Announcement of the migration schedule of the notorious Chrome extension new specification 'Manifest V3', correspondence of ad blockers and competing browsers?

by Thomas Hawk

Google has announced the migration schedule for ' Manifest V3 ', a new specification for extensions.

More details on the transition to Manifest V3 - Chrome Developers
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/more-mv2-transition/

Chrome's new ad-blocker-limiting extension platform will launch in 2023 | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/chromes-new-ad-blocker-limiting-extension-platform-will-launch-in-2023/

Google's Manifest V3 is a new extension API aimed at improving extension safety and performance. However, it has also been criticized as ' extremely harmful ' to privacy, as it greatly limits the behavior of ad blockers and extensions that prevent tracking.

Google officially announces Chrome's new ad blocking method 'Manifest V3', new information such as extensions and PWA improvements - GIGAZINE

David Lee, product manager at Google, updated his official blog on September 28, 2022, and released a timeline for Chrome's transition to Manifest V3.

Specifically, from Chrome 112 in January 2023, an experiment to ``turn off support for Manifest V2 extensions in Canary/Dev/Beta channels'' may be conducted. Also, in Chrome 115 in June of the same year, it is assumed that an experiment will be conducted in which Manifest V2 is turned off in the Stable channel, that is, in all channels including the stable version.

Along with this, from January 2023, the Chrome Web Store, which distributes extensions, will require the use of Manifest V3 to acquire the ``Featured (recommended) badge'' that certifies reliable extensions. Also, in June, items using Manifest V2 will not be able to be published, and all existing Manifest V2 items set to Public will be unlisted. And in 2024, the Manifest V2 enterprise policy will be abolished and all Manifest V2 items will be removed from the Chrome Web Store.

Extension developers are working on a major spec change. AdGuard, a major ad blocker, released the world's first ``AdGuard Browser extension V3'' compatible with Manifest V3 in September 2022. Raymond Hill, developer of the popular ad blocker ``uBlock Origin'' also released ' uBO Minus (MV3) ' that supports Manifest V3 on a trial basis.

AdGuard releases the world's first Chrome's 'Manifest V3' compatible version ad blocker 'AdGuard Browser extension V3' - GIGAZINE

In addition, competing browsers are reacting differently to Chrome's turning point, which is the top market share in 2022. Like Manifest V3, Microsoft Edge is moving forward with the `` ad block disablement plan '', but Mozilla Firefox has stated that ``we have no plans to make changes that limit ad blockers.''

``Firefox has no plans to make changes that limit ad blockers,'' Mozilla clarifies-GIGAZINE

by Doug Belshaw

Ars Technica, an IT news site that covered the migration schedule to Manifest V3, said, ``Until Google kills the existing extension platform, there is no way to know the impact end users will suffer, but changes that will be detrimental to users. Rolling it out with a bang seems like one of the few things that could hurt Chrome's market share.'