Chrome’s “Manifest V3” Plan to Limit Ad-blocking Extensions is Delayed
upstart writes:
Manifest V3 transition is delayed again to the relief of Chrome users everywhere:
For several years now, Google has wanted to kill Chrome's current extension system in favor of a more limited one, creating more restrictions on filtering extensions that block ads and/or work to preserve the user's privacy. The new extension system, called "Manifest V3," technically hit the stable channel in January 2021, but Chrome still supports the older, more powerful system, Manifest V2. The first steps toward winding down Manifest V2 were supposed to start January 2023, but as 9to5Google first spotted, Google now says it delayed the mandatory switch to Manifest V3 and won't even have a new timeline for a V2 shutdown ready until March.
[...] In a post about the delay, Chrome Extensions Developer Advocate Simeon Vincent says, "We've heard your feedback on common challenges posed by the migration, specifically the service worker's inability to use DOM capabilities and the current hard limit on extension service worker lifetimes. We're mitigating the former with the Offscreen Documents API (added in Chrome 109) and are actively pursuing a solution to the latter." After adding that every step of the timeline is on hold, Vincent said, "Expect to hear more about the updated phase-out plan and schedule by March of 2023."
[...] Google's post does not mention filtering add-ons, so it does not sound like the world's biggest ad company is having a change of heart about ad blockers. The big problem for those extensions is killing the "WebRequest API," which allows ad blockers and other filtering tools to modify Chrome's network requests on the fly. Usually, this is used to create huge lists of websites (ad servers) the extensions want to block access to. Google has sort of thrown these extensions a bone by creating a new API that allows for a limited list of URL blocking, but this is only a static list of 30,000 URLs, while a typical uBlock Origin install comes with 300,000 dynamic filtering rules. Some ad blockers will try to play within these rules with the Manifest V3 version, but Google's going to erode their effectiveness and doesn't want to implement any of the common-sense solutions that would allow them to keep functioning at the current level.
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