manifest-v3.md

Manifest V3

What is Manivest V3?

If you’ve been out of the loop, Manifest V3 is the updated extension manifest format for Chromium browsers. It introduced new rules and APIs for browser extensions, and aims to improve both performance and privacy of Chrome extensions. On a surface level, none of this is really that crazy or interesting.

Extensions are the main contributor to performance drain. They’ve historically been an attack vector for malware and illegal data collection. Meanwhile, the internet continues to evolve with stuff like service workers, asynchronous task handling, and the shift to browsers being used as offline workspaces. On a surface level, a major update to improve extension security seems like a good thing.

But along with this comes the slow deprecation of Manifest V2. And the proposed changes will cripple extensions like adblockers, userscripts, privacy tools that monitor network requests, and anything relying on remotely hosted code.

Google Is Risking User Safety For Profit

I’m not one to catastrophize, or even a big Google hater. I am also not the most qualified person to make an argument for anything. But I am an artist on the internet who is acutely aware of the issues shaping the web today. From a user perspective, I personally experienced Mozilla Firefox’s transition to Quantum, Microsoft Edge’s move to Chromium, Google’s FLoC, and a cascade of other transformative shifts in the browser market.

So given the stakes, I do not say this lightly. Forcing Manifest V2’s deprecation is an dangerous move strategic move that prioritizes Google’s business interests and their control over ad blocking.

Even with better browser security, the web is more dangerous than ever. Risky ad networks, with little regard for your privacy or security, are proliferating as more traffic flows to low-trust content piracy and gambling websites, in part from worsening economic conditions and a growing gambling epidemic. And as internet usage grows, so does the number of increasingly sophisticated scams targeting normal people.

On top of this, web browsers are becoming unjustifiably restrictive – limiting customization, features, and even which pages you’re allowed to load. This bad trend strips user autonomy for the sake of corporate agendas. Meanwhile, extensions like userscripts and CSS remain essential for online communities, language learning, and content archival. All increasingly important as the web becomes more difficult to navigate.

Finding A New Web Browser

For the last couple of years, my web browser of choice has been Microsoft Edge. It performed as well as most web browsers, favors pixel-accurate rendering over shape accuracy, and fit my general workflow as a self-hating Windows user.

While Microsoft hasn’t officially announced a timeline for dropping Manifest V2, they’ve begun disabling these extensions and will likely follow Google’s lead by June 2025.

So, it looks like I will need a new web browser. And my goal with this post is to break down what’s currently available, see what works for me, and give others in the same boat a reference point to help form their own opinion. Here goes nothing…!

A List of Every Web Browser I Tried

Opera and Opera GX

Opera plans to keep supporting Manifest V2 extensions. Who knows if they will be able to. Opera was always a decent web browser, and Opera GX has built-in poweruser options. I’m skeptical of their performance benefits, but at least it kind of helps differentiate the browser from everything else available.

My reluctance to use Opera comes down to a couple pressing issues. Opera is now owned by the Chinese consortium Kunlun Tech, and despite being free, they pour hundreds of millions of dollars into ad campaigns and influencer marketing. They’ve also made just really, really dumb decisions like autoplaying jumpscare video ads at startup without user consent.

Opera doesn’t bring anything compelling to the table for me. It’s packed with gimmicks rather than useful features, and the privacy concerns are a real issue. Be highly skeptical of companies that pour unimaginable amounts of money into user growth. I’ve been calling out extensions like Honey as malware for years, and Opera’s GX browser follows a similar playbook.

DuckDuckGo Browser

In an ideal world, I would be a DuckDuckGo Browser user. Their service is genuinely good, and I even used to own some of their merch. Their mission aligns with my values, which include transparency. The browser is built on Edge, my personal choice for performance and visuals. And they do not compromise on privacy.

But this means no extensions at all. DuckDuckGo includes many of the features that Manifest V3 aimed to eliminate. But switching over would cost me a lot of features I wouldn’t be willing to give up, like userscripts.

DuckDuckGo built genuinely a great web browser – it’s fast, clean, and efficient. If I were building a new, purpose-built computer, I’d install DuckDuckGo Browser and call it a day. It’s not just great for privacy; it’s a great web browser. But not for me.

Arc Browser

Arc Browser literally requires you to create an account in order to use it.

Recently, their CEO announced their next product.
Chrome with a ChatGPT wrapper.

Throughout history there have been bold innovators.
Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, and now Josh Miller of The Browser Company.

This is both frustrating and embarrassing. It is further truth that nerds should be shamed and degraded into submission. And at this point, it feels like the only option we have left to save society.

Firefox

I’ve been a Firefox hater since the switch to Quantum in 2017. It broke all legacy extensions, stripped customization, bloated memory usage, managed to somehow perform worse than before, and shattered trust in the company among myself and everyone I know who witnessed this happen.

Since then, Mozilla has installed add-ons promoting movies that collect your data, redesigned their UI again with even more excessive whitespace and no working compact mode, secretly enrolled European users into focus groups for a third-party company, and so much more.

They’ve seemingly gone all-in on profitability, like buying and ruining Pocket, increasing sponsored content, and rolling out one of the most poorly thought out Terms of Use I have ever seen.

If this were a one-time thing at any company, it’d be concerning, but Mozilla continually makes the same mistakes, no matter the leadership or state of the market. To work at Mozilla, you might as well have your frontal lobe surgically removed. I genuinely believe you would have to be willfully obtuse, or suffer a serious memory condition, to not even notice these issues.

Firefox has redeeming qualities. The addon ecosystem is pretty good, and uBlock Origin is objectively better on Firefox. It may lag behind Google and Chrome in features and website optimization, but its performance isn’t as terrible as some people like to joke about.

Firefox makes browsing the web miserable, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Brave Browser

Brave and I have a one-sided history. I started using it in late 2018, and at the time, its value proposition was good enough. It had excellent tracker and ad blocking built-in, solid privacy standards, was resource-efficient, and low memory usage. It was open-source and their monetization model seemed straight-forward.

With Brave there wasn’t any hidden agenda, but that’s also the problem I have with them. The web3 integration and cryptocurrency wallets are annoying. They’re rolling out artifical intelligence into their browser like every other company. Their rewards system is pointless. These features don’t affect performance and are easy to turn disable, or lobotomize (like Mozilla employees). But it’s pointless bloat pushing an agenda.

Brave has also pushed some shady business models, like Brave Ad Replacement, which replaces ads on your website with their own. The idea was a mob shakedown where you needed to go through Brave to collect your ad revenue. Pretty cool!

I moved over from Brave to Edge in 2021 due to performance issues, the constant installation of unwanted features, and a general loss of trust in the company. But despite everything, Brave remains one of the few browsers that will support select Manifest V3 extensions for the forseeable future.

So I gave Brave another chance, and I was mostly impressed. Brave’s more aggressive tab management hasn’t caused any issues in my regular workflows. There’s clearly some focus on design aesthetics with lesser-used features. There are nice privacy features, like their translation service that strips your IP address. Their picture-in-picture has media controls. And I’m just not running into many issues.

Conclusion

What did we learn?

Nothing good. But maybe none of this matters. The choice of your web browser is a personal one. Everyone has different needs and priorities, and there isn’t a perfect option. All of this is just a means to an end; another way for everyone to argue with each other on the internet.

But Manifest V3 is more than just an update to Chrome. It’s a clear sign of Google’s attempts to dominate and control how we interact with the internet. And while this might not be enough for me to swear off of Google products entirely, it is undeniably a turning point for myself and many others.

My only hope is that we see more exciting software alternatives take shape.