The important bit is Mozilla allowing the blocking of we requests. This mean our ad blockers will still work efficiently and as intended for users even if not following the spec for v3—a spec championed by Google who’s interests are to expand ads for their bottom line.
A more generous interpretation of Manifest v3 is that it raises the security of the browser. Chrome’s extensions have always been ahead of Firefox in that regard. Back in the XUL days, there were no permissions to speak of in Firefox, you simply had to rely on complete trust. You also had 3rd parties installing extensions and plugins that couldn’t be uninstalled. Even after Firefox started moving in Chrome’s direction, for a long time, there was no way in Firefox to disable extensions in “private mode”. Chrome also introduced the ability to activate extensions just for certain websites, which ironically, I’m using for Google’s own extensions (e.g., Translate). In terms of security, Firefox is always at least a step behind, catching up.
Google might have an interest in expanding their advertising empire, but the elephant in the room is that all mainstream browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) are funded directly by Google’s ads. And if it’s not Google’s ads, then it’s Microsoft Bing’s ads (e.g., Edge, Vivaldi).
People complain about Manifest v3 because it makes uBlock Origin (as is) impossible. We trust uBlock Origin, much like how we trusted uBlock previously, or Adblock Plus, trust that can always backfire. So, I’ll argue that content blocking should be built-into the browser itself, much like how Firebug was eventually built into the browser, back in the day. In this way, Google is shooting itself in the foot with the Manifest v3 changes, even if it wins a temporary break from the full power of uBO.
So, why are Firefox and Safari dancing around the bush with superficial blocking of trackers, instead of attacking the problem head on? One can argue that blocking ads can break the web, and websites may start blocking Firefox’s UA completely. Although, I think Firefox can still ship with default settings that don’t block 1st party ads. The primary reason, however, is that Google is funnelling billions into their development, so Firefox and Safari will never attack Google’s cash cows, affording to attack just their complements (e.g., Analytics, tracking cookies).
I can think of two reasons that browsers may be keeping away from directly blocking ads. The first is that browser vendors are nice central targets for political pressure and legal action; we saw this attempted when Apple rolled out their tracking protection on iOS, and any direct move by either Safari or Chrome to block other people’s ads would probably result in something much worse (for the browser vendors). Outsourcing the live rail to distributed arms-length people who are harder to attack makes political sense.
The second reason is that if browsers brought ad blocking into the browser, they would realistically have to also bring maintaining ad-blocking lists in-house, and that is both a lot of work and politically contentious. I suspect that Mozilla especially doesn’t have the resources that it would require to do a good job of this, so it’s better for them to leave this work out-sourced, which pretty much requires the ad-blocking code to be out-sourced as well.
(What is an ‘ad’ is also directly politically contentious, as we’ve seen in pushes by various political organizations to pressure or force people like GMail to not score their mailings as spam. Now imagine this replayed in the context of political messages distributed through browser ad networks. Would the political party of your choice directly pressure Apple, Google, or Mozilla to not ad-block their messages? Absolutely yes, and they might well win, regardless of the collateral damage to general ad-blocking.)
The important bit is Mozilla allowing the blocking of we requests. This mean our ad blockers will still work efficiently and as intended for users even if not following the spec for v3—a spec championed by Google who’s interests are to expand ads for their bottom line.
A more generous interpretation of Manifest v3 is that it raises the security of the browser. Chrome’s extensions have always been ahead of Firefox in that regard. Back in the XUL days, there were no permissions to speak of in Firefox, you simply had to rely on complete trust. You also had 3rd parties installing extensions and plugins that couldn’t be uninstalled. Even after Firefox started moving in Chrome’s direction, for a long time, there was no way in Firefox to disable extensions in “private mode”. Chrome also introduced the ability to activate extensions just for certain websites, which ironically, I’m using for Google’s own extensions (e.g., Translate). In terms of security, Firefox is always at least a step behind, catching up.
Google might have an interest in expanding their advertising empire, but the elephant in the room is that all mainstream browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) are funded directly by Google’s ads. And if it’s not Google’s ads, then it’s Microsoft Bing’s ads (e.g., Edge, Vivaldi).
People complain about Manifest v3 because it makes uBlock Origin (as is) impossible. We trust uBlock Origin, much like how we trusted uBlock previously, or Adblock Plus, trust that can always backfire. So, I’ll argue that content blocking should be built-into the browser itself, much like how Firebug was eventually built into the browser, back in the day. In this way, Google is shooting itself in the foot with the Manifest v3 changes, even if it wins a temporary break from the full power of uBO.
So, why are Firefox and Safari dancing around the bush with superficial blocking of trackers, instead of attacking the problem head on? One can argue that blocking ads can break the web, and websites may start blocking Firefox’s UA completely. Although, I think Firefox can still ship with default settings that don’t block 1st party ads. The primary reason, however, is that Google is funnelling billions into their development, so Firefox and Safari will never attack Google’s cash cows, affording to attack just their complements (e.g., Analytics, tracking cookies).
I can think of two reasons that browsers may be keeping away from directly blocking ads. The first is that browser vendors are nice central targets for political pressure and legal action; we saw this attempted when Apple rolled out their tracking protection on iOS, and any direct move by either Safari or Chrome to block other people’s ads would probably result in something much worse (for the browser vendors). Outsourcing the live rail to distributed arms-length people who are harder to attack makes political sense.
The second reason is that if browsers brought ad blocking into the browser, they would realistically have to also bring maintaining ad-blocking lists in-house, and that is both a lot of work and politically contentious. I suspect that Mozilla especially doesn’t have the resources that it would require to do a good job of this, so it’s better for them to leave this work out-sourced, which pretty much requires the ad-blocking code to be out-sourced as well.
(What is an ‘ad’ is also directly politically contentious, as we’ve seen in pushes by various political organizations to pressure or force people like GMail to not score their mailings as spam. Now imagine this replayed in the context of political messages distributed through browser ad networks. Would the political party of your choice directly pressure Apple, Google, or Mozilla to not ad-block their messages? Absolutely yes, and they might well win, regardless of the collateral damage to general ad-blocking.)