Manifest V2 phase-out begins

Shit like this is exactly why competition is of utmost importance. The internet was never meant to be single-handedly controlled by a corporation with private interests, and more importantly, private pockets

If we don't see a somewhat significant rise in Firefox usage increases after this, then I fear that battle is already lost. People can complain a lot but doing something as easy as switching browsers seems to be the hardest thing for most of them.
- Honestly I don't think most people know or even care.
- You Grandma and her Chromebook don't care though. The numbers aren't in our favor, but Mozilla absolutely dominating in the features and privacy arenas is.
- Even if Firefox were to win it's still a bleak future because the ridiculously complexity and scope of browsers prevents new ones being made. Without the possibility of newcomers either the war never ends or there is one victor. We should start to abandon browsers in favor of apps that focus on each part of the browser (e.g. why does a browser need to render video to the screen when the user already has an app for that).
  
  "Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat."- Kahless
- In my experience people have a poor understanding of the software they use, it just needs to continue working as it always has.
- I fear that battle is already lost
  
  I do. I'd be surprised if we see any kind of increase.
  
  Firefox is going to slide into obscurity. They've been in a downward spiral for the last few years. So much money wasted on so many failed projects. They're a shadow of their former selves. The features of firefox are improving of course but by every metric that matters they're on life support.
- I'm not asking this facetiously but: is there an easy way to migrate my bookmarks, tabs, and pinned tabs easily to Firefox? I looked maybe a year ago but didn't find a 1 to 1 easy switch way to go to Firefox.
  
  To be clear: my personal laptop is all Firefox, but I don't use it all the time. My main desktop is an integration of all three (please don't judge), but I'd like to go full Firefox if it was convenient.
In retrospect maybe having the worlds most popular browser and the world's biggest advertiser be the same person, was a bad idea.
Calling it the "Googlenet" now. The rest of us that don't suck Google dick can stay on the actual Internet.
- It’s like AOL all over again
Same thing that happened with the internet also happened with capitalism. It's like you need some regulation to ensure competition. It could have been so awesome if we had what we were promised.

Manifest V2 phase out is a big deal, as Google is pushing towards Manifest 3 only. Google's version of Manifest 3 is hobbled by removing WebRequest blocking which breaks privacy and ad blocking tools - an obvious benefit to Google as an Ad and data harvesting company.

Firefox is implementing Manifest 3 with WebRequest blocking, as well as supporting Google's hobbled version declarativeNetRequest to allow compatibility with chrome extensions.

As far as I know there is no plan to phase out Manifest V2 at Mozilla. As long as V2 and V3 are active in parallel it shouldn't have a negative Impact on adblockers etc.
- Until MV2 API is shut off completely. What will FireFox's V2 do then?
But at least Firefox is just compatibility, and not phasing out v2
Yeah, it's still worrisome. This makes Firefox a lynchpin for whether ad blocking works for the foreseeable future on the whole web.

Anyone still using Chromium or any of its derivatives (including Chrome) just needs to suck it up and admit it's the loser here. Use a Firefox derivative, it's just all around better in every single way.

I had to call someone using Microsoft Teams today. It does not work with Firefox, even if you spoof the user agent.
- I don't know what's up with your setup, but this is untrue. I've used Firefox for teams in browser for years with no issues.
- I have Edge for two things: Teams and Outlook.
  
  The desktop software for both is so bad, I can't even use them half of the time.
  
  Outlook actually works in FF, but that way I can put it on my second screen and use Firefox on my main one so I don't need to switch tabs when emails come in.
- Not a big fan of MS Teams but... it's worked for me before in the past. PEBCAK.
- I'm not quite sure what you're getting at?
  
  Microsoft has been playing this game since forever.
- Why not just download the teams app?
I’m using both Firefox as my daily browser, and Edge for school related stuff, Firefox is very often maxing out my CPU usage and I can’t figure out why
- Yeah, I find firefox tends to leak memory when you have youtube tabs open. Still using only firefox unless testing for compatibility but it is a thing.

On June 3rd, Chrome(ium) users will start being informed that their MV2 extensions will soon stop to function. uBlock Origin (and others) will lose the "Featured" badge.
The remaining MV2 extensions will be gradually disabled in the "coming months", with the last deadline being the beginning of next year. (Expect that uBO will probably not last that long).

What options do you have if you still want to use uBlock Origin?

Firefox (and up to date forks) have no plans to end support for the webrequest API that uBO requires.
Brave browser will allow MV2 extensions for now. I still have no info on if they are going to use their own store or require manual installation/updating of MV2 extensions.
If you use Chrome. By enabling enterprise policy ExtensionManifestV2Availability, you should be able to extend support till June 2025.
uBlock Origin Lite (uBOL) is a MV3 extension that is much more limited than uBO and is not intended to be a replacement for uBO. These limitations are described in detail in the FAQ for uBOL: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)

Thanks, great info

Firefox gang but still appreciated a couple of these reminders
for those who come and read through these comments, on top of considering not using a chromium-based browser, you could also:

configure your own DNS resolver e.g. NextDNS

go further and use a fork of firefox e.g. librewolf
- Unfortunately DNS blocking is not nearly as powerful as an adblock extension which can manipulate the DOM and CSS directly.
- Sadly corporate environments mean there is not choice for many users.
- Or just use Firefox.
I've been using uBlock Origin Lite and I haven't encountered any issues

We’ve always been clear that the goal of Manifest V3 is to protect existing functionality while improving the security, privacy, performance and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem as a whole. We appreciate the collaboration and feedback from the community that has allowed us - and continues to allow us - to constantly improve the extensions platform.

