"Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

Has anyone been using the v3 compatible version of uBlock Origin? Have you noticed much of a difference? From what I read there isn't supposed to be much of a difference?

Static list of uris versus live heuristics. So "much of a difference" depends a lot on what you browse. If your browsing is covered by the static list, yes...there's little difference.

Also, keep in mind advertisers are not unaware of all this movement. You don't think they'll try new tactics once they know everyone using chrome is now hobbled to solely static lists? That cloaking (or other approaches) won't then become really popular?

A lot of other ad blockers use static lists for years. The fact that they work tells that ad industry does not see the blockers as a problem that needs to be dealt with. It can also be that so far the increased cost of development of ads that are immune to simple static lists is not worth it.

Right. Advertisers didn't bother with all these tactics because normal chrome users could download a plugin without any major hurdles to thwart it. Why drive people that wouldn't otherwise use an ad blocker to do so?

That's going away now. Now mostly everyone is vulnerable with the only recourse being pretty technical stuff, not just downloading a very popular plugin.

So advertisers will now be free to get more aggressive without much downside.

Edit: I do get that this sounds like conspiracy theory. But it really matches the Google boiling frogs approach. Removing the blocking onBeforeRequest, as one of the very first things in the manifest v3 spec was not a coincidence.

onBeforeRequest was removed because it is a massive spyware and malware vector.

> I do get that this sounds like conspiracy theory.

> … was not a coincidence.

Could it be that it was coincidence? Do you have a solution for reducing extension malware without removing onBeforeRequest?