8 ms·

As someone who is intimately familiar with the Chrome extensions internals and is not employed by a big tech company, I believe most of the changes seem like a

As someone who is intimately familiar with the Chrome extensions internals and is not employed by a big tech company, I believe most of the changes seem like a step in the right direction.* I've been working towards implementing greater support for Chrome extensions in Electron which has involved reading and interacting with Chromium code [0]. - Using service workers instead of a hidden background webpage is more idiomatic for web developers. - Forced non-persistent extensions guides developers to a better implementation which relies on less resources. *The deprecation of webRequest's blocking behavior is what's most concerning. The implementation in Manifest V2 requires sending a message back and forth between processes with JS processing for each network request which seems to be in part why they redesigned it. However, that optimization costs so much for innovative ad blocking technologies as gorhill of uBlock Origin has mentioned. When ad blocking begins requiring new methods of detection or filtering, it'll now be up to Chromium maintainers to implement support for it in the new declarativeNetRequest API. This is a tradeoff of performance for reduced flexibility where it is absolutely needed. [0] https://github.com/samuelmaddock/electron-browser-shell https://github.com/samuelmaddock/electron-browser-shell

GoblinSlayer 5y ago
I just disabled javascript and see no ads whatsoever. No idea what problem gorhill found to solve, but ad blocking seems to be easy.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  The problem of not disabling JavaScript and not seeing ads. I.e. granting users control over the code their browser runs that's finer-grained than "nuke it from orbit".
- square_usual 5y ago
  Yes, if you crush your computer into a cube you won't see ads again either. But people want to keep their computers and block content they don't like, so there's "problems to solve" there.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    I keep my computer. How do you think I post here?
    - junon 5y ago
      You're being obtuse for the sake of it. Stop that.
- antihero 5y ago
  I just disconnected my computer from the internet. I don't get any ads at all, now!
krageon 5y ago
You think it is a step in the right direction while acknowledging it breaks adblockers. You're going to have to explain why you're cool with that, because as it stands your post just isn't cohesive at all (as far as I can tell).
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  This isn't a single, monolithic change, there's plenty of changes between manifest V2 and V3. GP said he thought most of these changes are a step in the right direction, while expressing concern about one of the others. That seems like a cohesive and nuanced opinion to me.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    It sounds like deflection and rationalization to me. Not all features are equally important, the one seeing a regression is much more important, it's also the feature with a conflict of interest, and the conflict of interest lies in the direction of Google pushing this through over everyone else's objections.
    - krageon 5y ago
      I was in the process of writing a reply when I realised you presented the same arguments in a much more concise manner. For the record, this is what my problem was with the argumentation presented.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
I remember some people saying Safari's extension changes and specific content blocker API would be a good thing because ad blockers would use less resources. The change happened, uBlock Origin broke for Safari and here we are several years later and the Safari ad blocker ecosystem is an absolute joke and most of it barely works or demands subscription fees (and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for because they don't even block YT ads)
- latexr 5y ago
  > and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for because they don't even block YT ads AdGuard can[1] but it’s a cumbersome process. 1Blocker had to develop a bespoke solution but it works seamlessly[2]. [1]: https://adguard.com/en/article/how-to-block-ads-on-youtube.html https://adguard.com/en/article/how-to-block-ads-on-youtube.h... [2]: https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-safari-with-1blocker-a9091cff160d https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-s...
  - ratww 5y ago
    AdBlock Pro for Safari also blocks YT, but without much ado and without hacks. It just uses the old APIs for blocking video. The bulk of the blocking work, however, is still done by the recommended blocking API. So far Apple seems happy with that.
    - gerash 5y ago
      It's such twisted economics for somebody to make a video, a platform to distribute it and an adblocker company to reap the benefits through its subscription fees. I'd argue the same folks are ok with looting Neiman Marcus stores during some protests because "they've rigged the system and are all rich anyways"
      - ratww 5y ago
        The one I posted is free, I have no idea why you're answering to me. I also don't like people doing bad things other people's property. This is why I use AdBlockers: to prevent those platforms from running shit I don't want on my computer.
ravenstine 5y ago
Are these changes actually needed, though? As much as it makes sense to use service workers, for instance, this seems like a rationalization to shoehorn in Google's anti-features. It's not like background webpages are broken or even hard to use. It's not like everyone's clamoring for their ad blockers to use less resource or for Chrome to be faster. There was a time when I switched to Chrome because I believed it to be superior. Now that I find the extensions I use to be nearly as important as the browser itself, I can't imagine why ad-hating privacy-focused individuals would punish themselves by using Chrome. Firefox has a few performance quirks in contrast to Chrome, but overall it's in a state where it competes in most cases. As much as I can complain about Mozilla's organizational issues, I can be far more assured that they aren't going to cause my extensions to become nerfed for A Good Reason (TM).
- Lex-2008 5y ago
