from Hacker News

“UBO Minus (MV3)” – An Experimental uBlock Origin Build for Manifest V3

by antonok on 9/7/22, 6:25 PM with 255 comments

  • by horsawlarway on 9/7/22, 7:25 PM

    I approve (of both the release and the name).

    I see plenty of folks in here lamenting this release at all - in the hopes that the lack of it will push folks to Firefox. It won't. Those who care about this are already on Firefox, and frankly - Firefox isn't going to be the answer here (to be clear, this is opinion).

    I'm also not thrilled at manifest v3, although for very different reasons than the adblocking limitations - I do lots of extension development, and I think the service worker approach taken is a bad mistake, forcing a distributed consensus model onto extensions without understanding the limitations that model imposes given how often extensions span multiple js contexts (across tabs/frames/content_scripts/windows/etc).

    Frankly - the environment is also still riddled with bugs... everything from docs that are wrong, to serious issues like a service worker not activating on simple, basic, required events (like chrome.action.onClicked, which is literally about as basic as it gets for extensions).

    Overall - my first impression of the manifest v3 upgrade was fairly neutral (it's not really solving any of my pain points, and it requires a lot of changes to support - but it seemed functional). My opinion after porting several large extension projects to the space is... bad. It's a bad set of changes as implemented in chromium right now.

  • by nightpool on 9/7/22, 7:24 PM

    Just so I understand correctly: This version removes *all* of the features that read or modify a user's data, so as to abide by the ""stated intent"" of MV3, rather than taking full advantage of all of the actual MV3 APIs? For example, this commit removes the "scriplet injection" and cosmetic filtering features, which AFAIK work perfectly fine on MV3?

        if broad "read/modify data" permission is to be used, than there is not much point for an MV3 version over MV2, just use the MV2 version if you want to benefit all the features which can't be implemented without broad "read/modify data" permission.
    Huh? But ... the "read/modify data" permission isn't getting removed by MV3? I don't understand how this follows. This is like saying "Google implemented all of the same things we could do in MV2 in MV3, so we went ahead and removed all of the features anyway". I don't see any way to interpret this as anything except cutting off your own nose to spite the face of Google. It certainly doesn't seem to be a good faith attempt to reproduce the features of uBlock within the new technical framework of MV3.

  • by blibble on 9/7/22, 6:53 PM

    this is actually a clever way of hurting Google

    if gorhill simply refused to release UBO for manifest V3 then someone would, and release something similar without the negative branding

    (plus eyeo crapware "ad blocking" extensions would gain market share)

    this way the users are being reminded that on Google's platform you're getting an inferior blocker

  • by krono on 9/7/22, 7:30 PM

    Tangent but let's stop referring to it as a mere ad blocker, it's a content blocker - it's even a very useful and impactful accessibility tool in that capacity.

    ADHD sucks and I have a lot to thank to these types of tools for acting as my "crutches" that allowed me get where I am today.

  • by Raed667 on 9/7/22, 6:52 PM

    I think uBlock Origin providing a manifest-v3 compatible extension would be a net negative for the community. As it will help more people accept the status-quo and accept a mediocre state of ad blocking, instead of switching to Firefox

  • by gapo on 9/7/22, 6:37 PM

    From the commit msg:

    At this point I consider being permission-less the limiting factor: if broad "read/modify data" permission is to be used, than there is not much point for an MV3 version over MV2, just use the MV2 version if you want to benefit all the features which can't be implemented without broad "read/modify data" permission.

  • by Havoc on 9/7/22, 8:49 PM

    That naming convention is an absolute stroke of genius. Not enough to get sued, but enough to convey to millions that they are using an intentionally crippled product.

  • by cyphar on 9/8/22, 12:17 AM

    Is there a plan to make the existing Chrome extension update to this (somewhat neutered) version automatically when the time comes for v2 deprecation (which appears to be in January 2023 for non-enterprise Chrome users)? I ask because I have provided my elderly relatives with Chromebooks and if the built-in adblocker is going to stop working I'll need to remote desktop to their machines (which requires a fairly-complicated-for-them dance with generating one-time codes) in order to install this other version when it's released...

    (I personally use Firefox but I didn't want to give them a regular Windows laptop because they'd have to re-learn far too many things -- the old laptops were Windows XP -- and ChromeOS is both harder to break and easier to recover.)

  • by s-video on 9/7/22, 9:04 PM

    No cosmetic filtering might still tip me over into switching to Firefox.

  • by zerof1l on 9/20/22, 12:17 PM

    The Chromium - a thing on which Google Chrome is based - is open source. I imagine someone could make a version of it where you'd get most of the Google Chrome features but be able to give elevated access to certain extensions like ad-blockers to the network and requests.

  • by BuckRogers on 9/10/22, 3:18 AM

    I tested this against AdGuard MV3 on Edge, and while I will wait for 1.0 releases of both, so far, AdGuard MV3 is trouncing uBO Minus.

    It's doing cosmetic filtering, uBO is not. Neither seem to be slowing down the browser in a noticeable way. Eager to see 1.0 benchmark results.

    You also get some options to adjust in AdGuard. uBO Minus (hell of a name), nothing.

    I would suggest to the author of uBlock Origin to change attitudes towards the MV3 extension as even Mozilla said MV2 was sticking around "for now".

    This work is inevitable. Other options would be to partner with a browser like Brave to take over their adblocking development, or, create a system-wide blocking solution. Microsoft may be worth engaging with as they have no native adblocker, but given gorhill's clear purism about profits and Microsoft that doesn't seem likely. Someone else has to publish uBlock Origin for him on the Edge Add-ons store.

    Still a bit exciting, as even Mozilla will turn off MV2 at a point. No reason to resist this. Once the uBlock Origin guys figure this out, we'll get a good race between it and AdGuard. So far, AdGuard is the clear winner.

  • by fezfight on 9/7/22, 6:44 PM

    How many people use adblockers? Is there any chance manifest v3 will lead to enough users abandoning Googles Chrome to build a community around an open alternative, like we did when we abandoned IE for Firefox all those years ago?

  • by bot41 on 9/7/22, 8:28 PM

    What is "Manifest v3"?

  • by jrm4 on 9/7/22, 11:52 PM

    Hackers are undefeated.

    This is why I became a tech person. Incredibly inspiring.

  • by jacooper on 9/8/22, 12:12 AM

    There is Also Brave, which has Brave shields as a part of the browser, so its not limited by any extension API.

    While still using the best engine out there, chromium.

  • by driverdan on 9/7/22, 6:51 PM

    If you're still using Chrome now is the time to switch to Firefox. This is an interesting experiment but the only solution is to stop using Chrome.