Most people still haven’t heard of Manifest V3, so if you are one of those not using Firefox, this is for you.
If you’ve been on YouTube or Reddit August last year, you might’ve seen this screen yourself, or a screenshot of someone else getting it. This of course, I am talking about the infamous YouTube ad blocker blocker popup, discussion exploded on Reddit mostly consisting of people complaining about ads, as well as an angry mob storming r/memes, turning it into a Firefox propaganda centre.
About a month later, different adblockrs eventually found their way of bypassing detection, and they work on YouTube again. So natrually Redditors thought they’ve won another war against big tech, completely ignoring Google’s original plan to kill off adblockers by June this year.
So all extensions, including adblockers follows a specification called the Manifest V2. The Manifest allows extensions to do certain things, say accessing browser tabs or to change browser settings. All while putting some limitations, and prevent extensions from doing crazy stuff like installing a virus to your system. But too much limitation, is what pisses off many extension developers about the upcoming ManifestV3.
In this article written by the EFF, they interviewed developers responsible for popular extensions, where most described ManifestV3 as a downgrade, with some accused it for being purposefully bad. I particularly like this one from the creator of SingleFile, “I consider the migration to Manifest V3 to be a major regression from a functional and technical point of view.”
After an update in June this year, a feature called the WebRequest API will be removed, and the adblockers and tracker blockers that depend on this feature will stop working. Since the business model of Google is to track your online activity and then show you personalised ads, it is not difficult to see why this feature is removed.
Not only are they sacrifising user experience for monetary gain, they are forcing the same update on all Chromium browsers as well. I am hereby devastated to inform you that this is not the first time they have done it, and it will not be the last time they will do it.
But there are also good news, non-Chromium browsers will not be affected by the Manifest V3, and if you are already using one, you will be exempt from any future nonsense Google throws in your way. So if you are considering switching to one, unless Safari is your goto browser, which lacks competent extensions support, you can still get your adblockers, another adblockers, all the adblockers.
So are you going to make the switch before the update? Let me know in the comments down below, anyways I will be seeing you in two weeks, have a good one.
An article for more my ranting needs https://gmtex.siri.sh/fs/1/School/Y12/Cssoc/chromium.html
I’m gonna be cocky and sit on my high horse to say I switched back to Firefox many years ago when they got rid of the memory leaks
The last time I remember Firefox having serious memory leaks they called it Firebird. Guess I’ve been lucky. Or in a comfortable ignorant haze.
Firefox had some major memory leaks when Chrome first launched (2008). It became noticeable with the more tabs you had and the longer the browser was opened. This was also during the days for consumer systems with 16GB max RAM & 32GB on higher end enthusiast systems.
We also have to remeber that this was 10 years before Google removed their “Don’t be Evil” motto, and there was still a great deal of trust that had been earned by tech professionals.
So when Chrome came in, had a minimalist UI (for the time) and was light weight and memory light without any obvious memory leaks, it was a performance boost for a toooon of users.
Chrome has since become a memory hog and is now being developed and pushed by a company that has become heavily enshittified & evil. Firefox has become lightweight, memory efficient, and is an FOSS product that’s not evil and enshittified making it the right choice in 2024, but is going to be an uphill battle that hopefully more tech professionals move to as Manifest V3 becomes a reality.
It had a leak a few years back. Not a huge one, but it’d add up on devices that had a ton of tabs or were always on.
Firefox - Accidentally introduces memory leaks. People flee in droves.
Chrome - Intentionally introduces privacy leaks. People go “eh” end keep using it.
Gotta protect that memory!
Yeah Firefox definitely had issues but right now I think it’s the best browser available.
I switched off of Firefox because of those memory leaks. I remeber when it hit the tech news circles when the community contributer that was frustrated with them went in and fixed two of the biggest culprits.
Then I just didn’t bother til somewhat recently. For the most part, it’s great and does what ilI want/need. Biggest complaint is that some UX overhauls are needed for Mobile FX, especially around tab management.
yeah, on android it’s kind of a pain. but being able to use extensions is insanely good.
Heh, “Don’t Be Evil”
they don’t say don’t anymore
Don’tBe EvilIt’s been a meme for a while now.
