Google “attacks” ad blockers with its new Manifest V3

Google’s rules for ad blockers change dramaticaly, as Google makes most of its money from ads. Its newest Chrome browser extension platform – Manifest v3,created lots of controversy. It happened as it meant to get rid of the blocking capabilities that webRequest API allowed.

As the capabilities offered very detailed data about the web traffic and, Google mentioned it gave extensions “access to potentially sensitive user data.”

These capabilities offered extensions in-depth information about your web traffic and in Google’s words gave extensions “access to potentially sensitive user data.”

Should developers of ad blockers worry?

Still, Google insists now that it wants to let ad blockers work, but under the stricter rules that Manifest v3 comes with.

David Li, Chrome product Manager, and Simeon Vincent, Chrome developer advocate, pretend they want to go on with the ad blockers. They mentioned they have been working with the developers of ad blockers, shopping extensions and development tools.

According to their blog post, this happened in order “to evolve the platform.”

But they came with a quote from Sofia Lindberg, a tech lead for an ad blocker maker, which is paid by Google not to block their ads. She came in saying that ad-blocking extensions will still be in place after the new rules apply.

Still, last year, developers warned that the new technical conditions could reduce the effectiveness of such tools or simply eliminate them. The Electronic Frontier Foundation mentioned that Manifest v3 could affect its Privacy Badger extension.

Li and Vincent said that Manifest v3 should make extensions “more secure, performant, and private-respecting by default.” The Manifest is available in the beta version of Chrome 88, which will be generally available in January.

Question marks still remain

Last year, a study conducted Cliqz – a German search service and privacy-focused browser, showed skeptical regarding the performance improvement that Manifest v3 would bring.

Still, it is clear for many users and developers that Chrome extensions should improve. That’s because the Manifest v1 and v2 both allowed developers create data-stealing code. So, Google becomes proactive to redefine the possibilities for extension developers.

Moreover, developers are concerned

Users still have a way out

For users, it might be really frustrating that the biggest search engine is taking them the right to hide ads. Most of them decided to hide them because they became too annoying. Some others are concerned about their personal data, that marketers use in order to follow them.

So, one solution at hand is that anyone can use a stand-alone ad blocker. Ad Guardian Plus is a Windows native one. It is a simple all-in-one solution that blocks ads on the network level. Thus, Chrome can not show ads to any user. By using it, users prevent advertisers from getting their data and even sell them. Moreover, with its built-in anti-malware and anti-phishing protection, anyone can browse safely. Try it for free!