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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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I see. Poking around a bit more, it looks like the User Scripts API might still be usable to pull in filter lists, as long as users turn on developer mode. What do you think?
Effectively the end goal is to make adblocking in chrome hard/complex enough that the masses don't use it. What Google doesn't want is what is effectively a one click solution to adblocking. Anything else is unrealistic and unobtainable and they know it.
So by forcing users to use a version that can't be updated daily/hourly you're already making it so you can't block YouTube ads which as of recent require regular list updates.
Or by forcing users to have two extensions or an extension and an external process to download lists you're adding a step that most users won't bother trying to do.
If Google can cut adblocking to 30% of the current user base then that's a huge win for them.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not entirely correct that Google is trying to "end adblocking" but rather their effort is to reduce it significantly within the products they control.
Honestly I don't blame them but I don't think we can be blamed for switching browsers either.
If that's the goal, I don't really mind. Adblocking always used to be a thing that most people don't bother with, so companies didn't mind all that much when a few of us did. If we're just going back to that point, and we adblock enthusiasts don't have to jump through ridiculous hoops to keep doing what we're doing, I see that as a win-win.
Can UserScripts actually intercept requests? I thought this wasn't possible at all with Manifest v3. If so, nothing useful can be done with the lists.
I meant user scripts might be able to populate filter lists for the main extension to do.
Based on the conversation so far, I'm pretty sure extensions can block ads, but the concern was that filter lists would have to be packaged with the extension instead of dynamically updated. User scripts might be a way around that, as they'd allow loading arbitrary code, but I don't know what the limits on that would be.
You'd have to show me the API to do so. I'm reasonably sure the uBlock developers would have thought about this, or somebody else.
Not really. The extensions can give Chrome a list of things to block, but they can't block themselves, and the lists have to be shipped in the extension.
Arbitrary code only helps you if there is an API to call.
Have the uBlock developers been talking about this? I'd like to read up on that if so.
There is this resource: https://support.ublock.org/hc/en-us/articles/11749958544275-Google-s-Manifest-V3-What-it-is-and-what-it-means-for-uBlock-Users-
Here is a summary of a contributor in a Github issue about Manifest v3: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-1507539114
So it really is a shadow of its former self.