I absolutely agree with that from a technical perspective, but in typical usage, the users won't notice any difference.
To be honest, I think uBo almost become a cult (which is nothing wrong, to be clear). It has lots of very opinionated development progress happened/happening to it, and most of them are irrelevant for majority of users (even the "power" users). And if I dare to say, it's at the cost of its UX.
For example, a few years ago, uBo disabled the ability to "greenlight" a domain (i.e. adding a whitelist dynamic rule) by simply clicking in the (advanced) popup. The official reason is that it's the most misused features, which is true, but it makes legitimate use of it (to whitelist a 3rd-party domain for a specific site because otherwise the site is broken) very inconvenient.
And if you ask about it, they (people in related forums like reddit) tell you "well you should never use it. NOOP should be sufficient. If not, the rules are wrong and you should report to the rule author(s)." This is cool but it didn't solve my immediate problem that a site I want to visit is broken by uBo.
I learned later, again from uBo subreddit, that you can double press ctrl to temporarily enable this feature back -- which is more than enough for me -- but how the hell do you even discover this?
And I never remembered what the two columns for adding dynamic rules are supposed to be -- since there is no headers.
The problem is that as much as I want Firefox to be a better browser than chrome - Blink is still a far better rendering engine than anything else. Every other browser either has inferior performance (including Firefox) or is just a fork of chrome.
I spent a year trying to use Firefox after being a chrome user for well over a decade - I eventually switched back when Mozilla started adding the same tracking features that chrome started out with years ago. Mozilla seems to be going down the same path, albeit several years behind and slowly. After that I just didn’t see a reason to not just use chrome if I’m going to have to neuter tracking bullshit anyway since it’s still much more performant than Firefox.
V3 complaint UB exists (UBo Lite) and works plenty fine save for what even I (as a power user) would call power user features. It’s very annoying that Google is going down this route, and I really want Firefox to be the better browser, but I just don’t think it is yet. During my year of usage you definitely can notice the performance difference and the inconsistency in certain webpages.
Firefox has a vested interest (money) now for people to watch (their network) ads. Expect to move Firefox to drop uBlock too (written in Firefox with uBlock)
Which is a screenshot of the uBlock Origin page in the Chrome Web Store, displaying the message "This extension is no longer available because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions.": https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin/cjpal...
My guess is that the user took the screenshot from a Chrome Beta/Dev/Canary build which is following an accelerated timeline for disabling Manifest V2 extensions [1].
Also, note that there is an enterprise policy that can enable Manifest V2 extensions through June 2025 [2].
It does the same basic content blocking with no permissions required. Then you can opt-in sites for it to do more blocking, including I believe opt-ing in all sites for what appears to be the same blocking as regular uBlock Origin.
Positive side: faster, fewer permissions by default, more control over permissions.
Negatives: less blocked by default, requires opt-in for more blocking.
Another negative is it can only update the filter rules with an extension update (which Google controls the speed of). As far as I know, it hasn't been a problem yet but the fact that YouTube ad blocking started requiring frequent filter list updates suggests Google will likely take advantage of this.
I was browsing some website this morning and noticed it had "shit" plastered all over it. Turns out those where ads, something I hadn't seen like that in quite some time.
Checking my Chrome extensions, uBlock origin is gone.
In my view there has been enough successful attacks which used ad networks to launch the attacks that I consider ad blocking primarily as my first line of defense.
For example, some years ago here in Norway a fairly popular site got their ad network exploited to serve an exploit which installed malware that hijacked the pages of the largest bank. When you think you sent money to your kids or paid a bill, you ended up sending the money somewhere else entirely.
So for me, it just isn't worth the risk, and I won't surf without an ad blocker.
Are there any good solutions for reliably rolling out an pre-review/unreviewed Chrome extension to a team (other than controlling all their users' Chrome profiles with an enterprise deployment)?
I found https://docs.plasmo.com/itero but haven't used it - it seems to provide a downloadable installer that installs and maintains an extension on testers' systems via policies. Unsure how well it works though, or if anyone's deployed it.
There are so many things wrong with the state of affairs with the MV3 rollout that it's hard to know where to begin. If there's a silver lining here, perhaps it's that there will be renewed attention towards finding workarounds to the walled garden.
Forcing advertisements on everyone is about so much more than money.
It is about money too obviously. I just think the general public is unaware what ads and ad network control over your online experience actually can accomplish.
