Most people still haven’t heard of Manifest V3, so if you are one of those not using Firefox, this is for you.
If you’ve been on YouTube or Reddit August last year, you might’ve seen this screen yourself, or a screenshot of someone else getting it. This of course, I am talking about the infamous YouTube ad blocker blocker popup, discussion exploded on Reddit mostly consisting of people complaining about ads, as well as an angry mob storming r/memes, turning it into a Firefox propaganda centre.
About a month later, different adblockrs eventually found their way of bypassing detection, and they work on YouTube again. So natrually Redditors thought they’ve won another war against big tech, completely ignoring Google’s original plan to kill off adblockers by June this year.
So all extensions, including adblockers follows a specification called the Manifest V2. The Manifest allows extensions to do certain things, say accessing browser tabs or to change browser settings. All while putting some limitations, and prevent extensions from doing crazy stuff like installing a virus to your system. But too much limitation, is what pisses off many extension developers about the upcoming ManifestV3.
In this article written by the EFF, they interviewed developers responsible for popular extensions, where most described ManifestV3 as a downgrade, with some accused it for being purposefully bad. I particularly like this one from the creator of SingleFile, “I consider the migration to Manifest V3 to be a major regression from a functional and technical point of view.”
After an update in June this year, a feature called the WebRequest API will be removed, and the adblockers and tracker blockers that depend on this feature will stop working. Since the business model of Google is to track your online activity and then show you personalised ads, it is not difficult to see why this feature is removed.
Not only are they sacrifising user experience for monetary gain, they are forcing the same update on all Chromium browsers as well. I am hereby devastated to inform you that this is not the first time they have done it, and it will not be the last time they will do it.
But there are also good news, non-Chromium browsers will not be affected by the Manifest V3, and if you are already using one, you will be exempt from any future nonsense Google throws in your way. So if you are considering switching to one, unless Safari is your goto browser, which lacks competent extensions support, you can still get your adblockers, another adblockers, all the adblockers.
So are you going to make the switch before the update? Let me know in the comments down below, anyways I will be seeing you in two weeks, have a good one.
An article for more my ranting needs https://gmtex.siri.sh/fs/1/School/Y12/Cssoc/chromium.html
So, Google thinks they own the whole Internet now, and will force ads over every single website. AMP wasn’t enough for them. I used to love Google, but now I pretty much hate them.
Google has the lions share of the browser installs. If this were not the case, you can bet Google would never dream up this nonsense to begin with.
That doesn’t give them ownership of the content that people view with the browser.
I didn’t say it did. My point was that Google is getting away with it because they rely on ignorance and the lion’s share of browser installs.
Is amp still around? Those cancerous links drove me back to Firefox after years of using Chrome, they hardly ever worked.
AFAIK they’re still around. I switched off of Google for searches because of them.
I’m still using google search, just deactivated amp. Initially with a Firefox add-on, now I think that’s a native feature.
But Google search results are increasingly bad, what alternative do you recommend? I’ve dabbled with bing and yandex (which is honestly quite good, but… Russian) and would like to have a real alternative.
I tried a bunch of different services without satisfaction until I finally decided to try Kagi. It’s been 6 months and I’m still satisfied with it.
I keep coming across kagi but haven’t used it yet. Think I’ll give it a try finally.
It costs money, but to me it’s a small price to pay for my sanity. My average search volume is about 700 searches per month. That’s 700 times per month that I was getting frustrated, getting bombarded with ads, and being unable to find what I was looking for. Now I don’t have that problem, so my frustration levels have decreased considerably.
Yep I’ve just signed up for the free trial and will use it in parallel to google to get a feeling for the difference. Since I’m using google with anti-tracking and adblock, I don’t really get annoyed by the site itself, more like the crappy top-ranking SEO pages. Back in the days, the front page was all I ever needed, now I feel like the good results start on page 2.