  While I agree with you in general, I'd like to comment on > It's not like everyone's clamoring for their ad blockers to use less resource or for Chrome to be faster. some people do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28672377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28672377 - "Brave reduces the page load performance cost of its adblocker" original article having some impressive improvement numbers.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    What's strange is my adblocker makes everything run faster. So making the ad blocker faster at the cost of being less reliable seems like the whole system will be slower in general.
    - a5aAqU 5y ago
      > making the ad blocker faster Does anyone seriously believe that an advertising company wants to improve the performance of ad blockers? It's obvious what Google is doing. If you want to see where things are going in the long run, look at Chrome for Android where you can't install ad-blockers at all.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
Your claim that service workers are more idiomatic than background pages ignores months of debate and examples to the contrary collected by the w3c web extensions group. [0] This could be an area where MV3 walks itself back. One proposal creates an Extension Worker which is a new concept like a Service Worker but better matches the use cases for background scripts. Another simply puts background pages back, but behind a permission. [0] https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20service%20worker https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi...
- smaddock 5y ago
  Thanks for mentioning this. I've been aware of this group since its announcement, but have been ignorant of the ongoing discussions. Hopefully Google and others are receptive to some of the proposals made in the issues. I recognize the value of reintroducing the persistent capabilities to the SW model.
tomxor 5y ago
> the changes seem like a step in the right direction [...] However, that optimization costs so much for innovative ad blocking. This is fair. For an ad-blocker to be effective today it needs to be invasive, and that doesn't apply to most extensions. It is too easy to grant invasive privileges to v2 extensions for those that do not understand the consequences. Downloading a whole new browser on the other hand is a far more obvious way of implicitly granting that trust... So I wonder if when push comes to shove, a "uBlocked-Chrome" browser might emerge. To be clear, I am suggesting a uBlock integration project, not a preservation of V2 for extensions.
- a5aAqU 5y ago
  I don't think that will work because Google controls Chromium. They will play a long game to sabotage the abilities of smaller Chromium browsers to block ads. Advertising is their business model and they have a lot of money to spend on crushing smaller browsers that have a different vision of what the Web should be.
  - tomxor 5y ago
    Many browsers track chromium upstream with substantial changes, most significant of all would be Qt WebEngine.
    - a5aAqU 5y ago
      Google is full of smart people who get paid to deal with obstacles like that. If your goal is to block ads and tracking, it's extremely unwise to depend on software that is fundamentally controlled by an ad company. If someone threatens their business model, they will throw an overwhelming amount of money at the problem. They are boiling frogs, so most people won't notice. Killing uBlock Origin and disallowing browser extensions on mobile are just small steps in a long-term plan.
amcoastal 5y ago
You're right my browser is too slow! Webpages only load nearly instantly, I'm sure bringing back all the ads will make everything even better!
- klibertp 5y ago
  > Webpages only load nearly instantly Which ones? HN does, but a large part of the other sites I frequent need around a second or more to load. With or without ad-blockers - some load faster with, some faster without, but they never enter the "nearly instantly" range, which (last I checked) was 0-250 ms.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    What's an example of a site that loads slower with an ad blocker? I've never observed that in my browsing.
    - hendersoon 5y ago
      I'm sure you can find examples with particularly poorly written adblockers but everybody should be using uBlock Origin and it is extremely efficient.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
Good things mixed with hamstringing web blocking. The two slices of bread might be delicious but it's still a shit sandwich.
ghostwords 5y ago
>idiomatic >less resources Are you an extension developer? Here is a list of issues that extension developers have with requiring Service Workers: https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20service%20worker https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi... Just take a look at this work-in-progress MV3 version of a fairly popular webpage-saver extension called SingleFile: https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme
- smaddock 5y ago
  I am an extension developer, but have resigned from engaging with development in the ecosystem. One of my extensions has >300k subscribers on the Chrome Webstore which will be killed by MV3. Many ongoing changes are being made in extensions and the web in general to improve security while reducing capabilities in existing applications. At this point, for more complex use cases such as one of my own, the only hope is building your own web browser with complete control over its systems. I've changed focus to improving Electron for this reason. Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support.
  - ghostwords 5y ago
    >Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support. Same, which is why I engage with browser representatives in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group. Unfortunately, the status quo is grim with Firefox seemingly uninterested in standing up to Chrome and citing compatibility as the main reason for following Chrome into mandatory Service Workers.
    - smaddock 5y ago
      I appreciate that yourself and other folks are engaging in the community to request improvements. Prior to the group being formed, most discussion regarding MV3 occurred on the Chrome Extensions Google Group [0]. While feedback was accepted and open there, I hadn't seen the Chrome team acting on it to make changes. That's where most of my pessimism on the situation comes from. I believe the Chrome team's main motivation is removing any functionality in MV3 which would have the possibility of reducing performance in normal browsing. I personally don't have much hope that they'll be backpedaling on any changes. [0] https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensio...