After seeing aspects of it weaponized against me, the impact it has on someone unaware of the technology and psychology involved honestly seems like a danger to the public itself.
This may sound extreme if you have not experienced it.
So what is the exact impact? I keep hearing claims that advertising is bad, but never an actual example of an impact - something concrete.
Ads to me are merely a nuisance, and annoys me, rather than impact me in any dangerous way. Of course, i will do my utmost to remove it from my life, but i cannot see it be called a danger to the public. Calling it such will actually diminish the importance of other public dangers, such as lobbying, monopolistic corporations etc.
I remember people arguing that manifest v3 would be a security improvement.
Disregarding reality, this is already quite subjective and depends if you trust sites more than your browser addons.
Tracking doesn't seem to be a relevant threat to those that defend this "evolution".
Also disregarded is the shitty situation of mobile OS that disempower otherwise quite powerful devices that Google would like to extend to web browsers.
Yes, you can fully construct a hypothetical situation where manifest v3 can be an improvement. Just like chastity belts shield your from STDs.
The same bunch of bullshit can be extended to ideas about "web integrity". I think it is time that people stop being idiots about it.
At this point? They have been for a very long time. We saw this first hand when they almost single-handedly crushed Windows phone by essentially keeping them out of their walled garden. That was back in about 2010.
That was when I swore off them as much as possible. Not because "poor Microsoft is hurt" but because they showed the kind of power they could flex on others. I only use them for the occasional youtube video, nothing else.
I expect they'll adopt Manifest v3, and it'll mean the end of UBo, but they'll still have their own built in adblocker working. They'll just need to maintain that and where it fits in with the Chrome codebase.
Firefox mobile allows you to install extensions, including uBlock Origin. I've been using it on my phone for the past few months and it's been great. Firefox in general is great.
What's a good alternative Blink or Webkit browser? Meaning not Firefox (too many issues in my experience, and built-in ads are annoying, and I don't trust Mozilla).
Orion[1] (by Kagi) is sweet (but not without its own issues). Based on Webkit, supports vertical tabs, etc. But the big one: allows side-loading Chrome / Firefox extensions!
Multi-profile support has been in FF since I started using it (at least 5 years ago?). The profile picker isn't as pretty as the Chrome window you get but its definitely there.
Don’t know of a keyboard hotkey during launch for this, I keep a separate desktop shortcut to run w/ the profile manager. You can also make shortcuts to run with a specific profile.
Mozilla announced a few months ago they were working on Tab Groups, Vertical Tabs, Profile Management. I don't know if it's related but seemed to coincide with getting a new CEO.
Apart from personal opinions, is there any evidence this is due to Google sabotaging uBlock rather than a legitimate technical concern (V2 vs V3 manifest)?
Could uBlock implement V3 without losing its functionality?
> Apart from personal opinions, is there any evidence this is due to Google sabotaging uBlock rather than a legitimate technical concern (V2 vs V3 manifest)?
Google is an ads company. uBlock Origin is making them lose money...
> Could uBlock implement V3 without losing its functionality?
No, that's why everyone is angry and a ton of people switching to Firefox, to keep using uBlock Origin as it is, since Firefox still respects the V2.
There is no technical improvement of V3. It is simply about shifting common capabilities of browsers away from you (aka the security threat) towards Google (that is an ultra safe ad supplier).
And this is part of it. Maybe releasing manifest v4 with prominent forks would lessen this purely marketing move by Google.
here is an idea: take the power away from google and browsers and let's go back to a desktop/native solution of intercepting all network traffic. Browsers can't resist that, because corporate networks need to do TLS inspection (sometimes, they are legally required to do so).
Another idea is, for the filtering system to operate a shadow DOM or an entire browser (like a selenium driver) that renders everything unfiltered. But the browser the user is using only sees filtered content. That way, it would become significantly more difficult for advertisers to detect the AD is being blocked. This could be done in a local sandbox and optionally in a cloud sandbox. Outbound network requests from the user facing browser can be blocked or filtered.
Or, just use Firefox. but I doubt Mozilla can resist doing the same thing, given the anti-trust issues Google is facing.
I wonder how many will switch to Firefox after this action. But it may be a small number because I assume that not many people use adblockers and most of those who use them already had Firefox, but I may be wrong.
