Content
- Limiting ad blockers
- TODO
These changes pose a threat to the users.
The new browser extension API format (called ManifestV3) harms your privacy efforts by restricting web extensions, including ad blockers, that you are likely to use.
Nearly all browser extensions as you know them today will be affected in some way: the more lucky ones will 'only' experience problems, some will get crippled, and some will literally cease to exist.
- Andrey Meshkov, AdGuard
Google attributes the new rules to improved security and performance, but that's not the truth.
This study, conducted in 2020 by scientists from Princeton and the University of Chicago, has shown that privacy extensions, the very same ones that ManifestV3 will thwart, actually improve browser performance.
The efficiency of measures taken in ManifestV3 to ensure user privacy are questionable at best. As stated
here,
"... malicious add-ons are mainly interested in capturing bad data, they can still
do so using the current webRequest API, which is not blocked". Simply put, when a malicious extension
leaks private data, it's usually interested in simply observing the communication between your browser and the websites you visit.
Malicious activity, like data analysis, may take place elsewhere, after the data has already been read.
A more thorough process for vetting extensions could improve security, but Chrome hasn't stated
that they would do so. Instead, they've decided to limit the capabilities of all extensions.
Google is the largest ad display company: in 2022, 79% of the company's budget was advertising revenue. It is in Google's direct interest to show ads to the users as much as possible.
The new restrictions will not only affect Google Chrome, but also many browsers based on the Chromium engine. Chromium engine, such as: Opera, Microsoft Edge and many others.
As the largest developer of the browser engine, Google can dictate specifications and restrictions, which in the future could negatively affect the entire global web.
But you shouldn't take this article at its word. Read this article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for more opinions of technologists, privacy advocates, and extension developers who share concerns about Manifest V3.