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like most Manifest V3 changes, it seems carefully crafted to cripple ad blockers more than other extensions.

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Limiting remotely hosted code sounds like a totally reasonable limitation until you realize that. When Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, those updates that need to arrive 'at minimum on a daily basis' will no longer be an option. UBlock Origin's FAQ on YouTube's ad blocker detection says, 'YouTube changes their detection scripts regularly' and adds that ad block users might briefly be blocked for 'brief periods of time after scripts and before we updated our filters.' While all players in the space are innovating, some ad blockers are simply unable to keep up with these changes.” To counteract its changes to ad delivery and ad blocker detection, block lists have to be updated at minimum on a daily basis, and sometimes even more often. Ghostery’s director of product and engineering, Krzysztof Modras, said that YouTube is “adapting methods more frequently than ever before. They will all be subject to Chrome Web Store reviews process, and that comes with a significant time delay.Įngadget's Anthony Ha interviewed some developers in the filtering extension community, and they described a constant cat-and-mouse game with YouTube.

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Manifest V3 will stop this by limiting what Google describes 'remotely hosted code.' All updates, even to benign things like a filtering list, will need to happen through full extension updates through the Chrome Web Store. Today, ad blockers and privacy apps can ship filter list updates themselves, often using giant open-source community lists. But we haven't talked about the other side of the equation: Ad block rules can't be updated quickly anymore. The new declarativeNetRequest API now has extensions ask Chrome to block a network request on their behalf, features arbitrary limits on the number of filtering rules, and puts limits on how effective individual rules can be. Google's first attack on ad blockers is blowing up the 'WebRequest API'-the primary API that ad blockers use-and replacing it with a more limited filtering API that Google has more control over.

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That's great for protecting privacy, speeding up the web, and blocking ads, but it also means you can download a browser from the world's biggest ad company and use it to block ads-and that was only going to last for so long. The current platform, Manifest V2, has been around for over ten years and works just fine, but it's also quite powerful and allows extensions to have full filtering control over the traffic your web browser sees.

If ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game of updates and counter-updates, then Google will force the mouse to slow down.Ĭhrome's 'Manifest V3' makes dramatic changes to the Chrome extension platform. YouTube can instantly switch up its ad delivery system, but once Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, that won't be true for extension developers. In addition to hamstringing Chrome's extension platform with no real user-centric justifications, Manifest V3 will also put roadblocks up before extension updates, which will delay an extension developer's ability to quickly respond to changes.

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A new article from Engadget detailing the 'arms race' over ad blocking brings up an interesting point regarding the power that YouTube and Chrome have in this battle: a dramatic update advantage over the ad blockers. Google's war on ad blockers is just gearing up, with YouTube doing its best to detect and block ad blockers and Chrome aiming to roll out the ad block-limiting Manifest V3 extension platform in June 2024.