Firefox: Manifest v3 update

When Google announced the implementation of manifest v3 in Chromium/Chrome this caused a lot of irritation as it would seriously cripple add-ons like uBlock Origin.

Mozilla has now clarified how they will procede. In a new blog post they write:

They will introduce important changes from manifest v3 in order to make add-ons more secure. But here comes the important part of the message:

This is very good news as it means that powerful add-ons like uBO will remain fully functional in Firefox in the foreseeable future. Considering that uBO already works best in Firefox this is another reason to prefer that browser over Chrome.

Implementation timeline:

 

Great news!

 

To me, it was actually worth switching to Firefox on a permanent basis for the better uBO functions. Very reassuring, thank you for posting this blog-article.

 

We will see how much it will really impacts on eg. ublock.

 

Yes but didn't Vivaldi and Brave also say they were not going to limit ad-blockers?

 

Nice to see firefox will not follow in google's footsteps.

 

This I don't know, Rasheed. I don't use either browser at the moment. This Manifest v.3 still seems a little mysterious yet. We will have to depend more on the watchdogs out there for real information, I think.

Right now, I can hang my hat on Firefox with a little more confidence....

 

So far I've not noticed any deficiencies in the adblocking capabilities of uBO in Chrome (Ubuntu). I would use Vivaldi more if it worked properly on Linux. Although I tend to use Safari (AdBlock Pro)and Vivaldi (uBO) mostly on macOS. I wonder how long Mozilla will keep this promise? Not long probably. I trust Mozilla less than Google now and that's saying something! I may even switch back to Firefox one day. I live in hope it will return back to its former self. Although I'm slowly but surely becoming a glass half empty kind of bloke about it these days.

 

There's not many countries that use the term, 'bloke'.

 

Yeah, most blokes probably realise that lol.

 

Mozilla wrote its decision - period:

And DNR is not that limited as people try to point out here. I would say it covers close to 100% all of use cases of adblockers. 300.000 rules is a quite number.

what else - i could imagine that filter developers or blocker developers will create more effective rules or mechanisms, more AI

 

Apple have had a similar approach to Google with Safari I believe. Basically you're mostly stuck with the 'walled garden' and adblockers from their store because of the changes made to WebKit. Which were supposedly for security reasons. ABP was doing fine for me, admittedly it isn't uBO, but it blocked the ads on the majority of sites I regularly use. So I was a relatively happy bunny.

Plus Safari now has anti-tracking measures built in and I have Ghostery Lite. Mind you, 70% of the time I'm using Vivaldi on macOS, so this isn't a real problem. Recently though ABP stopped blocking ads on You Tube so I had to find an alternative. I did with AdBlock Pro.

At the end of the day, when all this Manifest 3 bollocks is implemented properly, if I can still block ads on other browsers (including Firefox) as well as with AdBlock Pro in Safari I'll be content. It may not be uBO, but nothing is.

 

Good news from Mozilla. I would hate to search for other browser just because of crippled blocking functionality.

 

Well, I'm also not sure what to think, seems like Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple are going to work more closely together, let's hope they won't decide to cripple ad-blockers like Ghostery and uBlock, see link.

https://www.engadget.com/w3c-browser-webextensions-community-group-035312365.html

 

As usual i think this was the wrong way. ABP and uBo are the origins in this world and any other only use additional list. And thats not "pro" from my view. And Ghostery is just another ad blocker, you can lift any ad blocker to thus functionality with the right list. Thats reason why ABP and uBo are successful this way.

 

I have no idea why ABP stopped blocking advertisements on YT in Safari. I wasn't the only one to notice or report this either. I don't use Firefox a lot but I have uBO on it. It's fine. I'm not sure what rendering engine Firefox utilises on Unix platforms although I was led to believe it was WebKit. I don't know if this is true. Firefox and SeaMonkey have always ran well on Unix in my experience, better than Windows in fact. I ran ABP for years on Firefox and SeaMonkey in Windows. I switched to uBO not long after it was first released. I was impressed right from the start. It's worth pointing out I've been running Ubuntu for nearly a decade as well.

However, Manifest v3 has changed things. I don't think they apply to WebKit though. AFAIK the process separation changes made by Apple to the WebKit based Safari aren't totally unlike what Google have done with Chrome/Blink. Ostensibly these changes were for security, but they have limited the adblocking filtering capabilities.

AdBlock Pro (Safari) was the only adblocker that stopped ad's on YT for me after trying several others. Apparently it was specifically coded to work with the new process separation.

I don't know if there is an AdBlock Pro version for Firefox.

I run Firefox on macOS but it's not my primary browser. I mainly use Vivaldi or Safari. Firefox and Vivaldi both have uBO and block ad's in YT.

Safari cannot use uBO due to the aforementioned WebKit process separation changes. Which is why I had to find an alternative when ABP stopped blocking ad's.



Hence AdBlock Pro.

 

@Daveski17,
In Firefox with Adblock Plus on Kubuntu, I don't see any ads in YouTube.

Adblock Plus settings:
Block additional tracking
Block social media icons tracking
Do NOT allow Acceptable Ads
Added filter rule: www.youtube.com##.ytp-ce-element

 

That's good to know. I really don't know what happened to ABP for Safari. Maybe your added filter rule would have worked. I just wanted to stop those bloody YT ad's right away lol.

I found that uBO ran lighter than ABP on Firefox in Ubuntu. I'm sure they both do the job well.

 

sorry, did not know about limitations.

BTW ublock not blocking, does this message fit your failure?
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ublock-a-lean-and-fast-blocker.365273/page-224#post-3011090

 

No problems with adblocking here with UBO.i did however add a few lines to my hostfile also.

 

Mozilla did a research with view to the privacy aspects
https://mozilla.github.io/ppa-docs/floc_report.pdf

 

Mozilla starts testing
https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/20/mozilla_opens_testing_for_manifest/
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/manifest-v3-migration-guide/

preliminaries: Firefox Developer (current 101 beta) or Nightly

 

...and that's how they died.

 

I don't have time to read it all. Does they implement all manifest v3 changes or only some without interfering with content/ad-blocking?