Tldr?
More ads, and you can’t block them because ad blockers will be banned
Thank you sir
It’s a good thing I’m a Firefox boy. I’m honestly fucking sick of companies making free money off me at my inconvenience while I get nothing in return.
But but… Aren’t you happy with the illusion of freedom and choice? Wouldn’t you be even happier buying stuff you don’t need? Trust me
Fuck no. I know this is sarcasm but still, fuck no.
Overall awesome video, just invest in good mic also best of luck.
thanks for the advice, i will do that maybe in the future
well a bit more on that, since i record my audio an audacity, there are 3 types of noise suppression i could do
- the first one of course is no noise suppression at all
- then there is the standard noise suppression
- and then there is the new RNNoise suppression
RNNoise is the best at removing noise, but it also cuts off all the deeper parts of my voice (i think, because I have no way of knowing how I really sound like), so here its a tradeoff between getting the entirety of my voice, or absolute silence, here i chose my voice
A focused mic and quiet room beats all the noise suppression algorithms you can apply.
Firefox shall rise soon.
I don’t need an awesome web browser. I just need one that’s good enough to get the job done. Since I usually use an iPad, Safari is my go-to.
Use. Firefox. Now!
Very useful video. I miss that you don’t list the Chromium browsers. A lot of people, the target audience of this video don’t know that edge, opera, vivaldi, brave are all affected some way.
I thought Brave wasn’t affected by this
Edit: yeah, Brave mentioned they won’t be impacted by this
https://community.brave.com/t/v3-manifest-will-it-improve-brave-with-other-joining/527963
Also not Vivaldi, gutting out Google since 9 Years.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/
It’s also open to install any userscript directly, without the need of Tamper- or other monkey, if needed. The only problem for other Chromium are the by Google gutted extensions in the Chrome Store
Brave has it’s own issues. Like their owner being a total POS for example.
Brave can keep the old APIs but they’ll still be affected, because developers for Chromium-compatible browsers still have to decide whether they want to create or support apps that will only work in a subset of browsers, and figure out how to distribute them outside the Chromium store.
True. But I believe brave’s filter list at the very least, will still work.
Which probably makes use of less tracker blocking techniques than specialized extensions. I mean, uBlock is able to do a lot of things, partly because of its scriptlets that lists can invoke for certain sites.
Both uBlock Origin and Brave would be nothing without the maintainers of the filters they use.
Except uBlock’s devs are transparent and supportive of the list maintainers, while Brave (AFAIK) really isn’t.
Yeah, this kinda sucks. Well, this is what I get for recommending Brave to people I know. I feared that Firefox would be too great a leap.
well, it’s a video making decision. most people these days have virtually negative attention span, and they would click off the video given the slightest chance, and listing Chromium browsers would be too much time for too little argument made.
I’ve accepted that I’m not mental outlaw and people wouldn’t be tuning in for a podcast, so the best I could do is the minesweep the video and remove any opportunities, because if I don’t do that, most people won’t get past the first 10 seconds, “getting straight to the point” is one of the things I’ve learnt while doing youtube
also, infographics are great for these explainers video, because i could jam pack so much more information that is otherwise impossible, and in 1:53 I’ve referenced “all chromium browsers” with all their logo on screen, which is insanely efficient because with this visual style of story telling I could brought up two points at the same time:
- chromium browsers are affected
- these browsers on screen are chromium browsers
… vivaldi… affected [in] some way
Yes, but also; https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/
yeah but its not the same, sure you could mod your router or use a pihole to get adblocking, but it is not the same convenience as extensions, and by far ublock origin is the best adblocker no arguments raised.
moreover companies can’t really do much when they are completely reliant on chromium, and they can’t do much except pulling PR stunts and try to sound like they are doing something while all they’re doing is to merge commits from upstream chromium once in a while
one example is the “we will continue to support v2” stunt by brave, which is not possible as they have 0 experience maintaining a browser, also vivaldi is absolutely proprietary
I am on Firefox since I think 2003. Never understood why anyone would use a non-free browser, even if it sometimes works faster. People are weird.
Chrome had a bigger ad budget and had a good amount of hype when it was released, since Google was still well-regarded when it was released.
