How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?

rseiler

@RasheedHolland said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

I just read about it, but Vivaldi could block this right? I mean old extensions should be able to work, even if Google removes them from the Web Store, no? And what does the registry workaround exactly do?

Yes, Vivaldi might.

But if not, that's what "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" is about. It's Google's so-called Enterprise Policy designed for those who wish to delay what's happening until June 2025.

Hadden89

@RasheedHolland said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Vivaldi could block this right?

Until the policy exists. But it requires user intervention (see below why). So we should have an year of grace.

I mean old extensions should be able to work, even if Google removes them from the Web Store, no?

Yes and no. A lot of extensions which requires V2 APIs will be likely not be developed anymore - because as long the chromium development proceed - they will continue to phase out the part of the chromium which make work the legacy API (V2). In the long term, they will just stop to work to function on newer releases.

Also, they will test the new chromium around the V3 API, so anything you still use with V2 is partially supported or not supported at all from a dev point of view.

And what does the registry workaround exactly do?

It simply tells to chromium extensions page to ignore the fact the user is using addons with manifest V2 , allowing to use it for the intended period of time. It should also allow to install them from the store, likely for six month or less.

Catweazle

@Hadden89,a lthough the "grace time" with this Registry entry is appreciated, it is only temporary and I prefer to use recent scripts instead of the Chrome Store extensions, which also offer many more possibilities and not be "decaffeinated" by Google. Similar as with the privacy apps from Google Play instead of those from F-Droid.

n any case, Google is going to eliminate many extensions for privacy or security, as it has done with others before for "violating its policy", extensions that nevertheless continue to exist for Mozilla. uBO of the Chrome store is surely only going to be a shadow of what it was before.

I only hope that Google doesn't start getting its hands on Greasy-o Violentmonkey too.

But where there is a law, there is also a cheat

barbudo2005

@Catweazle
Said:

I only hope that Google doesn't start getting its hands on Greasy-o Violentmonkey too.

Tampermonkey recent changes:

Catweazle

@barbudo2005, Tampermonkey is nice, but it's proprietary soft, Violent- and Greasymonkey are FOSS.
I know that they are not really needed in Vivaldi, because I can istall the scripts directly, but then I have to update these by hand., because they are linked to my HD and not to to the script stores.
But scripts ofers possibilities which in extensions don't exist, less in those from the store.
We'll see.

barbudo2005

@Catweazle

Said:

Tampermonkey is nice, but it's proprietary soft, Violent- and Greasymonkey are FOSS.

What does this have to do with MV3?

Or do you think that because it is FOSS it will not be subject to the Manifest?

Catweazle

@barbudo2005, of course, these will also have to be updated (if they have not already done so). Only it is preferable to use these two instead of Tampermonkey, being FOSS.

RasheedHolland

@rseiler said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@RasheedHolland said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

I just read about it, but Vivaldi could block this right? I mean old extensions should be able to work, even if Google removes them from the Web Store, no? And what does the registry workaround exactly do?

Yes, Vivaldi might.

But if not, that's what "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" is about. It's Google's so-called Enterprise Policy designed for those who wish to delay what's happening until June 2025.

@Hadden89 said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@RasheedHolland said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Vivaldi could block this right?

Until the policy exists. But it requires user intervention (see below why). So we should have an year of grace.

I mean old extensions should be able to work, even if Google removes them from the Web Store, no?

Yes and no. A lot of extensions which requires V2 APIs will be likely not be developed anymore - because as long the chromium development proceed - they will continue to phase out the part of the chromium which make work the legacy API (V2). In the long term, they will just stop to work to function on newer releases.

Also, they will test the new chromium around the V3 API, so anything you still use with V2 is partially supported or not supported at all from a dev point of view.

And what does the registry workaround exactly do?

It simply tells to chromium extensions page to ignore the fact the user is using addons with manifest V2 , allowing to use it for the intended period of time. It should also allow to install them from the store, likely for six month or less.

Thanks for the info guys, I now understand it better. I believe that most of the 10 extensions that I use are still actively developed, so they will probably switch to MV3, hopefully without any drawbacks. The biggest problem is of course uBlock Origin, since it might be severely crippled. That's why I believe that Vivaldi should soon beef up its adblocker.

barbudo2005

Is OK?

