Manifest v3 update: Vivaldi is future-proofed with its built-in functionality

Team_Vivaldi

As many of you know, Google is forcing an update from manifest v2 to v3, which will have a limited impact on Vivaldi thanks to its built-in functionality. Those running extensions not supporting v3 will be affected during the next year, but with our Tracker and Ad Blocker, our goal to make bad ads sad continues, regardless.

Click here to read the full blog post.

Pathduck

Will someone think of the poor banner ads?

ybjrepnfr

well, now our months/year of speculation is over, we have the official position -- uBO is soon to be unsupported in vivaldi just as in all other chromium browsers.

thank goodness alternatives exist to still support uBO indefinitely.

sad re vivaldi though.

zvaranka

I use the Adguard program and app on both desktop and Android. So I'm not using a browser plugin.

TheBestPessimist

@ybjrepnfr: I agree. Vivaldi's add blocker, albeit useful, is pretty bad when compared to uBlock origin in both functionality and UX. The ease of use (UX) is especially lacking.

I can't understand why Vivaldi choose to build their own add blocker instead of using the best one available. In this particular case, I feel like the "not in house" syndrome is hurting us, Vivaldi users

tantonodavid

@ybjrepnfr: you can move to botched version of ublock origin Lite. But, it is inadequate compared to normal one.

rseiler

For those wanting to extend to June 2025, don't forget the easy Registry addition:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/758206

LonM

I never bought into the argument that APIs should be removed because poorly written extensions can be slow and inefficient. The whole point of having an extension API is to let people do their own things, and yes, that sometimes means lone devs make things that are less efficient than the 1000-strong development team that made the browser could have done. It's the user's choice to use extensions that might slow things down. People willingly install horribly inefficient chrome-wrapped web apps, by the same logic should OSes block that and force devs to go through an official API instead, as that would be less of a resource hog?

I fully accept the other remarks though, and if there is a way to make a new API that is more functional and easier to use that happens to also be more performant, that's a good idea.

My concern is that I've gotten used to browsing the web with uBlock Origin in a way that blocks all third party requests, with the ability to toggle them on if needed. Is that workflow even possible with the new declarative API? The whole point is dynamic granularity. And I still don't have a good way of forcing the browser to use the correct fonts.

WolvenSpectre

Well this is MAJORLY disappointing to say the least. Your ad block is currently slow moving and often detected and the reason why people have to use other adblocks. And you are saying in one version update you are going to compete with companies that that is all that they do.

Colour me Skeptical. Skeptical and Disappointed.

You said "Oh we have our own but just wait and see when we see HOW they implement Manifest v3, then we will decide on what root to take.

Well I guess you have decided to do what every Chromium -Based browser hater said and just take it.

I love this browser but considering how your built in ad blocker has been going so far, I may be forced off of the platform and over to Firefox to eat humble pie.

You have until Manifest v3 launches... PLEASE don't screw this up.

Preorian

@WolvenSpectre said in Manifest v3 update: Vivaldi is future-proofed with its built-in functionality:

Colour me Skeptical. Skeptical and Disappointed.

Yep. Same here. Though I'm not that surprised.

"we plan to include more features to our tracker and ad blocker"

Let's be honest here. Vivaldi ad blocker will NEVER be even close to what the best of ad blocking world has to offer, uBlock Origin. Many people don't even understand what uBO can do, aside from using filter lists. Vivaldi team is too small and too busy to develop a similar solution, they have so much on their hands already (and doing even that poorly, constantly creating many new features that are buggy/unfinished/underdeveloped), trying to fix endless bugs, and wasting valuable time with the email client (this was a big mistake.. have been reading the changelogs of new versions, it looks like 30-40% of time is still wasted on that feature alone... I bet that there isn't even that many people using it... I remember it in "good-old" Opera days, it was too buggy so I didn't use it back then either, and I suspect that the situation is the same with Vivaldi mail too... and why would most people use it? most people are fine using online/web gmail, and then there's a better client, Thunderbird, to those who don't like web clients). uBO developer gorhill has probably spent millions of hours to hone his ad blocker, and to even think that Vivaldi team would (or even want to) reach even close to that level, is just stupid. Vivaldi should have tried to employ gorhill to make Vivaldi ad blocker, or at least collaborate somehow.

