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.
When will marketing people figure out our generation views ads as hostile, non-consensual, and unwanted? They are a negative way to introduce us to your product/service. I actively avoid things with obnoxious ads. Native, old spice, liberty mutual, all of those brands the first thing that comes to mind is the negative experience of an invasive advertisement I never fucking asked for.
Pretty sure all generations feel the same way.
Ads aren’t always there to get you to buy something specific. In fact, an ad you don’t interact with is a better ad because they don’t have to pay for click-through.
You don’t want to buy brand A because they have ads, so you buy brand B instead, but both widgets are owned by the same holding company. Or they’re made in the same factory. Or they use the same components. Or they have the same shareholders. Any way you slice it, the same rich assholes are getting your money.
The goal of the Ads is to put a bug in your head and get you to buy something.
And that’s just the Ads. The tracking is also (increasingly primarily) about political manipulation and surveillance.
It doesn’t matter how we view them as long as they work.
What generation?
Except we are not customers, and it’s the customers that are important. I’s like cows asking between themselves when will the butcher realize that they do not like being killed for meat.
Butcher knows, but butcher doesn’t sell comfort to cows, he sells meat to customers.
They’re too busy milking the boomers for now (and even then, the smart ones also despise ads already)
Apparently not, as ads keep selling.
I hate to sound so cynical, but many folks are gullible. They’ll trust a flashy ad because it looks nice to them, and gives them a positive emotional response, and then internalize that judgement as their own decision (so when someone comes to challenge it, they take it personally).
It’s not just old people living in another time, either. I’ve watched teenagers and young adults trust obviously-sponsored influencers like they’re friends. Or wear brands as status symbols.
laughs in Firefox/Librewolf
No worries, play store-recaptcha is coming for you too!
?
affects mobile the most obviously… but google’s playbook is to basically have forced telemetry always and enforce integrity of their telemetry, and by extension advertising etc.
https://piunikaweb.com/2026/05/07/google-recaptcha-play-services-requirement/ - this just seems like an ok article for it, I did a simple web search and it came up, but others certainly exist if you dislike the source.
Looking forward to when they remove the old options & force PC users to scan reCAPTCHA QRs:
Those sites will be dead to me :)
QR codes are like the popups of days gone by. With incredibly few exceptions, I refuse to scan them. They are so easy to redirect for nefarious purposes, and you can’t easily inspect the url to know, assuming thats something you even do. Also my phone case covers the camera and it’s a bitch to get open so I’m very choosy with what gets camera time.
Pretty fucked up considering how much malware and scammy bullshit come though ads.
Yep, sorry but not sorry. Advertisements aren’t safe. The industry has been ruined by bad actors and it’s a shame, but also not my problem.
I worked in ads only a few months and learned how fucked that industry was. They’re basically given license to just run scripts in your browser, sucking as much info as they can. The fact that it hasn’t been regulated to hell is shocking, and truly a failure of all leaders.
They’re basically given license to just run scripts in your browser
That’s the crazy thing.
You want to show me an image, maybe an animated gif, and link it to your website where you’re selling shit? Fine. Annoying, but fine.
But I don’t care how many crocodile tears they shed about ‘but websites depend on ad income’ – I am not letting random, unvetted advertisers run arbitrary code on my computer. I don’t care if it’s in a sandbox inside a sandbox. Exploits may be found, sandboxes may be escaped. And there’s plenty of trouble they can get into even within their little sandbox, like running a fucking crypto miner or something.
So, yeah. Adblock and noscript everywhere and always.
Cue the Brave shills “recommending” to switch to Brave in 5…4…3…
Wait what’s wrong with Brave?
It’s not firefox
Firefox doesn’t have tab groups on mobile
“Firefox doesn’t have this one feature I like so I will keep using browser made by an ad company. I’m sure there will be no consequences long term”.
Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin
“Oh shit. No one could have predicted this!”.
Firefox is already using Google’s Play Integrity API. They don’t give a shit about us, they’re helping Google fuck everyone over.
While Firefox itself can still be installed and used on rooted or non-certified Android devices, some AI-powered features may not be available on those platforms.
Yeah, that’s not a real issue for me. Is it for you?
Firefox dragged its feet on an extremely useful feature for years.
Are you seriously trying to act like Firefox hasn’t been continually shooting themselves in the foot the past decade?
I’ve been using Firefox for decades without issues. Yes, Chrome was a better browser for a long time but Firefox wasn’t that far behind and was absolutely fine browser to use.
Do you really think Mozilla could win browser race with Google, the fucking second biggest company in the world? Of course Chrome had more features, it had basically unlimited resources at it disposal. But yeah, let’s blame Mozilla for not winning with them decisively.
YOU are shooting yourself in the foot. You abandoned Firefox for couple of features and soon you will be browsing the web with ads. Come back and tell me how extremely useful Chrome’s features are when can you no longer skip Youtube ads.
Hey dumbass, you remember how Mozilla decided to use Google’s Play Integrity API for their Android browser?
Mozilla is cooperating in fucking all of us over.
