AdGuard Blog: Chrome Manifest V3 is looming over us. Where do we stand?

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Over four years ago, in early 2019, the Google Chrome team announced ground-shaking changes to the browser extensions platform, known as “Manifest V3.”

We’ve repeatedly discussed the potential problems these changes might cause:

• We talked about the reasons for these changes and why, in our opinion, this path was chosen and not any other
• We expressed our opinion that it’s not the end of the world, and browser extensions are not the be-all and end-all
• We explained how we at AdGuard would adapt to these changes and what threats they pose to the filter lists ecosystem

Initially, Manifest V3 was met with significant negativity by nearly everyone, from the developer community (not just ad blockers developers) to users who were fearful of the consequences of implementing a more restrictive and, frankly, raw and buggy platform.

Fortunately, the Chrome team paused the implementation of Manifest V3 until all major bugs and developer concerns are addressed. If you follow the link above, you’ll see that this moment is almost upon us. By the release of Chrome 120, all major issues are expected to be resolved, which means the integration of Manifest V3 is drawing nearer, and it’s time to discuss the current state of affairs.

Over the past few years, I have frequently been asked how Manifest V3 will affect browser extensions. I will try to structure this post as a list of answers to the most common questions on this topic.

Answering all questions about Manifest V3 | AdGuard

Manifest V3 is the new Chrome extensions API that has already changed the landscape for all extensions and will continue to do so. AdGuard's CTO answers the most popular questions about MV3.

adguard.com

 

[ValBuglio]

What do I do?

 

[oldschool]

What do I do?

You wait until MV3 rolls out and then choose between µBO Lite or Adguard MV3. Ghostery will also have an MV3 version and supposedly Privacy Badger will too, but I've seen no reports of the latter's development. You can also supplement a browser extension with a configurable DNS service like NextDNS.

 

[nicolaasjan]

Example of a Windows policy for Chrome/Chromium (.reg file):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Chromium] "ExtensionManifestV2Availability"=dword:00000002 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome] "ExtensionManifestV2Availability"=dword:00000002