There's only few options here for me, and I reckon for many people (some of them will only realize this after they see what it means when manifest v3 ad blocking starts):

Vivaldi actually manages to enhance their ad blocking so that browsing the internet could be done with Vivaldi browser without succumbing to watch cancerous ads (and other bs) everywhere. I quickly made a test; used youtube without uBO (or anything else), watched a single video there and within 5 minutes, I was "served" 4, that's FOUR, advertisements! Vivaldi is NOT going to block these, mark my words.
Move to Firefox. Goodbye Vivaldi. Gonna miss many things, but what can you do? Browsing internet with ads is even worse than using Firefox, though which nowadays is a very pale version of what it used to be, and going downhill constantly.
Stop browsing internet. As in: do only absolutely necessary things, like banking stuff, communicating with government officials, and such things, nothing else.

I'm so increasingly fed up with everything that I'm battling between options 2 and 3.

barbudo2005

@Team_Vivaldi

Said:

We will keep Manifest v2 for as long as it’s still available in Chromium. We expect to drop support in June 2025…..

I had understood that it was necessary to make this modification in the registry to achieve that:

NemoAnonymous

@Team_Vivaldi
Re: Manifest v3 update: Vivaldi is future-proofed with its built-in functionality

Add me as another who is sorely disappointment by this news. Vivaldi is my favorite browser and it does so much so well, yet this may render it moot. I've been using BOTH Vivaldi's adblock and uBO since Vivaldi's came out and it has worked well for me. Vivaldi's adblock can't do so many of the things that uBO does that are extremely useful (Ability to leverage a large selection of 3rd party block lists for privacy, tracking, cookies notices, annoyances, etc. and refresh them on demand; picker to selectively block content; and making my own rulesets as examples). It's not an adequate replacement.

And FireFox is not a good answer either. I still remember how they nuked most of their extensions back in 2018 when they forced a move to WebExtensions API, a move that was IMHO even worse than Manifest v3.

I honestly don't know where to go, but in this Vivaldi shows that with them, choice is limited.

Catweazle

Unlike other users, with this new Google invention, I have stopped having much confidence in the future of uBO and I do not use it.
The Vivaldi blocker, with the filters I use, works perfectly on all sites. I haven't seen an ad or banner since years. It blocks even "We use Cookies" nags and also some paywalls. It's maybe not so powerfull as uBO until now, but does well it's work, even better than other adblock extensions.

The only exception is YouTube, where the Vivaldi adblocker certainly doesn't work, but in change it works wonders the userscript I use with Violentmonkey, leaving YT 100% clean of ads, nags and other junk.

In the past I expressed the dream of Vivaldi's own extensions store, independent of Google, but I also know that this was, well, a dream, given the complexity of such a store and its maintenance by a small team.

The alternative to remaining independent of the Chrome Store, at least for extensions related to privacy, is that Vivaldi incorporates them natively, which it already does with the ad/trackerblocker. Similarly, it would be a great advance to also include a Userscript Manager, since it is not so clear that Google is going to offer an extension that is capable of surrounding its policy, for much longer in the store.

Userscripts are independent of Google's influences and offer an infinite number of possibilities that do not exist with official extensions. In Vivaldi they can be installed directly as extensions, but then they are not updated automatically, since, just as with extensions installed outside the store, they receive their function from a file saved on disk and not from the source repository of the script or extension.

mib2berlin

@Catweazle
Hi, do you know if Violentmonkey prepare a V3 version?
The blog is about ad blocking but V3 hit all extensions.

Cheers, mib

barbudo2005

@mib2berlin

It should since Tampermonkey has already done so.

Catweazle

@mib2berlin, I think so, Tampermonkey is already in Mv3, but it's proprietary soft and Violentmonkey is FOSS. Anyway it's also the reason why an inbuild userscript manager will be the best solution and a huge advance to make Vivaldi independent from the Chrome Store, in adblocking and much other functions.

Catweazle

@barbudo2005, in developermode to run scripts, for this I don't need an userscript manager, as said before, I can install userscripts direct as extensions, but then it lack the functions which offers an script manager, same as install extensiones from downloaded crx files.

debunix

Is there an option to add filter lists in Vivaldi Adblock to get the same, or nearly, functionality than in uBO?

Catweazle

@debunix, yes, you can add the filterlists you want, even those from uBO, but it won't be the same as uBO, because uBO use not only filterlists, like Vivaldi, but also use dynamic filters, which Vivaldi don't have (yet).

Go to the security an privacy settings and in the ad/trackerblocker part, click on "Sources", there you can see the inbuild filterlists where you can activate or add (+) the lists you want.
But you must test it in the pages you use normally, because to much or wrong filters can break some pages.

You can use also this test page which helps to adjust the correct and optimal filter combination

https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html

LongLife

That is very unfortunate. It might be what finally pushes me to switch to Firefox fully.