I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
The day Firefox drops MV2 is the day I find a new browser. We're already at <1% usershare, it's not like there's safety in numbers here
What exactly is your gripe with MV3?
Many people seem to treat it synonymously with "no more procedural request blocking", but that's not a thing Mozilla ever did:
> For Manifest V3 extensions, Chrome no longer supports the "webRequestBlocking" permission (except for policy-installed extensions). Instead, the "webRequest" and "webRequestAuthProvider" permissions enable you to supply credentials asynchronously. Firefox continues to support "webRequestBlocking" in Manifest V3 and provides "webRequestAuthProvider" to offer cross-browser compatibility.
The permission model also seems much more reasonable (less permissions have to be requested upfront at install time) than MV2, so I actually hope Firefox does deprecate it at some point.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adbl...
> What exactly is your gripe with MV3?
Running an adblocker is the defining feature of the extensions API. ublock origin has 5x as many users as the second-most-popular extension [1]
Supporting ublock isn't just a nice-to-have add-on feature for an extension API, it's literally the only thing most users care about.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/search/?promoted=re...
But MV3 supports uBlock Origin Lite.
Which, in my experience, blocks ads just as well, but also lets pages load significantly faster.
MV3 supports uBlock.
It supports limited ublock functionality, not all of it, which will gradually be exploited by ad corps like google unless you think those are saints
Reading comprehension is the defining feature of a good commenter.
Firefox supports webRequestBlocking with MV3, so even if they fully remove support for MV2, ad blocking is still available.
Mozilla refused to approve MV3 version of uBlock Origin
That's a problem, but an almost completely orthogonal one to MV2 being deprecated.
I wouldn't say completely orthogonal.
That's probably why they qualified it with 'almost'.
I would say "almost orthogonal".
Why? Any links to this decision?
I take it they mean this https://www.neowin.net/news/ublock-origin-lite-maker-ends-fi...
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/197#issueco...
I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those.
Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
Helium still supports MV2, because the upstream hasn't removed related code. They basically turn on/off some macros to enable MV2 again. And this won't last long for sure.
Safari still supports MV2
I don't know if Edge supports MV2, but they do have uBlock available and it works just as well as on Firefox.
It may look like it works "just as well" but that's not true. There are numerous things that impact performance and effectiveness that are not possible with chromium-based browsers, or at least have to be done inefficiently, including
* pre-fetching
* html filtering
* use of WebAssembly
* data compression and private/incognito mode
> I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
You use ladybird as your primary web browser? And it works?
For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase.
I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env.
I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it.
Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June).
[1] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp
[2] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex
It seems to me that --unless you really, strictly compartimentalize your browser usage--, using multiple browsers will only supply your data to more parties.
Ladybird supports MV2? I had no idea they have extensions.
Ladybird is many years away from being usable by a casual human. The hope is it turns out to be a great browser eventually.
Good luck with the main developer being in the alt right.
> Good luck with the main developer being in the alt right.
Sources? I can't find anything on that via google/ddg (Germany)
edit: oof.
[1] https://drewdevault.com/blog/Cloudflare-and-fascists/
Oof indeed. Now I know that Kling is indeed open towards some alt right positions, but I really wouldn't call him a fascist for that. Conservative probably, but conflating conservative positions with fascism is probably not helpful in the fight against the real fascists.
But also oof to .. some other items there from the blog. Apparently rsync is now banned from the list of acceptable software, because they do not ban LLM's completely?
https://drewdevault.com/blog/rsync-without-rsync/
Sounds like you will never run out of problems, with a ideology like this.
Aren't fascists the ones that want you to correct your language?
Isn't this blog post more evidence that drewdevault became an extreme leftist?
I mean he's basically going off a checklist of leftist stereotypes here and trying to check as many of them as possible.
Meanwhile the other guy he's criticising is literally just a standard right-wing conservative, not far right, not alt right, just the regular kind. The far right I've seen is basically beyond the idea of being merely anti-immigration, they demand ICE style mass deportations immediately and in every country.
If both of them met in a bar through sheer coincidence, I'd expect drewdevault to start the fight.
Sorry, but painting these people as "standard right-wing" is just evidence for the shifting of the Overton window further to the right. White replacement theory and expressing support for an alt-right ideologue who manipulated people with bad faith, dishonest and downright monstrous arguments is not "standard right-wing".
Charlie Kirk was for mass deportation. He didn't even hide it. He said it openly. How do you come off saying that these people aren't far-right or alt-right when they are unabashedly so?
Well, the overtone window certainly changed, but ... I judge a bit different here.
"expressing support for an alt-right ideologue"
This is what Kling actually said:
"RIP Charlie Kirk
I hope many more debate nerds carry on his quest to engage young people with words, not fists."
I also support fighting with words, not fists. I do not support his ideology at all and would have loved to debate him openly, but the concept of murdering someone for having the wrong opinion is disturbing to me, so I agree with Kling here.
And about "white replacement"
"'White males are actively discriminated against in tech.
It’s an open secret of Silicon Valley.'
