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

Catweazle

@RogerWilco, it's irrelevant if it's Chromium or Gecko, as said, Chromium is 100%FOSS and can be modified to your like. Good example is Edge, also Chromium, independent that M$ filled it with own trackers, same as Vivaldi don't have nothing to do with Google or Chrome. The problem with Google isn't the browser, but the webformat used by most pages, which will be a problem for any browser sooner or laterto surrond the Google norms, independend of the engine. The problem is that Google has control over 80% of the internet. The failure is to leave Google too much hands-free time, causing it to be the one that now dictates the rules in the web. Vivaldi, like also Edge has less relation with Google than Mozilla, which will have more problems in the future than Chromium browser.

derDay

wow, this thread is the best example for shoot the messenger
Because I thought, what this article is about, I didn't read it. I have now made up for it.

After the comments here I thought, Vivaldi had written, that's the internal adblocker is as practical as (f.ex) uBo. but that's not the case! In summary, it says: we are aware of the general mv2 change and we will upgrade our blocker in the near future.

so the whole disappointment about "not supporting" uBo is IMO absolutly pointless because it should be adressed towards Google and their plan and not towards vivaldi, which have to handle what chromium can offer.

beside this, I setup the internal blocker yesterday with some additional blocklists, which now has a blocklevel from 96% as stated at this testpage (99% with uBo).
and, oh wow, after enabling the internal blocker and disabling uBo, websites load way more faster and have beside some cosmetic errors more or less the same blocklevel!

I'm curious to see how the blocker will develop over the next few months. I'm definitely hoping for a element picker.
and so long I test the internal blocker if it's fit my needs

TF-19

I can even get 100% on the test page with the built-in ad blocker and it works exactly as it should for me. If anyone has any doubts about this, I would be happy to post a screenshot. And I also think that if Google makes questionable decisions, you can't blame Vivaldi.

barbudo2005

The only way that Vivaldi will not be blamed, is that we, the users, will see soon, not in another year, a clear dedication to improve the internal ad-blocker, leaving behind other things, in at least the following aspects:

1.- That it accepts all the lists that comes by default in uBO:

2.- To incorporate element picker because the alternative that is to occupy Stylus seems that it will also have serious problems.

And related to this incorporate therefore "My filters" list with the same coding that uBO uses, so that the user can incorporate new filters, and be a topic in the forum where users can ask for help on how to filter something on a site, as is done on the uBO site on Reddit.

3.- Improve this window in such a way to have more control over the blocking on each site, not just enable and disable.
It would be convenient to remove the address bar button and move it to a special button to show the hierarchy that the blocker has as part of Vivaldi.

So if we as users do not see a real commitment to move in that direction, then we have every right to be disappointed in the Vivaldi team.

Stardust

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

so the whole disappointment about "not supporting" uBo is IMO absolutly pointless because it should be adressed towards Google and their plan and not towards vivaldi, which have to handle what chromium can offer.

We all already know what Google is (evil corp) and it pointless to address towards Google

Google wants to kill all efficient ad-blockers. This is their main goal imo. And uBO is their number 1 target, because it's the best one.

derDay

@Stardust
yeah, but the users here in the thread complaining about vivaldi (and leaving towards FF, which is absolutly ok) and not about/against google

Stardust

@derDay because Vivaldi is relying on engine that controlled by Google and Vivaldi can't do anything about it. That was Vivaldi choice to be based on Google engine..

derDay

@Stardust
but do you really think, that vivaldi will change the core engine? no one can look in the future and especially not 10 years into the future. are you seriously saying that @Jon should have foreseen the current "scenario" and therefore bet on gecko?

the decision was made years ago, so now you can do the best (or fear the worst) or go to a competitor but blame vivaldi for literally abadon uBo isn't right (and that's what the first pages are about)

zakius

Chromium always had tons of issues and Vivaldi still hasn't fixed all of them (terrible text rendering got improved by Microsoft, toolbar config still isn't finished, extensions API difference was even bigger back then making it even more obvious that Chromium was a bad choice... sure, it's faster and poorly made websites are less likely to break, but it's so broken UX-wise it's not worth it)

and take a look at mobile that doesn't support extensions at all and only recently got the scaling issue figured out

but it's too late for that, it's unlikely they'd be able to port all the unique features to Quantum in a year so the only option left is pushing through with built in content blocker development, even if it means stopping everything else

Stardust

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

but do you really think, that vivaldi will change the core engine?

Why not? The possibility to switch away from Chrome was mentioned in previous blog-post:

https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/

The move to Manifest V3 makes it more difficult to run content blockers and privacy extensions in Chrome. While some users may not notice a difference, users who use multiple extensions or add custom filter lists may run into artificial limitations set by Google. Perhaps, wise to move away from Chrome?

no one can look in the future and especially not 10 years into the future. are you seriously saying that @Jon should have foreseen the current "scenario" and therefore bet on gecko?

