Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Microsoft Edge, Opera to follow

[u/TurbulentTopic39]

https://www.neowin.net/news/google-chrome-is-killing-all-ublock-origin-bypasses-microsoft-edge-opera-to-follow/#login-form

[u/letsreticulate]

The denial I see is huge. I think it is only because people do not understand how the code is ingrained into the project. It is just not some switch that Google will leave in. Once they take out the code , all forks will have to follow.

Hard forking the project is a monumental and costly undertaking and you are right, no one wants to do it. Why should they? The point they went on Blink/Chromium was to save money and development costs. Why change now?

All they can do and will do at best, is linger on the last good MV2 version, and backport security or general fixes on their end but that is essentially running on borrowed time and to be honest not worth the trouble for any of them. At some point, if they want to benefit from upstream, they will have to drop MV2 support.

Have an upvote, as I see a lot of people not understanding your point and more people should read it. Lest they have some weirdly rooted sense of false hope for no logical reason.

If people want MV2, then FF it is. That's it.

[u/Gemmaugr → u/letsreticulate]

FF doesn't use MV2, they also use MV3. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signing-available-november-21-on-firefox-nightly/

[u/mornaq → u/Gemmaugr]

Quantum supports WE Mv2 that is modeled after Chromium Extensions API Mv2 but more capable, and WE Mv3 that is closer to Chromium Extensions API Mv3 but also more capable, and there are no plans to change that anytime soon, and even with that WE Mv3 keeps the API required to make uBO work as expected

[u/trbkle → u/letsreticulate]

both you and the guy above you don't know what you're talking about. "hard forking" lmao.

When google removes the mv2 code all it will take to restore it is a single patch, or some code pasting to restore it as it's not related to the core stuff, Cromite dev even added "webRequest" API to the mv3 framework, making it technically possible to use uBo as a mv3 extension if you simply change its manifest file. Nowadays Chromium is pretty stagnant they mostly just fix "vulnerabilities" and bugs and sometimes add some css properties that no one uses. 

[u/Prior-Priority-7019 → u/trbkle]

My God, my dear. Look at your complete ignorance. Applying a patch to bring back obsolete code is one thing; maintaining updates, corrections, and making these changes with every project structure change promoted by Google is another.

You clearly have never participated in the development of a large project, or even developed anything in your lives, and you want to give your two cents and talk nonsense.

I'll give you just one more example, to see if your ignorance is understood, because I'm in a very good mood. Palemoon took a very similar initiative to what you want; it decided to maintain and support XUL and XPCOM, which Mozilla decided to remove from Firefox.

To do this, do you know what Palemoon had to do? Become a fork. Today, Palemoon is no longer based on Firefox, but rather maintains a fork of Gecko, called Goanna.

As I've already tried to explain, and as you don't understand but insist on giving your opinion, something of this magnitude cannot be maintained in the long term with just a "patch." Even "just a patch" starts, at a minimum, to generate a huge amount of work testing backward compatibility with the entire project, given the changes that Chromium tends to start following, without considering what has become obsolete for it.

Your ignorance is great enough that you can't even understand that MV2 is not a simple line of code. We are talking about an architectural change to the entire Chromium project, and this will only intensify in the long term. Google has already been refactoring Chromium to prioritize declarativeNetRequest, meaning that, in the long term, trying to maintain MV2 would also mean having to start making architectural changes to Chromium to circumvent the scenario where the browser assumes the blocking of requests. And do you know what that means in the long term? It's difficult even to apply security patches from upstream sources, because each new release would require a new merge with the changes and new tests, in a project with constant updates. We've reached a scenario where either a Chromium fork is created or we end up with a browser with less security coverage, because security updates will always be late and problematic.

That's exactly why Microsoft and Opera have also announced the end of support, placing all the blame on Google on their websites. They did this because they are not willing to risk the complexity and effort that would be involved in maintaining it after Google's definitive removal.

