Google’s campaign against ad blockers across its services just got more aggressive. According to a report by PC World, the company has made some alterations to its extension support on Google Chrome.

Google Chrome recently changed its extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the new Manifest V3 framework. The browser policy changes will impact one of the most popular adblockers (arguably), uBlock Origin.

The transition to the Manifest V3 framework means extensions like uBlock Origin can’t use remotely hosted code. According to Google, it “presents security risks by allowing unreviewed code to be executed in extensions.” The new policy changes will only allow an extension to execute JavaScript as part of its package.

Over 30 million Google Chrome users use uBlock Origin, but the tool will be automatically disabled soon via an update. Google will let users enable the feature via the settings for a limited period before it’s completely scrapped. From this point, users will be forced to switch to another browser or choose another ad blocker.

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I‘m really anxious for firefox as google is the main financier afaik.

IIRC, only like 2% of Mozilla spending goes towards FF (I may be misinterpreting something, but I remember 2% being thrown around), so funding FF without rest of Mozilla bullshit shouldn’t be that hard. Of course, since Mozilla did spend so little on FF, it’s a question how much they actually care about FF and what would happen if they lost access to their golden goose. They shouldn’t have problem funding FF, but they probably have other bullshit they don’t want to let go and that has more priority for them.

A list of Mozilla’s “other bullshit”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mozilla_products

You are right, it was unfairly harsh wording, I apologize for that. Most of those products are super cool and important, I’ve kind of extrapolated it from what I’ve read in other posts about them spending too much on stuff like events and other, non-developemnt, related stuff that I actually never checked, while also not realizing that they also have a ton of other projects, which mixed with the dissapointment with the recent development about the Meta partnership led to me choosing that wording unfairly.

It is a worry. I think we might end up needing to pay for Firefox ourselves.

Not sure firefox will be on our side after the recent ad tracking debacle. If they implement one more anti consumer feature I‘m jumping ship.

Jump ship to what? Not like there’s s lot of choices out there. You could always try LibreWolf.

Librewolf is just a reskinned Firefox.

Purged of unwanted and intrusive features, UBO pre installed, and is pre configured for increased privacy.

Tried librewolf recently and although worked well (linux mint) had all sorts of scaling issues and wouldn’t keep my settings. Just using as a backup to FF until I can figure it out. FF only just started failing to play YT unhindered.

Oh really, are they building their own engine?

They plan a release for 2028. It’s going to be a while before it can be used for everyday browsing.

Netscape Navigator and Opera raise their hand

Wait, Navigator still exists?

Nah, it’s Firefox now

Well, Opera is also based on Chromium.

Do they still pass everything through a spy proxy to “speed up” browsing?

Plenty of Firefox forks out there.

That would be my first address, assuming the librewolf folks will never accept anti community code, hopefully.

If everything fails i‘m fine to join a small project and help with it. I have some skills and can contribute financially.

I will happily donate.
If, of course, money won’t go to the CEO.

A CEO is a needed possition, I know in the past the Brendan Eich was controversial in his political views, but Laura Chambers seems ok so far

At least Brendan Eich was a developer, good on him for being Christian.

it is lol, have you seen how much the ceo is paying herself?

its kind of a reddit situaton, where money wouldnt be that much of an issue if it werent all for the ceo.

look up ladybird. we may soon have a 3rd browser!

Looks promising. Lets see where it goes. https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird

I am hopeful they will get some more corporate backing. We can donate all day but that is a drop in the bucket compared to a few million from some large companies

It’s hard to take a project seriously for championing our privacy if the only communication options are Discord & Microsoft Github

Feel free to offer hosting something else for them. Be the change you want to see.

There are free (both kinds) options to these problems if they can’t afford it—and that still isn’t an excuse to require all coms go thru US-based proprietary services with big privacy implications.

Although I‘m not a fan of the options either, the implications regarding the project are minimal and I wasnt talking about the money. Hosting communications platforms isnt easy. It requires the team to change their habits besides their already challenging tasks of producing usable software.

Being the change you want to see does not implicate money, it implicates you contacting them, talking about their reasons, convincing them the comfort loss of non big tech platforms is worth it and only them it becomes a question of money.

using a novel engine based on web standards.

Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…

That’s supoosed to be the preview release date on Linux and MacOS…

If they can stay funded I believe them

For now. They could default to yahoo and make money. Maybe not as much, but they could sustain browser development.

Firefox is still far superior to chromium.

I agree. That could work. We‘ll see.

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Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads(www.windowscentral.com)

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