Brave Search has been alright, tho I’m not entirely sure how their algorithms are working & they index much slower so they probably aren’t doing full aggregation themselves nor does it seem that they are just using Bing like DuckDuckGo. Yandex is great for image search & I use their translation service even if it’s a little weaker just to spread my data across services instead of centralizing. Even if I preferred content written by a human, a lot of general queries it seems I am more prone to reaching for an LLM …even tho it could be a hallucination, a lot of the content written by folks on the highest SEO sites are just as much bullshit.
Spend some time finding a few good searxng instances. Also, the language setting affects the results a lot, so make sure to change it based on what you’re searching for. I mostly use “english [en]”, but for local searches I change it to my native language, or to the language of the relevant country.
Does it affect me if I use Firefox. ?
No
No
nO
no
That’s exactly the cure, not using Chrome
Use. Firefox. Now!
You’re just spamming your own shitty YT channel here mate. Article or gtfo
Just because we’re old farts that don’t really appreciate video as a medium doesn’t mean it’s not valid for some.
I despise video… The only time I tolerate it is when the subject requires it.
But as a technical instructor I can say you are spot on.
Everyone learns differently, we all fall into a few broad categories of learning styles. Some people need the visualization that video provides.
Here’s the video script: https://gmtex.siri.sh/fs/1/Shared/scripts/chrome-final.html
Here’s an extra 2000 word article for your enjoyment: https://gmtex.siri.sh/fs/1/School/Y12/Cssoc/chromium.html
He’s contributing a useful video, you’re contributing useless vitriol.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/M3rGDpCG5FQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Overall good video, just invest in good mic also best of luck.
well a bit more on that, since i record my audio an audacity, there are 3 types of noise suppression i could do
- the first one of course is no noise suppression at all
- then there is the standard noise suppression
- and then there is the new RNNoise suppression
RNNoise is the best at removing noise, but it also cuts off all the deeper parts of my voice (i think, because I have no way of knowing how I really sound like), so here its a tradeoff between getting the entirety of my voice, or absolute silence, here i chose my voice
A focused mic and quiet room beats all the noise suppression algorithms you can apply.
thanks for the advice, i will do that maybe in the future
Left for Firefox when they announced this update. I still have to use Chrome when I work in Google drive since basic functions like copy/paste don’t work in non-chrome browsers, but even without this update the minute+ time it takes for chrome to open reminds me I made the right decision.
Same. It was definitely an adjustment as a former ChromeOS user. There were some minor issues like getting playback for streaming services and maybe 1-2% of the unique websites I visit not being built properly for Firefox but it’s pretty infrequent and you develop a quick workflow to resolve the issues. I have a backup version of Chromium that I use as an emergency browser.
I use a Firefox fork (Floorp) which gives me PWAs capabilities which was the last hurdle for me.
I keep Cromite (on Android) and Chromium (pc) around for those sites that are so poorly coded I have to use a chrome-engined browser.
It’s really annoying.
At least those 2 browsers are fast (and I keep history turned off because I only use them for crappy websites).
Cromite is available on PC (Linux and Windows) and Ungoogled Chromium is chromium without any google (drop in replacement)
Will the manifest v3 also bork ungoogled chromium?
I already switched to Firefox a while back. The new tracking system bullshit was the last straw. Chrome team is too busy trying to invasively track us rather then actually improving the browser for consumers.
It’s a good thing I’m a Firefox boy. I’m honestly fucking sick of companies making free money off me at my inconvenience while I get nothing in return.
But but… Aren’t you happy with the illusion of freedom and choice? Wouldn’t you be even happier buying stuff you don’t need? Trust me
Fuck no. I know this is sarcasm but still, fuck no.
I never go anywhere near Chrome if I can possibly help it. Manifest v3 nonsense just reaffirms that position.