"We've always been clear that the goal of our remote-unlockable front door product is to protect your family while improving the efficiency and safety of our field reconnaissance and repo unit. We appreciate your feedback that you really hate unannounced in-home data gathering incursions, and we are integrating that feedback going forward as we work to improve your interactions with our team. See you soon!"

The {"SHOP DEALS AT TEMU"} will continue until morale improves!

Not if you stop using chromium based garbage!

pets Firefox …Who’s a good boy?

Firefox finally got HDR support, so now I have zero reason to use a Chromium-Based browser anymore. Kept Ungoogled Chromium around just for streaming video; uninstalled it yesterday.
- Wait it did? When?
There wasn't any h265 support until recent nightlies for windows.. so there is that issue. Which is important for watching movies ore even some NVR / Security cameras these days for anything 4K or higher.
- I still love my Firefox since that doesn’t affect me. My videos are easily transcoded if needed and I keep to 1080p so size isn’t a real issue as well.
  
  I guess for some, it can be problematic. So they’ll have to put up with ads again.

I’m just here to say fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Google.

Considering the community behind uBlock origin has no financial incentive, why are they still developing for chrome and manifest v3 while google keeps pulling off anti consumer and anti-adblock tactics, shouldn't they just drop chrome and orient people to use firefox or one of its derivatives.

gorhill already strongly suggests to use Firefox, but to drop Google Chrome altogether would leave millions of people stranded.
- Maybe that would be a good thing, maybe it would force people onto Firefox?

Many times stupid web pages don't load.... Call support and I'm told it only works in chrome.

Can't get away from it

So what, you keep an ungoogled-chromium around and use it occasionally for compatibility, if you really need to. Doesn’t mean you are obligated to use it as your daily driver.
- I'm doing the same, I rarely ever have to use it unless compelled to by work or simply a lazy site with less compatibility for anything beyond google.
  
  For anyone who wants to try here you go.
- Exactly what I do
I have both firefox and chrome installed. It's actually not that bad as special work "tabs" get their own taskbar icon..
when i try to go to a website that does that, or worse, when they say that my operating system is not supported, i don't go to their site.
- "Your desk chair isn't supported, please stand up when using our site"
source: my crackpipe
- Try and register something on Razer's website so you can get support for it. Until a few weeks back, PSN locked the browser up completely when signing in.
  
  I use FF for day to day use, but prepare to swap to Chrome when things go wrong just because most sites aren't tested on it.
- Source: extremely common knowledge and the stranglehold that Google has on webdev

Internet is dominated by Netscape, then crushed by MS giving its browser away.. Firefox steps in for a while and is great but starts to suck / get slow, google steps in people start to shift to google, everyone is on google... Wonder who steps in next.

There’s a lot more vendor lock in than there has been in the past. I don’t see there being a major change without legislation. It’s still too early to see how the EU’s DMA will affect market share, but it’s probably the best hope, even if it is limited to a few geographical areas.
- There’s a lot more vendor lock in than there has been in the past. I don’t see there being a major change without legislation
  
  LOL no.. ActiveX on IE was the ultimate lock in, and that is gone now.. Also we have A LOT of chromium based clones that don't have these restrictions.. It will still be a popularity contest.
  
  Firefox however is limited by its in ability / unwillingness to license or implement some DRM features / Codecs which kind of sucks.
I'm afraid well-established "standards" are nearly impossible to overturn.

It becomes impossible to block ads in all browsers new forks will be made and the features we want will happen. The bar to spin and maintain a new browser is high but it's not impossible on there are a lot of people that want this

Sorry mate I think this is a little naive.

I suspect that the bar to "spin and maintain a new browser" is so high as to be impossible.

The resources required to keep firefox afloat are huge. It's not something a few like minded individuals can do on their weekends.
- You should check out Ladybird browser, it's an impressive piece work, it's definitely no ready for everyday use, but it is proof that a small community can develop and maintain a project as complex and large as a browser.
  
  It is probably the only browser in active development that is not being paid by Google, even Firefox gets most of its income from defaulting the search engine to Google
And who is going to do it? All these "open source" projects are financially backed by some corpos
Independent Web browsers in active development which use their own engine and (aim to) support modern Web standards:

Serenity Ladybird

Linux Foundation Europe's Servo

That's it.

I assume with chromium being open source that there will be an alternative compiled version without this nonsense?

That’s how it works for now, but eventually the code itself will be removed from chromium, not just disabled. At that point they’d have to maintain a large patch set reimplementing it, which would be extremely time intensive to maintain and keep secure.
There is - Firefox
- Firefox is not chromium
There are already several competing forks each built with a different window manager.
- They are not exactly forks. They still get the upstream chromium changes into their code base. So they will all lose manifest v2 when the core disappears from chromium.
  
  They are more like downstream branches. It is possible they will do the gymnastics to keep manifest v2 but it's not guaranteed

My chrome phase-out finished years ago (though technically I was using a chromium-based browser and not chrome itself). Good riddance to that trash. Firefox all the way!

Here we go

We've had the youtube premium family bundle for several years, mostly for android auto in our cars. I switched to Firefox around that time as well but found it didn't work as well for youtube. So I compromised by using Chrome for youtube and Firefox for everything else. I will continue this way for the time being, but honestly getting rid of Chrome completely would not be a big deal at this point.