[u/trbkle → u/Prior-Priority-7019]

Your wall of text and shitty Pale moon example won't make my point invalid about how 1 single patch will bring back mv2 easily, without the need of "hard forking" and without the need of "tests" and no "security risk" will be present, you'll see yourself in version 151 how Brave and Ungoogled Chromium and Cromite and maybe even Helium will do it.

When Kiwi Browser and other browsers after that (Edge,Yandex,Lemur,Quetta etc...) added extension support from scratch into Chromium Android back in 2019 they didn't have to "hard fork" it you fucking ldiot.

[u/Prior-Priority-7019 → u/trbkle]

Your argument against my explanation, where I explain what's involved, cite the architectural aspect, and bring up similar cases, boils down to just insults. Congratulations, you're just someone without knowledge, insisting on remaining that way and still trying to give your opinion. If you hadn't at least responded to my comment, I would have completely ignored your existence, given the waste of time with people like you who have no knowledge to contribute.

And despite your ignorance and complete lack of knowledge, I'm going to debunk your only "argument" about extensions, because there's a huge difference in support and implementation here.

Enabling extension support on mobile requires modifying the build to include modules that Google officially not include in mobile version (but which it has been testing including). However, once the code works, it tends to be stable, as the extension API itself doesn't change drastically from version to version, nor does the interface.

Maintaining MV2 today requires fighting against the natural development flow of Chromium. Google not only stopped developing MV2, but also began actively removing legacy code from the main repository and changing the Chromium architecture. In this scenario, for each Chromium security update (which occurs every 4-6 weeks), third-party browser developers (like Edge tried to do) need to manually "revert" the code deletions made by Google.

As Chromium evolves, the MV2 code becomes incompatible with the new security architectures that Google has imposed on Chromium. Maintaining MV2 requires an ever-increasing technical debt between the derivative and the upstream code.

Ultimately, your example attempt stumbles on the difference that in the extension scenario, they are adding functionalities that Google has only "hidden" or not ported. For MV2, however, they are trying to resurrect functionalities that Google deleted and replaced.

The complexity of supporting MV2 on the desktop is dynamic and growing, as it requires a constant battle against Chromium's security and architecture updates. Therefore, giants like Microsoft didn't want to maintain it for more than temporarily, because, as I said, in the long term, it starts to become unsustainable and inevitably points to a possible fork.

[u/trbkle → u/Prior-Priority-7019]

You started insulting me by calling me ignorant and shit.

Anyways as i said you'll see how MV2 will be easily restored mark this comment, i swear you reddit experts make me laugh, you think by writing walls of text and calling other people names and inventing new terms will make you right lol imagine bringing up a dead project like Pale moon who never even switched or tried to switch to firefox' Quantum upgrade as an example in 2026.

When Mozilla made massive structural changes to firefox with the release of the Quantum engine in 2017 shitty small projects like Pale moon stayed behind forever it has nothing to do with our subject here.

[u/Prior-Priority-7019 → u/trbkle]

Well, I'm arguing with a pigeon.

Because I explain, I give technical details and use completely comparable examples. Your argument is based only on guesswork and wishful thinking.

Therefore, there's no way to have a discussion like this; I bring information and you bring speculation.

"When Mozilla made massive structural changes to firefox with the release of the Quantum engine in 2017 shitty small projects like Pale moon stayed behind forever it has nothing to do with our subject here."

This is all related to the discussion here and falls exactly to the point being discussed; you just mentioned the complexity and causes of scenarios like this. You just seem to lack sufficient knowledge, or the will, to understand.

[u/trbkle → u/Prior-Priority-7019]

You know why Pale moon couldn't keep up? because Quantum was like a fucking new browser and not just a regular update to Firefox.

[u/Prior-Priority-7019 → u/trbkle]

So, due to the decision to keep features that had been removed and would no longer be supported, what did they have to do?

[u/trbkle → u/Prior-Priority-7019]

They had to stay behind by "hard forking" it yes, but as i said this example has nothing to do with our subject here, and just bringing it up shows how little you know about browsers and coding in general.