No. A lot of uBlock's filters are applied based on properties of a request, or even of the context of that request. which aren't available outside the browser.
peutetre|1 year ago
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
thrdbndndn|1 year ago
To be honest, I think uBo almost become a cult (which is nothing wrong, to be clear). It has lots of very opinionated development progress happened/happening to it, and most of them are irrelevant for majority of users (even the "power" users). And if I dare to say, it's at the cost of its UX.
For example, a few years ago, uBo disabled the ability to "greenlight" a domain (i.e. adding a whitelist dynamic rule) by simply clicking in the (advanced) popup. The official reason is that it's the most misused features, which is true, but it makes legitimate use of it (to whitelist a 3rd-party domain for a specific site because otherwise the site is broken) very inconvenient.
And if you ask about it, they (people in related forums like reddit) tell you "well you should never use it. NOOP should be sufficient. If not, the rules are wrong and you should report to the rule author(s)." This is cool but it didn't solve my immediate problem that a site I want to visit is broken by uBo.
I learned later, again from uBo subreddit, that you can double press ctrl to temporarily enable this feature back -- which is more than enough for me -- but how the hell do you even discover this?
And I never remembered what the two columns for adding dynamic rules are supposed to be -- since there is no headers.
multimoon|1 year ago
I spent a year trying to use Firefox after being a chrome user for well over a decade - I eventually switched back when Mozilla started adding the same tracking features that chrome started out with years ago. Mozilla seems to be going down the same path, albeit several years behind and slowly. After that I just didn’t see a reason to not just use chrome if I’m going to have to neuter tracking bullshit anyway since it’s still much more performant than Firefox.
V3 complaint UB exists (UBo Lite) and works plenty fine save for what even I (as a power user) would call power user features. It’s very annoying that Google is going down this route, and I really want Firefox to be the better browser, but I just don’t think it is yet. During my year of usage you definitely can notice the performance difference and the inconsistency in certain webpages.
KingOfCoders|1 year ago
neves|1 year ago
stiltzkin|1 year ago
[deleted]
codevark|1 year ago
[deleted]
attentive|1 year ago
rirrirler|1 year ago
Which is this now removed post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1fhsai3/rest_in_pea...
That had the title "Rest in peace" and contained this image: https://i.redd.it/ng75ptntl2pd1.png
Which is a screenshot of the uBlock Origin page in the Chrome Web Store, displaying the message "This extension is no longer available because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions.": https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin/cjpal...
webspinner|1 year ago
thrdbndndn|1 year ago
OP likely copied the this share link first and then manually replaced www. to old. . But shared link never worked with old. prefix so it broke.
Reddit may or may not want to kill old.reddit but this isn't an example of it, inb4 people are going to take this opportunity to soapbox about it.
tech234a|1 year ago
Also, note that there is an enterprise policy that can enable Manifest V2 extensions through June 2025 [2].
[1]: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate...
[2]: https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#ExtensionManifestV...
0points|1 year ago
danpalmer|1 year ago
It does the same basic content blocking with no permissions required. Then you can opt-in sites for it to do more blocking, including I believe opt-ing in all sites for what appears to be the same blocking as regular uBlock Origin.
Positive side: faster, fewer permissions by default, more control over permissions.
Negatives: less blocked by default, requires opt-in for more blocking.
eco|1 year ago
pan69|1 year ago
Checking my Chrome extensions, uBlock origin is gone.
magicalhippo|1 year ago
For example, some years ago here in Norway a fairly popular site got their ad network exploited to serve an exploit which installed malware that hijacked the pages of the largest bank. When you think you sent money to your kids or paid a bill, you ended up sending the money somewhere else entirely.
So for me, it just isn't worth the risk, and I won't surf without an ad blocker.
mh-|1 year ago
WheatMillington|1 year ago
>This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions.
zuccs|1 year ago
btown|1 year ago
I found https://docs.plasmo.com/itero but haven't used it - it seems to provide a downloadable installer that installs and maintains an extension on testers' systems via policies. Unsure how well it works though, or if anyone's deployed it.
There are so many things wrong with the state of affairs with the MV3 rollout that it's hard to know where to begin. If there's a silver lining here, perhaps it's that there will be renewed attention towards finding workarounds to the walled garden.
treebeard901|1 year ago
It is about money too obviously. I just think the general public is unaware what ads and ad network control over your online experience actually can accomplish.
After seeing aspects of it weaponized against me, the impact it has on someone unaware of the technology and psychology involved honestly seems like a danger to the public itself.
