For a while now the transition away from Manifest V2 (MV2) to MV3 has been on-going and it looks like it is entering its final phase of deprecation, at least, in the case of Google Chrome. A recent discussion thread in the w3c WebExtensions Community Group GitHub repo has highlighted how the latest and upcoming versions of the most popular browser are expected to be its final releases with support for MV2 extensions.
What this essentially means is that the tricks and bypasses that were used to keep MV2 extensions like uBlock Origin and others alive will not work any more on Chrome, or at least not for very long. For example the Windows Registry mod that could extend MV2 availability will cease to function after Chromium version 151.
Firefox and its derivatives (and Safari - sorry Apple users) are the only browsers not using Google’s Blink web engine these days - at least until Ladybird is released.
Despite the Mozilla Foundation’s many stupid decisions, Firefox (and Safari) is starting to look like the only thing stopping Google from completely controlling the internet.
God I hope Ladybird will work. I’m so done with Google. And the fact that Firefox is dependant on their money leaves a bad aftertaste, everytime I open a browser. Even though I use Zen.
Fingers crossed for Ladybird and a stable Alpha release in 2026 🤞
Not true — Safari is still based on WebKit. And Safari is still the default browser on over two and a half billion mobile devices currently in use. And say what you might about Apple, but at least they aren’t in the business of selling ads, and thus don’t have any business interest in allowing you to block them effectively, unlike Google.
They don’t sell as many ads, but they do sell ads. It was only a few months ago they announced that ads would be coming to their maps app. There’s ads in news, the App Store, music, and settings on iOS. Maybe more than aren’t coming to mind immediately
but apple pioneered the walled garden, there isnt any alternatives on apple.
Yeah.
Say what you will about Apple, but they are the major hedge against Google controlling much of the world, at the moment.
That sounds hyperbolic and conspiratorial. But, sadly, it really isn’t. Without them, there would effectively be one web browser, one mobile operating system, one search engine, with basically no way out of whatever Google dictates for 97% of the population.
Sure but that alternative doesn’t work for anyone who already doesn’t own an Apple device. Also those two and a half billion devices you mentioned can’t run alt browsers due to Apple policy so you’re basically just picking another company to hand complete control to.
It’s true, but it’s a company that doesn’t sell advertisements at least.
Apple does to sell advertisements. App store, now Maps. Who know what else. Then they have their own ads popping up all the time.
But it’s a company that also doesn’t allow you to block said ads.
Huh? It may not be built—in, but Safari has a variety of ad block plugins available - on all platforms (macOS, iOS, iPadOS).
On top of that they do have built in tracker avoidance — something Google is even less likely to ever implement into Chrome (especially considering they’re not pretty much the top tracking company out there).
Can you show me ublock origin running on your mobile safari?
I’m blocking ads on iOS with Safari. Granted it’s not baked in to the browser but I have AdGuard installed and that does a good job of suppressing YouTube ads.
I also connect back to my server at home via VPN no matter where I am and run PiHole for DNS resolution on that
So you admit it’s a mobile browser without extensions like ublock
Oops. My bad. I swear I read somewhere that Safari was switching to Blink, but that isn’t the case.