browser.

      1. steviant said on November 1, 2022 at 8:29 am
        Reply

        Kiwi Browser is fucked. Even if it continues to support the old API, there won’t be any updates for those old versions, you also won’t be able to get them from the Chrome Web Store and would need to go somewhere else.

        To bypass this problem, the author of Kiwi Browser would need to hack support for the deprecated API back into Chrome, maintain bespoke versions of MV2 adblockers himself since the orignal authors are abandoning them, and set up and run his own extensions store for you to get them from.

        Not happening.

      2. Irron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 9:37 am
        Reply

        @Klaas Vaak

        > In the case of Brave, do we even need uBO anymore?

        No. Brave uses the same default lists as uBlock Origin:

        https://github.com/brave/adblock-resources/blob/master/filter_lists/default.json

        …and you can add your own lists on brave://settings/shields/filters . Set the filtering to aggressive and you should be good. Brave’s internal adblocker, since it is not an extension, will not be affected by Manifest V3. But uBO, as an extension, will be, and will be more impotent than it was going forward.

        @Allwynd

        > Decentraleyes

        This has outdated CDN libraries, it is more or less abandonware now. There is a fork called LocalCDN of which the development is much more active:

        https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/localcdn/njdfdhgcmkocbgbhcioffdbicglldapd

        Just so you know.

        > Privacy Badger

        Both Brave’s internal adblocker and uBlock Origin should make this extension redundant.

      3. Anonymous said on September 9, 2022 at 1:37 pm
        Reply

        Concerning Decentraleyes and LocalCDN.

        Alas, with LocalCDN in https://allestoringen.nl/ there are no info-graphs displayed. And that is pretty essential info.
        With Decentraleyes everything goes OK.

      4. nicolaasjan said on September 10, 2022 at 9:58 am
        Reply

        @Anonymous on September 9, 2022 at 1:37 pm

        > Alas, with LocalCDN in https://allestoringen.nl/ there are no info-graphs displayed.

        Click on the green badge and check:
        “Filter HTML source code”. :)

      5. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 5:36 pm
        Reply

        I enabled “Filter html” , and now with Localcdn https://allestoringen.nl/ displays OK.

        Is it OK to have this switch permanently ON?

        Thanks for the tip.

      6. nicolaasjan said on September 10, 2022 at 7:46 pm
        Reply

        I have it always on. But it could break some sites.
        You can add such sites to a list in the options.

        See also the Wiki:
        [https://codeberg.org/nobody/LocalCDN/wiki/Home#user-content-7-a-website-looks-weird-or-cannot-be-used-if-i-deactivate-localcdn-everything-works-what-is-the-problem]

      7. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 10:30 pm
        Reply

        @nicolaasjan

        Alas, not working with Chrome-based browsers.
        However clicking the green icon and then (temporally?) the one available switch (to red) solved it.
        So possibly start using FF more, despite an irritating layout/display problem with the tab with bookmarks.

      8. Iron Heart said on September 9, 2022 at 2:11 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous

        > With Decentraleyes everything goes OK.

        Decentraleyes does not fulfill its basic function anymore, satisfactorily anyway: To replace remote CDN libraries with local copies of the same.

        Decentraleyes’ libraries are outdated, this can really no longer be recommended. I see why the bug you describe could bother you though, perhaps it is a good idea to report it at the repository, so that the developer can take a look at it: https://codeberg.org/nobody/LocalCDN/issues

      9. Anonymous said on September 10, 2022 at 1:49 am
        Reply

        Off topic, but an analogue problem, maybe you have an explanation/solution.

        Do I remember well that you use the Netcraft extension?

        Well, I have a problem with it. When fully active, in the story:

        https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/09/04/de-val-van-de-vitale-metropool-rome-was-een-kwestie-van-geleidelijkheid-en-abrupte-schokken-a4140444

        some pictures are not displayed.

        If I switch off “Block credential leaks” the pictures are displayed.

        Does this mean that through the pictures stealing credentials is tried to perform?

        PS. I have quite some other extensions active.

        I tried to question this to Netcraft, but got no reaction.

      10. Klaas Vaak said on September 9, 2022 at 12:31 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart: good talking to you again ;-)

        > you can add your own lists on brave://settings/shields/filters

        Yes, I noticed that but don’t know how to add them, that is to say, where to get the URLs from. I tried 2 but Brave said “download failed”, so I gave up.

