Manifest V3, webRequest, and ad blockers
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Since Vivaldi is based on Chrome and google wants to remove adblock support by removing certain APIs. What will this mean for Vivaldi and adblock support?
Will i use support for ublock origin in future versions and maybe other extensions?
Regards,
BingbotPS. i hope this hasnt answer already ...
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Google's 7-year slog to improve Chrome extensions still hasn't satisfied developers
From theregister.com
Fri 7 Feb 2025 // 06:27 UTC
Google's overhaul of Chrome's extension architecture continues to pose problems for developers of ad blockers, content filters, and privacy tools.
This story starts in 2019 when Google detailed its plans to improve extensions’ security and privacy features with a project it called Manifest V3 (MV3) that changes the way extensions use various APIs. MV3 is currently being rolled out, and Google looks set to stop supporting extensions that use its predecessor MV2 this year. Back in 2019 Google insisted it was not trying to kill content blockers.
"In fact, this change is meant to give developers a way to create safer and more performant ad blockers," said Simeon Vincent, then developer advocate for Chrome Extensions.
That continues to be Google's position. "The Chrome team is committed to continuing to support content blocking extensions, and Manifest V3 was designed to preserve the functionality of these extensions," a Google spokesperson told The Register.
"In fact, we specifically designed a fast-tracking feature as a supported channel for content blockers looking to quickly roll out new rules.
The search and ad giant's privacy and security concerns are legitimate. Extensions written under the legacy Manifest V2 API have broad access to the browsing activities of users and have long been abused by miscreants to steal data and compromise systems. As noted by security researcher Wladimir Palant, some Chrome extensions are circumventing the ban on remote code execution.
MV3, however, appears not to be meeting Google’s stated goals.
AdGuard, a privacy service that makes an ad blocking extension for Chrome and related applications, recently complained that MV3 is making it hard to deliver its desired features.
In late January the company reported that Chrome's remote code execution policy under Manifest V3 (MV3), the revamped API for writing browser extensions, has forced it to remove its Quick Fixes filter and temporarily drop its Custom filter.
Making extensions under MV3 is harder and more confusing
The Quick Fixes filter is used to quickly resolve critical content filtering issues on popular websites without having to upgrade AdGuard’s extension. Custom filters lets users add third-party filters using a URL. Both are important to AdGuard because they allow rapid changes to content filters so the company’s wares can keep up with counter-measures designed to bypass filters.
AdGuard claims its extension was rejected five times by the Chrome Web Store review team for violating the remote code policy that aims to prevent extensions allowing remote execution of malicious code. The content-filtering outfit said its extension was rejected for using tags to inject rules, for downloading the Quick Fixes filter from a remote source, and later for using scriptlets and parameters, among other issues.
"In short, the policies initially seemed flexible enough to allow our solution, but in practice, we found it to be far more restrictive," a company spokesperson explained. "To be more precise, in the past, even during community meetings, we were led to believe by the Chrome team that the rules would not classify ad-blocker functionality as remote code. However, the reality has proved otherwise."
Working around MV3
Raymond Hill, creator of uBlock Origin (uBO), arguably the most well-regarded open source content blocker, said he would not try to create a comparable version of the extension under MV3. Instead, he released uBlock Origin Lite (uBO Lite), with more modest capabilities and referred uBO users to Firefox.
Among those expressing concern about the limitations of MV3 over the past few years, AdGuard has been among the more optimistic that the technical barriers could be dealt with. Two years ago, the company went so far as to suggest customers would be unable to tell the difference between the now deprecated Manifest V2 (MV2) and MV3 versions of its extension.
The alleged performance advantages of MV3 over MV2 haven't been definitively established through any benchmark testing we're aware of. Such tests would be complicated because many factors influence how fast web pages load, including the quality of extension code, the elements on the web page, and the quality of the network connection.
However, testing conducted last year by web page testing outfit DebugBear suggests that using an ad blocker extension results in better page load performance than not using one. The study found that two ad-heavy news pages required 57 seconds of CPU processing time without an ad blocking extension, but as little as four seconds with "ad blocker adblox," which uBO developer Hill notes, "is a re-skinned version of [his own] uBO Lite," under MV3. The performance of MV2-based uBO appears to be more or less the same.