Yes. IIRC there was a number of posts to go gecko instead of chrome. And I was in gecko camp too.

the decision was made years ago, so now you can do the best (or fear the worst) or go to a competitor but blame vivaldi for literally abadon uBo isn't right (and that's what the first pages are about)

Well I was criticizing Vivaldi for choosing chromium engine since the beginning (2015).

Stardust

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

it even more obvious that Chromium was a bad choice... sure, it's faster and poorly made websites are less likely to break

I never noticed that Chromium faster than Firefox. All my sites works in Firefox just fine

luetage

@Stardust You are overlooking the state of browser engines back then. Firefox had a whole team developing the Servo engine, but the browser itself was still on Gecko. Its future was unclear. In the meantime Firefox has fired the Servo team. When you are committing to developing a new browser, the last thing you need is uncertainty. Chromium was likely the right choice back then, hindsight can’t be applied to the past. As for switching now, this would mean throwing the whole UI out. You know, the thing Vivaldi put the most effort in. The UI runs on the Chromium engine itself, it wouldn’t render in Gecko. It’s not a realistic option.

Stardust

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

You are overlooking the state of browser engines back then. Firefox had a whole team developing the Servo engine, but the browser itself was still on Gecko. Its future was unclear. In the meantime Firefox has fired the Servo team. When you are committing to developing a new browser, the last thing you need is uncertainty.

Good point. But I would still bet on Firefox engine in a long run.
Though we can't trust Mozilla as well, just look at this:

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/

Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a trailblazer in privacy-preserving digital advertising. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla to help raise the bar for the advertising industry by ensuring user privacy while delivering effective advertising solutions.

Chromium was likely the right choice back then, hindsight can’t be applied to the past. As for switching now, this would mean throwing the whole UI out. You know, the thing Vivaldi put the most effort in. The UI runs on the Chromium engine itself, it wouldn’t render in Gecko. It’s not a realistic option.

This is bad that Vivaldi can't switch UI engine on the fly. What if UI was independent of engine, like DEs in linux distros?

derDay

@Stardust
What if... is a great series at Disney+

Stardust

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

What if... is a great series at Disney+

I want to be in alternative universe where Opera Presto exists with market share 70%

RiveDroite

@Stardust we all wish this!

Catweazle

Yesterday I saw "Adblockers are not allowed on YT" again in a video and others full of non-skippable ads alt text .
The only way that still works, apart to watch it in Poketube, is to use the "Redirect embedded script" again, which redirects the maximized video in a new tab, without ads, by clicking on a YT link.
It's a pretty simple 4 line script.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Youtube Embed Redirect
// @namespace    https://www.youtube.com
// @version      1.0
// @description  Redirect Youtube Links to Embed Links
// @license      MIT
// @copyright    2023, Kraust (https://openuserjs.org/users/Kraust)
// @match        https://www.youtube.com/watch?*
// @match        https://www.youtube.com/watch/*
// @grant        none
// @updateURL    https://openuserjs.org/meta/Kraust/Youtube_Embed_Redirect.meta.js
// @downloadURL  https://openuserjs.org/install/Kraust/Youtube_Embed_Redirect.user.js
// ==/UserScript==

function redirect() {
  var parms = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
  window.location = "/embed/" + parms.get("v");
}

(function () {
  redirect();
})();

In all other places the Vivaldi blocker works perfectly. But apparently, Google is really in a war against adblockers.

zakius

@RiveDroite honestly... Opera was in similar spot to where Vivaldi will be soon: a lot of built in features, some great, many rough around the edges and some had a lot to be desired, unfortunately the extensions API wasn't up to the task of supplementing missing features

don't get me wrong, it's Opera that made me love RSS and mouse gestures (and that made me suffer so much in the current state of browsers market), but M2 (and Vivaldi reader for that matter) missed some UX niceties I got to love in Newsfox and the content blocker was severely lacking, especially UX wise

JoeBecomeTheSun

@Preorian All that Vivaldi would have to do is to use uBlock Origin as its adblocking engine and integrate it deep enough into the browser engine that it can have all of the features it does on Firefox. An alternative solution would the adblock-rust on the brave software GitHub. As for filter lists all that is needed is to simply use the default filter lists that already appear in the filter lists tab on the uBlock settings panel because that curation already works.

barbudo2005

@Catweazle

Said:

The only way that still works, apart to watch it in Poketube…

There are 2 additional simple ways to watch YT without ads:

1.- Watch the video in a video player like MPC-BE.

2.- Watch it in a Feed reader & player like Feedbro. The idea is to transfer all the subscriptions to Feedbro and therefore not having to use the YT page.

As I know this topic is country dependent, I ask you @Catweazle :

Those problematic videos are viewed without problems in the mentioned options?