Google prepares for Chrome extension Manifest V2 phase out
www.theregister.com
Starting Monday, users will gradually be warned the end is near

The new MV3 architecture reflects Google’s avowed desire to make browser extensions more performant, private, and secure. But the internet giant’s attempt to do so has been bitterly contested by makers of privacy-protecting and content-blocking extensions, who have argued that the Chocolate Factory’s new software architecture will lead to less effective privacy and content-filtering extensions.

For users of uBlock Origin, which runs on Manifest V2, “options” means using the less capable uBlock Origin Lite, which supports Manifest V3.

    • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
      585·
      7 months ago

      yeah the solution here is so simple, yet most people seem allergic to firefox.

      • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        111·
        6 months ago

        it wasn’t marketing wank. it was a significant performance difference. people forget Firefox 3.x but i remember. it was fireslug more like.

        • Covenant@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          Exactly, i went from firefox to chrome because the performance. Got back to firefox a couple of years ago because the performance didn’t mather between those two.

        • Grabthar@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          I dunno man. I quickly learned to avoid Chrome at all costs because of the performance. Even when it was supposedly “good”, it was always a massive memory hog. Never had that issue with Firefox, and if it ended up taking a few seconds longer here and there to load a page, it would pale in comparison to the overall hit to the system from Chrome. Like being penny wise and pound foolish.

  • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    542·
    7 months ago

    Now every public school that uses Chromebooks is going to have children get served ads on taxpayer dollars?

    What could go wrong?

    🍿

    • corvett@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      Google’s Admin Console has an option to continue enabling Manifest V2 extensions. Most schools would be wise to lock down which extensions they let users install anyway, and the zero trust approach is to just deploy what’s needed for access to curriculum.

    • bobs_monkey@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      7 months ago

      Gotta get em while they’re young, marketing execs drooling over the new wave of consumerist indoctrination!

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      It is a good point: other platforms [other than iOS] have an easy solution (Firefox), but on Chromebooks you’re relatively locked in because you have to jump through hoops installing the Linux environment in order to use it.

        • bobs_monkey@lemm.eeEnglish
          10·
          7 months ago

          It just has a crap load of software packages it depends on to work properly (though a number of them seem like fonts). I have reasonably fast computer, and it’s been compiling for about 45 minutes at this point.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            Ah compile… guess I’ll stick with regular Firefox. There are some magiks I don’t tamper with.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              7 months ago

              I mean, if you’re intimidated by compiling you probably shouldn’t be using Arch to begin with.

              (I’m hoping that you didn’t understand the “on AUR” part of the comment as well as the “dependencies” part, and actually use a more reasonable distro that isn’t subject to the issue @bobs_monkey is complaining about.)

                • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  7 months ago

                  • Arch is a Linux distribution that intentionally requires a bunch of relatively-complicated manual steps to install, so “I use Arch BTW” has become a meme among people who want to brag about how ‘l33t’ they are.

                  • AUR is Arch’s package manager.

                  • A package manager is a software database that lets you easily install apps with a single command (e.g. [tool-name] install [app-name]) along with all the software libraries they depend on (i.e. their ‘dependencies’), such that you only need one copy of each library no matter how many apps use it.

                  (Without a package manager, there are two other ways installing apps can work: either an app can come with its own copy of all its dependencies, which means it takes up a lot of disk space unnecessarily, or the user can be responsible for installing all the dependencies separately, which is a gigantic pain in the ass. Windows takes the former approach, while Linux, before package managers were invented, tended to do the latter because open-source software was distributed mostly as source code you had to compile and link yourself.)

    • TachyonTele@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      7 months ago

      Anyone that’s used Librewolf mind offering their opinion on it? That description sounds pretty sweet.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        7 months ago

        It is pretty sweet. Used it as my main browser for a year. It comes pretty hardened. Try it out for sure its worth it.

      • Teknikal@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        It’s a bit too restrictive by default imo, good for privacy but you will need to change quite a few setting if you want to browse normally.

        Despite my opinion it’s the browser I use most on my laptop.

      • megane-kun@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        I’ve used Librewolf until pretty recently and I say it’s not for everyone. It’s hardened Firefox made into its own thing for people who want the benefits of hardened Firefox but don’t want to go through the effort of hardening their Firefox install.

        There are some sites that wouldn’t work in the strictest settings. As far as I remember, the most problematic sites with Librewolf are those that demand way too much in terms of privacy and security, so I took it as a given that if a site doesn’t work with Librewolf (with me using the default settings), it’s not worth it to enter to begin with.

      • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        21·
        7 months ago

        It’s great. It’s essentially Firefox, but without the unnecessary bullshit like Sponsored sites or Pocket integration, and it has some quite significant privacy and security improvements. Also comes with uBlock Origin pre-installed.

  • Swarfega@lemm.eeEnglish
    203·
    7 months ago

    I still prefer Chrome over Firefox but I’ve been running Firefox for over a year now and won’t go back to Chrome because fuck Google. Also stopped using Google for searching and not being tracked is very very noticeable.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      35·
      7 months ago

      Tried using chromium based browser instead? You are not mainlined into Google that way. Vivaldi is absolutely great. It’s got way better baked in features than chrome which can reduce need for extensions and it has a strong commitment to pushing chromium as far as possible to be privacy conscious. Runs and syncs across Android and pc as well.

      • DacoTaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
        102·
        7 months ago

        Those are all chromium based. They all are connected to google and will all have the manifest v3 change.
        That is unless they will support v3 but keep some doors open for content blockers ( this is mozillas plan )

        • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          31·
          7 months ago

          Yes all chromium based browsers are chromium based. What do you mean by they are connected to Google? Yes Google provides the chromium code, but my Vivaldi browser isn’t connecting to Google servers or sending them anything

          • DacoTaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            6 months ago

            What i meant is that chromium is owned and managed by google. If chromium ( and therefor all chromium based browsers ) gets a change, they all do by default. Things like vivaldi or brave will get this change unless they specifically implement ways around it, which i dont think they will.
            Though its way less than chrome, chromium still has links with google and has been found to ping google once in a while even though youre not using google.

            To be accurate, chrome in itself is a chromium based browser. Its chromium with google stuff slapped onto it.

            Its because of this that i find the “but im using [chromium based browser here], so i wont be affected by change x” a false one, because they will.

              • DacoTaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
                4·
                6 months ago

                I am corrected, thanks :) Im legit surprised they did anything towards the issue, so thanks for pointing it out.
                That said, ad blocking is only a part of the problem and there are a lot of extensions that work on content loading in browsers that are going to be invalidated with the chromium update that an integrated ad blocking feature ( that i hope you can customise to your hearts content ) will not fix…

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    6 months ago

    Honestly this might be a good thing. It might push more users to Firefox causing more competition for Chrome/Chromium.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    132·
    7 months ago

    Going to plug Cromite (a continuation of Bromite) for a great Chromium fork with built in adblocking, and no nonsense like Brave or whatever: https://github.com/uazo/cromite

    Also great on Android (which it was originally developed for).

    Forks maintained by a hero dev are less than ideal (and not sustainable TBH), but this is where we are…

    • a_fancy_kiwi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      7 months ago

      Does Cromite have support for auto-filling from 3rd party password managers? When I last used Bromite, it couldn’t so I never ended up using it as my main browser

  • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    Google is such a greedy group of jackasses. Using their browser monopoly to shore up their ad monopoly should be a crime.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    7 months ago

    Guess, I will need to stop using Chrome unless I have no other option (I mostly use Firefox, but I occasionally use Chrome).