I am on Firefox since I think 2003. Never understood why anyone would use a non-free browser, even if it sometimes works faster. People are weird.
mostly same here, with occasionally trying out some chromium based browsers, never understood why Firefox is referred to as an “alternative” by so many people, chrome is the alternative
Because firefox is used by less than 5% of internet users.
It’s still years newer than firefox
I am one of those “Opera back in thr day” guys so you know the story. I eventually gotten back to use Mozilla Firefox. Chrome had it’s good days but it’s a pionner of the enshitification.
ex-GX user here. i do not miss chrome.
you and my dad both. he’s been using it forever
Same here, even my newly issued work PC always gets the Firefox treatment. Annoyingly, some sites that I need for work (almost, but not quite, zero) just do not work with Firefox, but do with chrome.
At my work PC they blocked all, but chrome… And I really don’t think Chrome is superior to Firefox at this point of time.
They sort of tried at my last job… There’s portable, non admin installs of Firefox available. The tricky part was ssl inspection certificates, but even that is easier than it used to be.
Chrome had a bigger ad budget and had a good amount of hype when it was released, since Google was still well-regarded when it was released.
Firefox also had a period where it was slow AF. I switched to chrome at that point which was a lot faster.
I’ve ( happily ) been on Firefox these past few years though. Firefox addons on mobile devices is a blessing too.
I enjoyed vivaldi as well before I went back to Firefox. Too bad it’s chromium based :(.
Would you consider Firefox better then duck duck go ?
Here is a breakdown of why it is much better (near to the bottom): https://divestos.org/pages/browsers
TLDR: Webview browsers are bad for privacy.
I like the artstyle, but the Mv3 blocking API has actually been improved to the point where uBO Lite, the Mv3 version of uBlock Origin, can block YouTube ads and only fails in edge cases.
Also, Safari technically has the same extensions support as Firefox does, but developers have to pay to distribute their extensions. That doesn’t stop the existence of AdGuard.
I was under the impression the uBO lite wasn’t nearly as good and it missed a lot of ads, it seems like things have changed a bit since I’ve last followed on the MV3 situation.
Also about Safari extension support, I didn’t research anything on this topic, I just thought it’s extension support must be incompetent because the uBlock Origin installation for Safari seemed like a hassle, turns out im not that far off.
it seems like things have changed a bit since I’ve last followed on the MV3 situation.
The keyword is “a bit”. It is now able to do the most basic things, but probably entirely useless in limiting tracking
just realised something, if my understanding is correct, MV3 also banned remotely hosted content, with a publish delay up to 2 weeks google (specifically youtube) can easily break uBO lite if they want to, i dont know if that is how uBO lite works, or if the rules will only be enforced after June, but if it is true uBO lite is not gonna live long either
it’s not the only propose of uBO to block YouTube ads. It’s purpose is to block ads on as many sites as possible without breaking them, and also to block tracking in the same way. That needs a versatile and nouanced blocking list, with more of specific things to block instead of less of rather general things, and that sadly won’t fit in to that small limit.
But there’s more. A lot of uBO’s capabilities depend on being able to act on the requests as happening. Content replacement, response spoofing, a lot of things. Look up uBO’s scriptlets and how are they used, is in the repo’s wiki. That won’t be possible with uBO Lite. It’s called Lite for a reason, and gorhill was (and is) furious for a reason.
Remember, ad blocking is not just hiding them.
I agree that it is awful to remove the API for reasons you’ve mentioned, but my point was that it’s a misconception that Mv3 broke and limped all adblocking. Currently the list is big enough that only edge case trackers aren’t blocked.
I liked it, the other comments already suggested some things about your mic so I’ll just ask for subtitles as a non-native speaker, specially because that allows you to add details if needed.
i did it, turns out all i need to do was to paste in the full script and it will do the timings automatically, sweet.
Firefox shall rise soon.
I don’t care I use Internet Explorer
Which uses Chrimium as its core with slightly different window dressing on top.
You’re thinking of Edge, not Internet explorer
Since 2020, apparently…I didn’t know