Is Google listening to developers? Or want to?
While Google's desire to improve the security, privacy, and performance of the Chrome extension platform is reasonable, its approach – which focuses on code and permissions more than human oversight – remains a work-in-progress that has left extension developers frustrated.
Alexei Miagkov, senior staff technology at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who oversees the organization's Privacy Badger extension, told The Register, "Making extensions under MV3 is much harder than making extensions under MV2. That's just a fact. They made things harder to build and more confusing."
Miagkov said with Privacy Badger the problem has been the slowness with which Google addresses gaps in the MV3 platform. "It feels like MV3 is here and the web extensions team at Google is in no rush to fix the frayed ends, to fix what's missing or what's broken still."
They're making it harder for users to pin extensions onto the toolbar
According to Google's documentation, "There are currently no open issues considered a critical platform gap," and various issues have been addressed through the addition of new API capabilities.
Miagkov described an unresolved problem that means Privacy Badger is unable to strip Google tracking redirects on Google sites. "We can't do it the correct way because when Google engineers design the [chrome.declarativeNetRequest API], they fail to think of this scenario," he said. "We can do a redirect to get rid of the tracking, but it ends up being a broken redirect for a lot of URLs. Basically, if the URL has any kind of query string parameters – the question mark and anything beyond that – we will break the link."
Miagkov said a Chrome developer relations engineer had helped identify a workaround, but it's not great.
Miagkov thinks these problems are of Google's own making – the company changed the rules and has been slow to write the new ones. "It was completely predictable because they moved the ability to fix things from extensions to themselves," he said. "And now they need to fix things and they're not doing it."
Burying extensions
Complaints about Google ignoring the needs of developers, particularly with regard to the Chrome Web Store, where developers submit extensions for distribution, go back several years. But even as developers urge Google to flesh out its MV3 API to allow them to create effective content blocking and privacy extensions, the web giant is also pursuing user-facing controls that look likely to reduce use of extensions.
"So the gist is what Chrome is doing is they're further making it harder for users to pin extensions onto the toolbar," explained Miagkov, pointing to a recent Google blog post on the subject. "They're making the pin even harder to reach. But what they're making easier to access is site permissions. So now users will have supposedly, theoretically, quicker access to the menu that will let them disable Privacy Badger on a specific site, or to allow Privacy Badger to only run on a specific site."
Miagkov said that doesn't make any sense and he can't fathom who has asked for this.
"To me, it's obvious that users, when they install an extension, want that extension to just work," he said. "And they don't want to have to deal with menus or preferences. They just want the thing they installed to work."
Miagkov added that extension users "want to be able to trust that the extension they installed from Chrome Web Store is safe, that's not gonna jack all their data, right? And the reality is Chrome Web Store is not safe. But Google is investing in exposing these site controls that, once they come out, they will claim as a win for user control and privacy."
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/07/google_chrome_extensions/
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All I can say is that if uBlock origin stops working with Vivaldi, no matter how much I love the browser, I'm headed over to something else (Likely Firefox). uBlock Origin is a hard stop for me. Everyone knows V3 is a transparent attempt by Google to stop ad blockers.
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Don't be so dramatic, everything you do in uBO can be done in Adguard MV3.
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Everything? That's not true. Even definition updates to it are cumbersome, needing to wait for an update to the extension itself (with limited exceptions).
And if an MV3 extension at parity with uBO was such a slam-dunk, why on earth isn't uBO Lite one? The maker of iBO probably would have been able to swing that. Instead, take a look at it. Good enough for the general user, yes, but not diehards.
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So, you have already decided that on July 1st you will abandon Vivaldi and switch to Firefox or some fork.
It is a good thing to be clear in advance and not to be hesitant. It speaks of a person with clear and firm convictions. Good for you.
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@barbudo2005 The post before me said that, I didn't.
If it so happens that Vivaldi is blocked, and I don't think that could happen on July 1 because of Vivaldi's normal Chromium lag (so it could be a month or two later), then I'll probably just hold on the version that I have at the time while trying to find another solution, because any solution I find is likely to be easier than switching the entire browser. Solutions will be flying fast and furious given the number of people affected (this is way more than just Vivaldi).
