For a while now the transition away from Manifest V2 (MV2) to MV3 has been on-going and it looks like it is entering its final phase of deprecation, at least, in the case of Google Chrome. A recent discussion thread in the w3c WebExtensions Community Group GitHub repo has highlighted how the latest and upcoming versions of the most popular browser are expected to be its final releases with support for MV2 extensions.
What this essentially means is that the tricks and bypasses that were used to keep MV2 extensions like uBlock Origin and others alive will not work any more on Chrome, or at least not for very long. For example the Windows Registry mod that could extend MV2 availability will cease to function after Chromium version 151.
Brave bros anyone? Been using it recently and it’s spot on as a browser honestly
Google realized how much money they were losing by supporting adblock in the first place. They also had way too many extensions with MV2 that requested full site access…
At the end of the day, they want to force feed everyone advertisements. Often meant to make people angry or buy shit they don’t need.
It’s also why apps like NewPipe are in an arms race with the recent sideloading app changes for Android.
Inspired by the Ludovico Technique
Ublock was already somewhat neutered on Chrome, and people didn’t seem to notice. They keep using it.
I’m just so cynical these days. It’s not like the Windows XP era, where people eventually get fed up with enshittification, and move.
Google won. Facebook won.
They have absolute control, basically.
And people still use these trash dumpster of a browser?
Firefox and its derivatives (and Safari - sorry Apple users) are the only browsers not using Google’s Blink web engine these days - at least until Ladybird is released.
Despite the Mozilla Foundation’s many stupid decisions, Firefox (and Safari) is starting to look like the only thing stopping Google from completely controlling the internet.
Lynx gang, assemble
People keep mentioning Firefox but fail to realize that Google, as the sole sponsor of Mozilla Corporation (not to be confused with Mozilla Foundation), can just kindly ask for Firefox to follow suit and gimp itself, just like it did before with a move to webextensions. Gotta admit it, Google has won the web, what they say (eventually) goes.
Just use Firefox (or Zen Browser, which is a nice fork of Firefox)
Ungoogled Chromium and Librewolf really suits my needs, i dont even think about those issues ever since i started using them.
Librewolf gang rise up
What’s to stop the developers of a Chromium fork like Cromite from mainting MV2 compatibility themselves?
Cromite’s only flaw (IMO) is that it based it’s built in adblocker on AdBlock instead of Ublock.
I’ve tried moving to Firefox and I don’t know, it just feels ugh to me. (scientific critique, I know…). It’s just something I can’t put my finger on; Firefox just doesn’t feel performative. whether that’s a frame-buffer animation thing, or icon shadows, or something else entirely, it just feels off to me in some uncally valley sort of way.
Man up and take your spyware like an obedient peasant
Great… I work in IT so this means MORE “virus” calls because you 100000000% need an adblocker on the web to stop those fake “your computer is being hacked” malicious advertisements from websites.
The enshittification is going on overdrive I see…