This may sound extreme if you have not experienced it.
chii|1 year ago
Ads to me are merely a nuisance, and annoys me, rather than impact me in any dangerous way. Of course, i will do my utmost to remove it from my life, but i cannot see it be called a danger to the public. Calling it such will actually diminish the importance of other public dangers, such as lobbying, monopolistic corporations etc.
hereme888|1 year ago
raxxorraxor|1 year ago
Disregarding reality, this is already quite subjective and depends if you trust sites more than your browser addons.
Tracking doesn't seem to be a relevant threat to those that defend this "evolution".
Also disregarded is the shitty situation of mobile OS that disempower otherwise quite powerful devices that Google would like to extend to web browsers.
Yes, you can fully construct a hypothetical situation where manifest v3 can be an improvement. Just like chastity belts shield your from STDs.
The same bunch of bullshit can be extended to ideas about "web integrity". I think it is time that people stop being idiots about it.
seneca|1 year ago
Firefox and Brave are fine as chrome alternatives. Google search is dying a slow death. We need a viable alternative to YouTube.
I dread Google getting a new lease on life through Waymo.
xtracto|1 year ago
I also have been using Edge as my main browser in Linux (it's vertical tabs have no match for my usecase) .
DaoVeles|1 year ago
That was when I swore off them as much as possible. Not because "poor Microsoft is hurt" but because they showed the kind of power they could flex on others. I only use them for the occasional youtube video, nothing else.
hereme888|1 year ago
I do find uBlock Origin to be better than Brave's built-in blocker.
aembleton|1 year ago
pixxel|1 year ago
thisisjaymehta|1 year ago
haunter|1 year ago
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin/cjpal...
undopamine|1 year ago
Victims' posts get downvoted to invisiblity because it's reddit.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1evqxed/delete_this...
sexy_seedbox|1 year ago
https://zen-browser.app/
zuhsetaqi|1 year ago
owenpalmer|1 year ago
solardev|1 year ago
cueo|1 year ago
[1] https://kagi.com/orion/
Sytten|1 year ago
pushupentry1219|1 year ago
paranoidrobot|1 year ago
It met all my needs for multiple profiles. I use it to have multiple concurrent sessions for different sites (eg: one AWS account/role per container).
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
wlesieutre|1 year ago
Don’t know of a keyboard hotkey during launch for this, I keep a separate desktop shortcut to run w/ the profile manager. You can also make shortcuts to run with a specific profile.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/CommandLineOptions#-Profile...
eco|1 year ago
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/here-s-what-we-re...
knowitnone|1 year ago
teo_zero|1 year ago
Could uBlock implement V3 without losing its functionality?
captainepoch|1 year ago
Google is an ads company. uBlock Origin is making them lose money...
> Could uBlock implement V3 without losing its functionality?
No, that's why everyone is angry and a ton of people switching to Firefox, to keep using uBlock Origin as it is, since Firefox still respects the V2.
chii|1 year ago
no. V3 has some limitations on how many urls gets blocked, and has to be submitted ahead of time iirc.
It is high time the tech commmunity strongly encourage their friends and family to switch to firefox enmass.
mappu|1 year ago
Yes, with some minor caveats. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...
raxxorraxor|1 year ago
And this is part of it. Maybe releasing manifest v4 with prominent forks would lessen this purely marketing move by Google.
notepad0x90|1 year ago
Another idea is, for the filtering system to operate a shadow DOM or an entire browser (like a selenium driver) that renders everything unfiltered. But the browser the user is using only sees filtered content. That way, it would become significantly more difficult for advertisers to detect the AD is being blocked. This could be done in a local sandbox and optionally in a cloud sandbox. Outbound network requests from the user facing browser can be blocked or filtered.
Or, just use Firefox. but I doubt Mozilla can resist doing the same thing, given the anti-trust issues Google is facing.
josephcsible|1 year ago
mfiro|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
grahamj|1 year ago
bamboozled|1 year ago
lfmunoz4|1 year ago
duskwuff|1 year ago
xenator|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
senozhatsky|1 year ago
Canada|1 year ago
Meekro|1 year ago
Dwedit|1 year ago
ikekkdcjkfke|1 year ago
gertop|1 year ago
daft_pink|1 year ago
bigtex|1 year ago
misonic|1 year ago
brettwilcox|1 year ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1fhsai3/rest_in_pea...
denkmoon|1 year ago
rafram|1 year ago
shepherdjerred|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]