> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with.
> - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.
> - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin.
> - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists.
I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those.
Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
> I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase.
I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env.
I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it.
Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June).
It seems to me that --unless you really, strictly compartimentalize your browser usage--, using multiple browsers will only supply your data to more parties.
Why do people say crap like this... Safari was the first browser to completely remove mv2. From all the major browsers Safari has the worse adblocking experience and support for adblocking extensions...
1. Third-party cookie blocking by default — 2003 (Safari 1.0); industry first.
2. Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), using on-device machine learning to identify and limit cross-site trackers — 2017; industry first.
3. Storage Access API prompts for embedded third-party content (e.g., social login widgets) — 2018 (ITP 2.0); industry first (co-developed by WebKit, later adopted as a web standard).
4. Full third-party cookie blocking (no exceptions) — 2020 (ITP in Safari 13.1); industry first for a major browser.
Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers.
I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
>Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes.
In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
> Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser.
However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking.
My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice.
I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.
It's too bad that Mozilla does everything they can to alienate its users, with failed attempts to attract a different but non-existent new user-base. Without them, and with Safari being run by a company that likes to tie its software to its hardware, there's pretty much no reasonable non-Chrome-based web browsers, so it's the new Internet Explorer, and many web pages only work on it, because no one tests their web pages on anything else.
People build on chromium for the same reason they build on Linux. I’d personally prefer if they built on illumos or bsd but at a certain point people would rather spend their innovation budget higher up the stack and benefit from the platform that has the most open source engineers working on it.
I'm doing a goofy thing and buying it, despite knowing I can debloat Brave, because I already do that. I didn't know this existed till I read this thread. I've been benefitting from Brave for many years now; it's great that they've provided a way to pay for this without dealing with the crypto stuff, and I'm extremely happy to do so, because they deserve some of my money.
That's such a weird reaction. There's constantly, for years, people here asking for Firefox to just start offering a paid version to get away from needing support from Google. And yet when someone actually does that apparently it's goofy and we should just be manually stripping that out without paying.
If you can't afford it or don't want to pay, fine. But why are you trying to influence other people to do that by labelling it "goofy"?
How would you strip those things out mobile, by the way?
uBlock Origin was and is the BEST adblock. And it was one of the fist suggested add-ons when you get in the add-ons page. It should have been integrated.
I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation.
Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.
If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold.
I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices.
Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms.
But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since
What is the use case for keyboard shortcuts on handheld devices?
On desktops/laptops, keyboard shortcuts save reaching for a mouse, aiming (on the relativley large screen), and clicking. On handhelds, I don't think it's faster to use a shortcut than to simply tap something an inch away.
Also, on handhelds, the keyboard blocks a significant part of the screen. And keyboard shortcuts typically use accelerator keys, which are hard to use on handhelds.
Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.
Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR
Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh).
On desktop the recommendation is much easier:
Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF
It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.
This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.
You are literally in a thread where 90% of the discussion is surrounding chromium and you think this isn’t a connected idea?
Edit: also crazy that someone who doesn’t want to support the Brave guy would support the browser using the Brave guy’s stuff, but I guess I see lots of chick-fil-a haters shopping in Amazon these days, so who am I to question what’s in vogue?
Well the guy running Brave must’ve had absolutely nothing to do with Brave’s Adblock engine going into Firefox, so I can see why you’re acting so smug. After all, why would the guy involved with Brave be involved with Brave’s thing going somewhere other than Brave? Maybe it’s just random evolution! Excellent point, friend. I can tell you thought it out.
Same. The entire company more or less turned on him. Not picking a side, that's your right. But to then start 'borrowing' from someone you refused to work with feels... hypocritical.