        In any case, they way I have it configured (see my reply to Anonymous) keep the ads away.

      11. Cigologic said on September 9, 2022 at 7:25 pm
        Reply

        > @Iron Heart: “you can add your own lists on brave://settings/shields/filters”

        > @Klaas Vaak: “I tried 2 but Brave said “download failed”, so I gave up.”

        Same problem here in Brave Desktop (Windows). All added filters always experience the “Download Failed” error — regardless of where the filters are hosted. The filters are “live” & can be viewed within the browser window.

        The custom filters download/update problem persists, even when Brave Shields & HOSTS file are disabled. Already tried this in numerous stable Brave versions over several months w/o any success.

        Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/d2yvlhp.png

        However, the same custom filters auto & manual download/update successfully in Brave Android on the same network. These filters also download successfully on other desktop browsers.

      12. Iron Heart said on September 11, 2022 at 2:15 am
        Reply

        @Cigologic

        I have replied to @Klaas Vaak below and I have explained how I add my custom lists – I do not face the same problem you are facing:

        https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/09/ublock-origin-minus-an-experimental-manifest-v3-compatible-extension/#comment-4547860

      13. Cigologic said on September 16, 2022 at 5:31 pm
        Reply

        > @Iron Heart: “I have replied to @Klaas Vaak below and I have explained how I add my custom lists”

        Thanks for your comment to @Klaas Vaak. I did read through it & retested everything, prior to posting my query about the same issue.

        I also obtained the filter lists’ URLs from https://filterlists.com & official repos like Github/Gitlab.

        Brave’s Shields ‘Trackers & Ads Blocking’ setting is set to ‘Aggressive’ (also tried ‘Standard’), as you recommended to @Klaas Vaak.

        The peculiar thing is that the same filter lists download & update successfully in Brave Android (& in every other desktop browser) — except in Brave Desktop (“Download Failed” error).

        In fact, it is not possible to download *any filter list* at all in Brave Desktop, regardless of the scenario & time tested (a few times monthly over a span of several months):-

        1. Tested Brave run “out of the box” with default settings.

        2. Tested new browser-profile with default settings.

        3. Never installed any extension/theme in Brave, so these can be ruled out as potential culprits.

        4. Already checked & ruled out HOSTS file /firewall/ IP blocking & network connectivity issues. Never had an always-on antivirus program installed on this PC.

        5. Don’t have another PC to test Brave Desktop. No other downloading issue (inside & outside of Brave) on this PC.

        Wonder what else could I try …

      14. Iron Heart said on September 20, 2022 at 6:20 pm
        Reply

        @Cigologic

        I am not facing the same problem you face (Brave desktop version here). Lists download and update themselves just fine here, except when they are dead (when the maintainer’s URL of the list is no longer present, for example). What you can try is to uninstall Brave and then remove its profile folder (it does not automatically get removed when you uninstall Brave!). Remember to export your bookmarks before, if you have any (under brave://bookmarks/ – three dot menu at the top right) and then import them into the new profile (same menu as mentioned before).

        Something got borked in your profile, which only a reinstall + new profile is likely to fix.

        You can make a test before that though, try adding the URL https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/abp/ to Brave as a custom list under brave://settings/shields/filters

        If it downloads without error (as it does for me), you are doing something wrong in the process of adding your lists. If not, then there is a more general problem with your profile and you should proceed as described above.

        All of the above assumes that there is not a more general problem with your internet connection of course.

        Sorry for the belated reply, I didn’t realize that the comment section under this article is still active.

    7. Cor Invictus said on September 9, 2022 at 8:17 am
      Reply

      “do we even need uBO anymore?”

      No. Only improved page element picking.

      What we do need though, is an independent extension store, where Google’s hammer and sickle can’t reach.

      1. steviant said on November 1, 2022 at 8:20 am
        Reply

        This has got nothing to do with fucking communism, you moron. It’s a corporation looking after their own interests, that’s unregulated right wing capitalism working as designed and shitting on the little guy.

    8. Andy Prough said on September 9, 2022 at 8:06 am
      Reply

      I haven’t used uBlock with Brave. If you set tracker and ad blocking to “aggressive”, then you should be fine. I use the noscript extension with it, because I like to control what javascript is allowed to run in the browser. Otherwise, Brave seems to have all you would need built in.

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