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

I just disabled javascript and see no ads whatsoever. No idea what problem gorhill found to solve, but ad blocking seems to be easy.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
The problem of not disabling JavaScript and not seeing ads. I.e. granting users control over the code their browser runs that's finer-grained than "nuke it from orbit".
square_usual 5y ago
Yes, if you crush your computer into a cube you won't see ads again either. But people want to keep their computers and block content they don't like, so there's "problems to solve" there.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  I keep my computer. How do you think I post here?
  - junon 5y ago
    You're being obtuse for the sake of it. Stop that.
antihero 5y ago
I just disconnected my computer from the internet. I don't get any ads at all, now!

krageon 5y ago

You think it is a step in the right direction while acknowledging it breaks adblockers. You're going to have to explain why you're cool with that, because as it stands your post just isn't cohesive at all (as far as I can tell).

Denvercoder9 5y ago
This isn't a single, monolithic change, there's plenty of changes between manifest V2 and V3. GP said he thought most of these changes are a step in the right direction, while expressing concern about one of the others. That seems like a cohesive and nuanced opinion to me.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  It sounds like deflection and rationalization to me. Not all features are equally important, the one seeing a regression is much more important, it's also the feature with a conflict of interest, and the conflict of interest lies in the direction of Google pushing this through over everyone else's objections.
  - krageon 5y ago
    I was in the process of writing a reply when I realised you presented the same arguments in a much more concise manner. For the record, this is what my problem was with the argumentation presented.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

I remember some people saying Safari's extension changes and specific content blocker API would be a good thing because ad blockers would use less resources. The change happened, uBlock Origin broke for Safari and here we are several years later and the Safari ad blocker ecosystem is an absolute joke and most of it barely works or demands subscription fees (and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for because they don't even block YT ads)

latexr 5y ago
> and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for because they don't even block YT ads AdGuard can[1] but it’s a cumbersome process. 1Blocker had to develop a bespoke solution but it works seamlessly[2]. [1]: https://adguard.com/en/article/how-to-block-ads-on-youtube.html https://adguard.com/en/article/how-to-block-ads-on-youtube.h... [2]: https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-safari-with-1blocker-a9091cff160d https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-s...
- ratww 5y ago
  AdBlock Pro for Safari also blocks YT, but without much ado and without hacks. It just uses the old APIs for blocking video. The bulk of the blocking work, however, is still done by the recommended blocking API. So far Apple seems happy with that.
  - gerash 5y ago
    It's such twisted economics for somebody to make a video, a platform to distribute it and an adblocker company to reap the benefits through its subscription fees. I'd argue the same folks are ok with looting Neiman Marcus stores during some protests because "they've rigged the system and are all rich anyways"
    - ratww 5y ago
      The one I posted is free, I have no idea why you're answering to me. I also don't like people doing bad things other people's property. This is why I use AdBlockers: to prevent those platforms from running shit I don't want on my computer.

ravenstine 5y ago

Are these changes actually needed, though? As much as it makes sense to use service workers, for instance, this seems like a rationalization to shoehorn in Google's anti-features. It's not like background webpages are broken or even hard to use. It's not like everyone's clamoring for their ad blockers to use less resource or for Chrome to be faster. There was a time when I switched to Chrome because I believed it to be superior. Now that I find the extensions I use to be nearly as important as the browser itself, I can't imagine why ad-hating privacy-focused individuals would punish themselves by using Chrome. Firefox has a few performance quirks in contrast to Chrome, but overall it's in a state where it competes in most cases. As much as I can complain about Mozilla's organizational issues, I can be far more assured that they aren't going to cause my extensions to become nerfed for A Good Reason (TM).

