Manifest V3, webRequest, and ad blockers

iAN CooG

@Catweazle said in Manifest V3, webRequest, and ad blockers:

the Vivaldi blocker is as efficient as you want, depending on the filter lists you add.

Not true, Vivaldi doesn't understand all the syntax in the filters possible with uBO, that's why uBO it's better, because Vivaldi can't actually parse everything in the lists.

luetage

@iAN-CooG That’s true, Vivaldi’s adblocker doesn’t understand Adblock Plus pseudo selectors, but these aren’t a ublock invention, ublock just supports them. I reckon Vivaldi could introduce them too.

Catweazle

@iAN-CooG , it is clear that in the Vivaldi blocker there is room for improvements, which will surely be implemented, in any case it is not a bad idea to also use Pi Hole or Portmaster in the OS to complement it (Blokada, F-Droid version, in Android). We will see anyway what happens in January with that new invention of Google and how to deal with it.

thomasp

Perhaps throwing a vote towards Improve ad blocker rule compatibility would be a good idea.

datacenter

To be honest, the only way to avoid stuff like that is diversification and giving the user the ability to pick and mix. Meaning, I would be happy to see additional web engine support, like Gecko and Webkit

luetage

@datacenter On a scale from 1 to 420, how likely do you think it is Vivaldi will support all major engines on all major operating systems with all features?

datacenter

@luetage: Well, this is not some kind of a crazy new idea by any means and if it was possible 10 years ago (e.g. Opera supporting 3 engines)... I would say 637 on the scale

Catweazle

@datacenter , I think that the possibillity to implement this converge to zero, with the small Vivaldi team.
It might have been possible if they had decided to implement a multi-engine from the beginning, but now after 6 years using Blink, by the way the best and fastest engine there is, it would mean redesigning Vivaldi from scratch, losing 6 years of development, or in other words, the end of Vivaldi. You can't do this just like that by simply putting more engines into a browser, this requires long development. Avant Browser tried a few years ago with a Tri motor and like the others with attempts to use a different engine, they have left this and thicken the list of more than 70 discontinued and abandoned browsers that already exist.
The engine is by far the most complex part of a browser, it's not a simple app or API you can add or modify, it's similar to the intent to change the kernel with another one in the OS

datacenter

@catweazle:
I am sure they have thought of that during the design stage of the browser and believe the possibility to use multiple engines is there.
I do agree they need more people, but from technical perspective this should be quite feasable.

Catweazle

@datacenter , it isn't. Maybe a big company with several hundred of devs can do this with several month of work, but not a small company like Vivaldi.
Take a look what is need to maintan one engine for five different OS
https://yngve.vivaldi.net/sooo-you-say-you-want-to-maintain-a-chromium-fork/

n8chavez

You could always use a browser-external ablocker, just as AdGuard for Windows. Then MV3 is not an issue. Also while I appreciate Vivaldi's emphasis on their own blocker, it just is not going to be anywhere near as functional until they integrate some type of element picker and "medium mode" (such as what can be seen in uBo). That needs to be recognized.

datacenter

@Catweazle
Hey, I totally agree that more people would make a difference and impact, but I am quite sure that if you want to find a reason not to do it something, then you will find it. I mean it is not easy to do it, but it is not that hard either.

I am happy with the current state of Vivaldi, I use it everywhere as a primary browser, but at the same time I have Firefox side by side... having a second engine is a godsend to me. If Vivaldi adds additional one, than great, but the workaround of installing Firefox is not that much of an effort/issue.

rseiler

@thomasp: Should something as critical as content blocking in a browser be subject to the whimsy of voting (over a period of years in this case)? I would have thought that given the extremely long lead time on the whole Manifest v3 debacle that Vivaldi would have run triage on the whole matter long ago and have been full steam ahead on the internal solution ever since. But that seems to be more what Brave has been doing (not that I use Brave, but from every comment I've read about it in this area, it's well in the lead), while Vivaldi's solution is rudimentary at best. In late 2022.

barbudo2005

I think that given the importance of MV3, from today until January 2023, the first priority of the Dev team must be to advance in parallel in (and forget any other feature) :

1.- The improvement of the built-in ad blocker.

2.- Study and implement the best way to keep operational uBO.

I believe I am right in saying that MV3 is the most important event since the creation of browsers.

luetage

@rseiler While I agree in general, we had no lack of adblocking so far. First of all the current state of Vivaldi’s adblocker is not as bad as people make it out to be, and secondly there’s still enough time to make improvements.

Panino

Again, and again and again, I'll never forgive Jón S. von Tetzchner for choosing chorume's engine instead of partnering with Mozilla.

Plenty of times people answered back to me that "Chromium Project is open source and free". Oh yes, open and free to you to fool yourself, and the exact same Google's plaything. Wasn't obvious that Google would use this as tool to control the web for their wishes?

Again, I'll never forgive Jón S. von Tetzchner for choosing chorume's engine instead of partnering with Mozilla.
I don't want to see him doing a blog post lamenting how Google is sabotaging Vivaldi again, or anyone else at Vivaldi Team. You all should expect that this and worse would happen. The team talks and defends a free and secure web for the users but sided with "the enemy" of that same web helping it expand it's power instead of allying with with others that shared the same ideals.

nikkehtine

@julien_picalausa: Would it be possible to work with other Chromium browser vendors (Brave, Ungoogled Chromium, Bromite, Kiwi) to make an alternative extension store, outside of Google's control and even able to install extensions on mobile? For example, VSCodium is a de-Microsoft-ified VS Code, and it comes with its own extension store called Open VSX registry (ran by the Eclipse Foundation), that still contains all the popular VS Code extensions submitted there by their developers and maintainers. I'm sure something like that for web browsers would also be possible, since web browsers are used and maintained by way more people, and having multiple teams work on it as well as the "legacy" APIs should be much faster and easier.

Apocolypto

@panino: https://www.reddit.com/r/vivaldibrowser/comments/x92ga3/a_silly_question_why_vivaldi_was_built_on/

LocutusOfBorg

@Preorian said in Manifest V3, webRequest, and ad blockers:

So, basically this means that we all lose the powerful features that Ublock Origin has at this moment. And that using Vivaldi's own blocker is going to be similar (though I expect less features) as using the possible upcoming "Ublock Origin Lite" that throws away pretty much every powerful Ublock Origin feature. I had hoped that Vivaldi would have done more. I had hopes that Vivaldi fighting against this V3 bs would mean that using the original Ublock Origin would be still possible.

Google. Don't be evil, Eh? That company has way too much power.

Seems that I'll be forcing myself to use internet less and less from now on, I can't go back to ads ADS ads ADS popping up everywhere. Ads are the cancer of internet (and all kinds of JavaScript heavy flashy, unusable web3.0, or whatever the trendy word today is, design mess).

EXACTLY THIS Vivaldi

Stardust

I am ready to test Vivaldi with Gecko engine
Never liked that chromium thing...