One of the last meetings I attended before leaving Apple (in 2017) was management asking us to “keep the corporate diversity targets in mind” when interviewing potential new hires.
The phrasing was careful, but the implication was pretty clear.
I knew in my heart this wasn’t wholesome, but I was too scared to rock the boat at the time."
He said whites were discriminated for being white. Not replaced. That is not really the same to me.
>White replacement theory and expressing support for an alt-right ideologue who manipulated people with bad faith, dishonest and downright monstrous arguments is not "standard right-wing".
It is now. That's what the shifting of the Overton Window and normalization of right-wing ideology does. These aren't fringe beliefs anymore, they're commonly held, mainstream right-wing views. They're policy within the US government. Charlie Kirk was treated as a martyr and a hero by the administration. He was treated with more dignity and respect than war veterans. The DHS posts memes about mass deportation.
The "far right" and "alt-right" no longer exist. Those labels are no longer useful and no longer describe reality.
[flagged]
> Firefox is the last holdout.
Nope, FF is being infiltrated by adtech for last year or two. Last holdout is Safari now :)
You cannot install uBlock Origin on Safari.
The Lite version, same as on Chrome, is actually available for Safari. Still not as good as the full one on Firefox though.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
what's the diff between lite and full? i dont even remember what i use on safari, wipr or something. mostly use firefox but sometimes i casually just let things launch in safari
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
Exactly.
Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825
>Last holdout is Safari now
Why do people say crap like this... Safari was the first browser to completely remove mv2. From all the major browsers Safari has the worse adblocking experience and support for adblocking extensions...
> Why do people say crap like this...
1. Third-party cookie blocking by default — 2003 (Safari 1.0); industry first.
2. Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), using on-device machine learning to identify and limit cross-site trackers — 2017; industry first.
3. Storage Access API prompts for embedded third-party content (e.g., social login widgets) — 2018 (ITP 2.0); industry first (co-developed by WebKit, later adopted as a web standard).
4. Full third-party cookie blocking (no exceptions) — 2020 (ITP in Safari 13.1); industry first for a major browser.
Apple only does things to progress their own business model. Apple failed at becoming an ad business so they pivoted to subscriptions and app revenue. Now they are building an ad business. Just look at their ad revenue.
That's what the marketing department says.
Ad/tracking blocking is one of the things that can only be trusted if it's open source, i.e. uBlock Origin.
By the way, does this Adblock Engine actually block trackers? Or it just stops the ads from displaying?
ITP is mostly part of WebKit and open source.
If Raymond Hill says blocking doesnt work anymore, ill use... umm... Lynx?
Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers.
I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
>Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
And there's nothing in MV2 that uBlock Origin needs that doesn't exist in MV3 on Firefox, unlike Chrome. This issue is completely overblown.
Are you disputing uBlock Origin's list of MV3-incompatible capabilities [1]?
[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
That list contains issues with the APIs that Chrome exposes via MV3. Firefox still supports APIs that Chrome removed.
I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
The multi user containers are also very nice.
And to go one step further, for achieving a profile-per-firefox-window workflow, I suggest to have a look at the underrated extension Sticky Window Containers [0]
While far from being perfect, I find it good enough for keeping things separated, especially when using a desktop/workspace workflow. For example, in workspace/desktop 2 I have a Firefox window opened with the first tab set to "container A", so hitting ctrl-t there opens new tabs with the same container "A", so I'm logged-in for all projects A. In another Firefox window in workspace 3 I work with "business project B" tabs (where I'm logged into different atlassian, github, cloud, gmail, ...)
Then with a Window Manager like i3wm or Sway I set keybinds to jump directly to the window (and workspace), using the mark feature [1]
It's also possible to open websites directly in specific containers so it's flexible. For example on my desktop 8 I have all my AI webchats in "wherever my company pay for it" tabs: `firefox --new-window 'ext+container:name=loggedInPersonnal&url=https://chat.mistral.ai' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessA&url=https://chatgpt.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://gemini.google.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://claude.ai'`
It's also the only way I found to keep opened multiple chat apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, ...). The alternative electron apps are as resource-hungry, and in my experience never handled multiple accounts well (especially Teams).
[O] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window...
[1] https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks
Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes.
In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
> Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
Try Zen! Firefox fork with Arc-like UX.
Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser.
However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
Tell me more, what's your setup.
I use uBlock Origin in Firefox and network ad blocker. Wondering what other options are there.
In general, install a proxy which has its own certificate, resign every tls session with those keys, add the certificate of the proxy as a trusted certificate on your device.
I’m not familiar with off the shelf solutions for this that have ad blocking built in. Also ads are injected by JS so you need a mechanism to detect that.
More and more ads are now served from the same domain as the site making it harder to distinguish them from real content.
ZScaler Internet Access will do it with the right blocking configurations (eg, blocking "Advertising" groups).
But then you're using ZScaler and that just feels all nice and icky.
What would prevent sites from just injecting ads into their content server-side? You'll always need both element and request blocking.
That's why GP wrote MITM, not just network blocking. MITM implies the middlebox is trusted by the browser in which it has installed a certificate, so can see and modify content.