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Said:
I'll probably just hold on the version that I have at the time...
1.- You compromise security by not updating Vivaldi.
2.- I don't think you will get anything out of it, since for those who applied the registry policie, uBO will stop working on that date.
3.- Even if it does, a few more months won't make a difference.
Said:
Solutions will be flying fast and furious...
No. The only possible solutions after 1 July:
1.- uBO Lite.
2.- Built-in adblocker, which will hardly have similar features to uBO at that time.
3.- Adguard, the closest thing to uBO that will exist at that time.
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"Websites crash, blame ad blockers: a hidden war in the digital world"
https://adguard.com/en/blog/ad-blockers-website-crash-blame.html
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For those curious what Brave has already done, here it is:
https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/#which-mv2-extensions-will-work-in-brave
brave://settings/extensions/v2 shows these four possibilities now:
- NoScript
- uBlock Origin
- uMatrix
- AdGuard
Vivaldi should just copy the idea wholesale, as Vivaldi also doesn't have its own extension store but does have a "robust process for customizing (or “patching”) atop the open-source Chromium engine."
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Said:
Vivaldi should just copy the idea wholesale…
A real possibility or just a dream?
I'm inclined to the latter. Why?
Very simple:
1.- The “Brave simil” and the “Built-in” projects compete for the same resources and have the same ultimate goal: not to be affected by the problems of MV3. The first one achieves it with a “trick” and the second one in a natural way, since the browser is not affected by MV3.
2.- The “Brave simil” project requires resources forever, while the “Built-in” project once it reaches a “satisfactory” stage of features, the successive improvements will require decreasing amount of resources.
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@supercom32 Im in the same boat as you, i love vivaldi in Desktop, but i use Firefox in android because it has extensions and specially ubo, and vivaldi is getting worse everyt patch on android in the last year
Time to move Firefox Desktop or any fork in the next months to use ubo.
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I also use Firefox in Android for Stylus and uBO.
Try Adguard for these months and move “My filter” list and “My rules” list to Adguard, and you will see that you will not notice any difference.
Look this posts:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/79579/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/252
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/79579/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/253
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@barbudo2005 I think it's pretty straightforward. Users who value their freedom of choice will likely switch from Vivaldi to a browser that isn't supporting an ideological war against ad blockers on behalf of Google.
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Adguard is very good on phone and tablet. Just buy it, a perpetual license is inexpensive. And keep using Vivaldi.
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@supercom32 I don't think this situation is so black and white to warrant such strong claims.
With Vivaldi's built-in ad blocker + a DNS-based ad/tracker DNS blocker, I have zero problems with intrusive ads.
Instead of supporting extensions with an unclear future (as the Brave post clearly outlined in mentioned post), I would prefer Vivaldi to further develop its native ad blocker and other features.
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@josiah1822 I’m glad you found an alternative that works for you, but personally, I’m not willing to settle for the built-in ad blocker as a compromise. Vivaldi is a great browser, but why should I give up a more powerful, proven, and open-source solution like uBlock Origin when it’s available? The backlash to Manifest V3 wasn’t just some passing concern—it was a major signal from the community that Google’s changes aren’t in the best interest of users. This isn’t something that just disappears if people choose to accept compromises. What happens when Google pushes for something else that serves their own interests at the expense of users?
The real way to show support or opposition is through our actions—our dollars, our mindshare, and our choices. If Vivaldi decides not to officially support Manifest V2 or offer a reasonable workaround that keeps projects like uBlock Origin functional, that’s ok as it's their choice. But I’ll simply move on to Firefox and make sure to let them know they won me over by staying true to user freedom.
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@barbudo2005 I started using adblockplus years ago, then I switched to adguard and finally to ubo, the one that works the way I want at least for me, is ubo, adguard works, but does not match the ubo level, that's why I use ubo, not adguard.
Thanks, but I will not go back to the arguard extension, what I will try is the windows software to see if it works as well as ubo, and if it does I will buy a license and continue using Vivaldi, in case it does not work as I want, I will switch to Firefox definitely, I will opt for Floorp for the workspaces.
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