Starting in January 2023, Google will start phasing out the Manifest V2 Chrome extension platform as it moves to Manifest V3. While Google says this new platform will provide better security, new Chrome extension rules could hinder ad blockers.
As detailed in A Blog post (Opens in a new tab) By Google Product Manager David Li, Google may begin discontinuing support for Manifest V2 extensions in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels with Chrome 112. Then, in June with Chrome 115, the company will begin discontinuing support for Manifest V2 extensions in general channels, including That fixed channel.
“Chrome will take a phased and experimental approach to turning off Manifest V2 to ensure a smooth end-user experience during the removal process,” Lee told me. In addition, the company is working to make sure that developers have all the information they need and that they will be given “plenty of time” to move to Manifest V3 and roll out the changes to users.
Manifest V2 won’t completely disappear in 2023 as Google extends Manifest V2 support to January 2024 for enterprise users. Google also added a file progress page (Opens in a new tab) For those interested in tracking feature additions in progress and bug fixes in Manifest V3.
The controversy surrounding Manifest V3
Manifest V3 was first announced in 2019, with better security being a major component of the Chrome browser extension framework. This is a legitimate concern as he sees how Malicious browser extensions It has been spread In the Chrome Web Store via File past a little Years.
Although Google seems to be doing a better job with conditional extensions, many extensions have abused the powers they were holding under Manifest V2 Spy on users and steal sensitive information.
Experts like the Electric Frontier Foundation’s chief technical officer, Alexei Miagkov, are not convinced this is about user security or privacy. “Our criticisms still stand,” Myagkov said. record (Opens in a new tab). “The reasons they have mentioned publicly [for this transition] Totally meaningless.”
In 2019, Miagkov co-authored EFF . Report (Opens in a new tab) He said that “Manifest V3 is a blunt tool that won’t do much to improve security while severely limiting innovation in the future.” One of the widely used browser extensions that likely won’t work within Manifest V3 is the EFF Special Extension privacy badger (Opens in a new tab)which blocks web trackers.
that Annual Report (Opens in a new tab) Google filing in early 2019 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that ad-blocking technology could affect Google’s revenue. Google is also pushing Adblock Plus to whitelist its online ads, and Adblock Plus appears to be compatible with Manifest V3.
around the same time, Raymond Hill (Opens in a new tab), who maintains the free ad blocker for uBlock Origin and uMatrix, posted on the Chromium Developer Forum that Manifest V3 means two of the ad blockers are “no longer around”. For those who may not know, Chromium is the open source platform on which Chrome and many other browsers are built.
Simeon VincentOne developer defending Chrome extensions said later in 2019 that Manifest V3 would not disable ad blockers but would instead allow developers to make better ad blockers.
prospects
It’s not clear how much money Google and publishers lose to ad blockers, but the company’s claim that Manifest V3 will help developers create better ad blockers seems somewhat unlikely, at least based on what some experts have said.
Many ad blockers and privacy extensions may stop working on Google Chrome, but competing browsers can continue to support them. Firefox Maker Mozilla (Opens in a new tab) It says it will support Manifest V3 but it also allows ad blockers to work; Microsoft (Opens in a new tab) Implicitly it will do the same in Edge. brave (Opens in a new tab)like Edge, is based on Chromium but says it blocks ads (by default) at a deep level that will not be affected by Manifest V3.
Right now, Google Chrome has a grip on about two-thirds of the global desktop browser market, according to StatCounter (Opens in a new tab). If ad blockers no longer work on Google’s platform, this could give competitors a chance to grab a larger part of the market. We’ll keep you updated on the rollout of Manifest V3 when it starts in 2023.