Firefox also had a period where it was slow AF. I switched to chrome at that point which was a lot faster.
I’ve ( happily ) been on Firefox these past few years though. Firefox addons on mobile devices is a blessing too.
I enjoyed vivaldi as well before I went back to Firefox. Too bad it’s chromium based :(.
Would you consider Firefox better then duck duck go ?
Here is a breakdown of why it is much better (near to the bottom): https://divestos.org/pages/browsers
TLDR: Webview browsers are bad for privacy.
mostly same here, with occasionally trying out some chromium based browsers, never understood why Firefox is referred to as an “alternative” by so many people, chrome is the alternative
Because firefox is used by less than 5% of internet users.
It’s still years newer than firefox
Same here, even my newly issued work PC always gets the Firefox treatment. Annoyingly, some sites that I need for work (almost, but not quite, zero) just do not work with Firefox, but do with chrome.
At my work PC they blocked all, but chrome… And I really don’t think Chrome is superior to Firefox at this point of time.
They sort of tried at my last job… There’s portable, non admin installs of Firefox available. The tricky part was ssl inspection certificates, but even that is easier than it used to be.
I am one of those “Opera back in thr day” guys so you know the story. I eventually gotten back to use Mozilla Firefox. Chrome had it’s good days but it’s a pionner of the enshitification.
ex-GX user here. i do not miss chrome.
you and my dad both. he’s been using it forever
wElL aCtUaLlY, i DoN’t EvEn MiNd SpYwArE oR aDs
Go home Satya, you’re drunk.
This is about Google?..
Go home Sundar, you’re drunk.
I like the artstyle, but the Mv3 blocking API has actually been improved to the point where uBO Lite, the Mv3 version of uBlock Origin, can block YouTube ads and only fails in edge cases.
Also, Safari technically has the same extensions support as Firefox does, but developers have to pay to distribute their extensions. That doesn’t stop the existence of AdGuard.
it’s not the only propose of uBO to block YouTube ads. It’s purpose is to block ads on as many sites as possible without breaking them, and also to block tracking in the same way. That needs a versatile and nouanced blocking list, with more of specific things to block instead of less of rather general things, and that sadly won’t fit in to that small limit.
But there’s more. A lot of uBO’s capabilities depend on being able to act on the requests as happening. Content replacement, response spoofing, a lot of things. Look up uBO’s scriptlets and how are they used, is in the repo’s wiki. That won’t be possible with uBO Lite. It’s called Lite for a reason, and gorhill was (and is) furious for a reason.
Remember, ad blocking is not just hiding them.
I agree that it is awful to remove the API for reasons you’ve mentioned, but my point was that it’s a misconception that Mv3 broke and limped all adblocking. Currently the list is big enough that only edge case trackers aren’t blocked.
just realised something, if my understanding is correct, MV3 also banned remotely hosted content, with a publish delay up to 2 weeks google (specifically youtube) can easily break uBO lite if they want to, i dont know if that is how uBO lite works, or if the rules will only be enforced after June, but if it is true uBO lite is not gonna live long either
I was under the impression the uBO lite wasn’t nearly as good and it missed a lot of ads, it seems like things have changed a bit since I’ve last followed on the MV3 situation.
Also about Safari extension support, I didn’t research anything on this topic, I just thought it’s extension support must be incompetent because the uBlock Origin installation for Safari seemed like a hassle, turns out im not that far off.
it seems like things have changed a bit since I’ve last followed on the MV3 situation.
The keyword is “a bit”. It is now able to do the most basic things, but probably entirely useless in limiting tracking
I already switched to Firefox a while back. The new tracking system bullshit was the last straw. Chrome team is too busy trying to invasively track us rather then actually improving the browser for consumers.
I never go anywhere near Chrome if I can possibly help it. Manifest v3 nonsense just reaffirms that position.
TLDR: Google’s Manifest V3 will stop many ad blockers from working on Chromium browsers. This is to increase ad revenue. Non-Chromium browsers like Firefox won’t be affected.
Oh they’ll be affected. Swim or sink.
Maybe the only thing FF users will notice is the chrome exodus. That counts as being affected, right?
