As a part of its ongoing security and performance improvements, Chrome has launched a new extension platform called Manifest v3. This platform introduced new rules and requirements for all Chrome extensions. The extensions that comply with these rules will remain on the Chrome Webstore. While the ones that don’t will soon leave the store and stop working on Chrome.
Impact of Manifest V3 on ad blockers
Now, system and platform updates are nothing new. We get major OS updates every year. And with time, some apps stop working if the developers don’t maintain them properly. But what’s different about this platform update is that it only affects certain extensions. Especially the ones that deal with ad blocking.
Let me give you a general idea of how ad blockers work. They mostly work on a network level, stopping ads from loading before they reach you. Now, how do ad blockers know to separate ads from content? They use databases or lists that are constantly updated. A lot of open-source ad blockers use community-maintained blocklists. This means some dedicated users surf the web for new types of ads and put them on their blocklists. These blocklists are regularly updated. And, of course, there is more than one blocklist. Some remove ads, while others deal with pop-ups, notifications, etc.
As each ad blocker contains multiple blocklists, they would update all of them in real-time. However, because of the MV3 rules, real-time filtering is a thing of the past. Ad blockers now need to pre-define what gets blocked. MV3 also makes it difficult for extensions to manage complex tasks in the background and limits the number of blocking rules to 150,000.
What are the alternatives?
This is bad news for ad blockers. If your ad blocker is not Manifest v3 compliant, you have two alternatives. You can either switch to a different browser or change your ad blocker. I have done both, and I’m going to share my experience with you.
So, I’ve tried Edge, Opera, and Firefox. While all Chromium-based browsers are to stop supporting old extensions built for the MV2 platform, Edge has been delaying that update. While they have stopped allowing new MV2 extensions, they have yet to announce an end-of-life date for the extensions that are already in their store. Opera, on the other hand, has promised to keep supporting Manifest V2 extensions for as long as they can. Firefox is not built on Chromium, so it remains unaffected.
Edge and Opera offer a similar experience to Chrome as they are built on the same engine. I like Edge for its UI and features, while Opera seems a bit bloated to me. Firefox is a great alternative to Chrome, especially if you value privacy. But if you’re more comfortable with Chrome, Total Adblock is the way to go.
Total Adblock: A Manifest V3-compliant solution
Total Adblock is a Manifest V3-compliant ad blocker that can block ads, scripts, analytics, trackers, pop-ups, and many other annoyances. It achieved near-perfect scores on all our ad-blocking benchmarks. As part of the Total Security suite, Total Adblock comes bundled with the award-winning antivirus TotalAV. Together, the ad blocker and the antivirus can help you dodge malicious websites and phishing links.
Google claims that switching to the Manifest V3 platform is part of its efforts to make the browser more secure. However, the fact that this switch mainly affects ad blockers makes me question their motives. Google is also one of the largest ad providers on the internet. And they have been making it difficult for ad blockers to work on YouTube. There is clearly a conflict of interest here, and Google’s actions lack transparency.