Hadden89

@barbudo2005 yes, if loaded fine should be shown here vivaldi://policy

barbudo2005

@Hadden89

Thank you.

ybjrepnfr

@RasheedHolland said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

uBlock Origin, since it might be severely crippled

there's no "might be" about it, no equivocation needed. it's been patently clear for a very long time, emphasised by no less than its dev @gorhill himself, that mv3 is calamitous for uBO. it's the explicit reason he developed uBO Lite, but he makes clear that it is substantially less capable than uBO, & is offered on a "better than nothing" basis, but will absolutely not satisfy anyone used to using uMatrix or uBO in their various Advanced Modes. in such cases, there's only one sane user response...

RiveDroite

@ybjrepnfr exactly this... Any extension adblocker will be severely crippled.

Internal built in adblockers are okay, which is where Brave will now shine.

Vivaldi's works well for me.

Catweazle

@ybjrepnfr, Violentmonkey extension with this script works fine 100% in YT. No ads or nags No more crippled extensions from Chrome Store, userscripts from Greasyfork and OpenuserJS offer way more possibilities as any extension from the store.

ybjrepnfr

@RiveDroite said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Internal built in adblockers are okay

only if they offer more than merely static filter lists. if any uBO user only used it in standard mode, then arguably they probably won't notice much difference with uBO Lite, or just vivaldi's static lists, or any other extension's static list [i know nothing about how brave does it, but would never use that browser anyway]. however, as i wrote before, for users with higher-level demands, who used uMatrix or uBO in any of their Advanced Modes, thus using the killer feature of dynamic filtering rules, there is simply no substitute, hence, continuing to use any browser that does not support these, is unviable.

npro

@Catweazle ok about ads but what about the aforementioned Dynamic Filtering Rules & Element Picker ? I don't remember seeing such scripts for Greasemonkey back when I was playing with Falkon.

To put it bluntly, considering that a vast amount of browser users are using the more efficient uBlock (Origin), not replicating 1:1 what uBlock can do with the native built-in ad-blocker is going to be a totally stupid move from a marketing (promoting privacy, anti-tracking, anti-manifestV3, anti-Google, self-pride in offering something greater than the competition does) perspective.

ybjrepnfr

@npro said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Element Picker

i regret not also mentioning this. once anyone uses this, the idea of degrading one's UX by adopting some inferior alternative without this [& indeed, the entire range of cosmetic filtering uBO supports], is absolutely unattractive.

however, luckily, there is still a very easy way to continue enjoying the full capabilities of mv2 uBO...

Catweazle

@npro, well, dynamic filters, but in first line, at least for me, it's enough when all ads are intercept from website and this the Vivaldi adblocker does very well, even blocking the cookie advices and some paywalls with the filters I use.
The only excepcion was YT where the Vivaldi adblocker cause the advice that adblockers are not allowed.

Because of this I tested several scripts to avoid this, first with the iFrame script, which works fine, avoiding ads in the videos, but same as with the Embedded redirect script, in some videos apeared the advice to watch the Video in YT. Then I found the above mencioned, which really block all ads in YT, even promotion videos in the main page and in the shorts list among other features, permanent update (last 2 days ago), even better as uBO (In the comments seems that the author use a similar approach as uBO), but this, only in YT.

Maybe uBO is generally better, but not much longer and I think that using scripts, independent from the Chrome Store, will be a better solucion than a crippled extension from the store, apart offering functions which no extension from the store has.

Maybe , it will be a good idea in the future, to make Vivaldi independent from the Chrome Store, not longer trustworth with Mv3 at least in privacy extensions, to include an own user script manager. Despite that you can install userscripts direct as extension, but then you can't whitelist pages and you have to update the scripts by hand, because it pointed to the downloaded script in the HD, instead of its homepage (similar to the filterslist in the Vivaldi blocker).

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/by-site/youtube.com?sort=updated

RasheedHolland

Seems like Vivaldi has finally given an update on this MV3 issue. Cool, but I still haven't seen any major improvement in Vivaldi's adblocker, so I'm still a bit worried.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-future-proofed-with-its-built-in-functionality/

RasheedHolland

Seems like Brave has now also given information on how they will handle MV3, and I feel like this is the exact same thing that Vivaldi should do, any opinions?

https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/