Lex-2008 5y ago
While I agree with you in general, I'd like to comment on > It's not like everyone's clamoring for their ad blockers to use less resource or for Chrome to be faster. some people do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28672377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28672377 - "Brave reduces the page load performance cost of its adblocker" original article having some impressive improvement numbers.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  What's strange is my adblocker makes everything run faster. So making the ad blocker faster at the cost of being less reliable seems like the whole system will be slower in general.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    > making the ad blocker faster Does anyone seriously believe that an advertising company wants to improve the performance of ad blockers? It's obvious what Google is doing. If you want to see where things are going in the long run, look at Chrome for Android where you can't install ad-blockers at all.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

Your claim that service workers are more idiomatic than background pages ignores months of debate and examples to the contrary collected by the w3c web extensions group. [0] This could be an area where MV3 walks itself back. One proposal creates an Extension Worker which is a new concept like a Service Worker but better matches the use cases for background scripts. Another simply puts background pages back, but behind a permission. [0] https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20service%20worker https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi...

smaddock 5y ago
Thanks for mentioning this. I've been aware of this group since its announcement, but have been ignorant of the ongoing discussions. Hopefully Google and others are receptive to some of the proposals made in the issues. I recognize the value of reintroducing the persistent capabilities to the SW model.

tomxor 5y ago

> the changes seem like a step in the right direction [...] However, that optimization costs so much for innovative ad blocking. This is fair. For an ad-blocker to be effective today it needs to be invasive, and that doesn't apply to most extensions. It is too easy to grant invasive privileges to v2 extensions for those that do not understand the consequences. Downloading a whole new browser on the other hand is a far more obvious way of implicitly granting that trust... So I wonder if when push comes to shove, a "uBlocked-Chrome" browser might emerge. To be clear, I am suggesting a uBlock integration project, not a preservation of V2 for extensions.

a5aAqU 5y ago
I don't think that will work because Google controls Chromium. They will play a long game to sabotage the abilities of smaller Chromium browsers to block ads. Advertising is their business model and they have a lot of money to spend on crushing smaller browsers that have a different vision of what the Web should be.
- tomxor 5y ago
  Many browsers track chromium upstream with substantial changes, most significant of all would be Qt WebEngine.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    Google is full of smart people who get paid to deal with obstacles like that. If your goal is to block ads and tracking, it's extremely unwise to depend on software that is fundamentally controlled by an ad company. If someone threatens their business model, they will throw an overwhelming amount of money at the problem. They are boiling frogs, so most people won't notice. Killing uBlock Origin and disallowing browser extensions on mobile are just small steps in a long-term plan.

amcoastal 5y ago

You're right my browser is too slow! Webpages only load nearly instantly, I'm sure bringing back all the ads will make everything even better!

klibertp 5y ago
> Webpages only load nearly instantly Which ones? HN does, but a large part of the other sites I frequent need around a second or more to load. With or without ad-blockers - some load faster with, some faster without, but they never enter the "nearly instantly" range, which (last I checked) was 0-250 ms.
- postalrat 5y ago
  What's an example of a site that loads slower with an ad blocker? I've never observed that in my browsing.
  - hendersoon 5y ago
    I'm sure you can find examples with particularly poorly written adblockers but everybody should be using uBlock Origin and it is extremely efficient.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

Good things mixed with hamstringing web blocking. The two slices of bread might be delicious but it's still a shit sandwich.

ghostwords 5y ago

>idiomatic >less resources Are you an extension developer? Here is a list of issues that extension developers have with requiring Service Workers: https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20service%20worker https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi... Just take a look at this work-in-progress MV3 version of a fairly popular webpage-saver extension called SingleFile: https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme

smaddock 5y ago
I am an extension developer, but have resigned from engaging with development in the ecosystem. One of my extensions has >300k subscribers on the Chrome Webstore which will be killed by MV3. Many ongoing changes are being made in extensions and the web in general to improve security while reducing capabilities in existing applications. At this point, for more complex use cases such as one of my own, the only hope is building your own web browser with complete control over its systems. I've changed focus to improving Electron for this reason. Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support.
- ghostwords 5y ago
  >Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support. Same, which is why I engage with browser representatives in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group. Unfortunately, the status quo is grim with Firefox seemingly uninterested in standing up to Chrome and citing compatibility as the main reason for following Chrome into mandatory Service Workers.
  - smaddock 5y ago
    I appreciate that yourself and other folks are engaging in the community to request improvements. Prior to the group being formed, most discussion regarding MV3 occurred on the Chrome Extensions Google Group [0]. While feedback was accepted and open there, I hadn't seen the Chrome team acting on it to make changes. That's where most of my pessimism on the situation comes from. I believe the Chrome team's main motivation is removing any functionality in MV3 which would have the possibility of reducing performance in normal browsing. I personally don't have much hope that they'll be backpedaling on any changes. [0] https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensio...