Opera, Brave and Vivaldi will not impose advertising on users after Chromium update

Despite the fact that Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Chrome browsers use the same base that is Chromium, developers of the first three Internet browsers are not going to adjust to Google, imposing advertising on users.

Content blockers and other extensions for Chrome may suffer due to the changes that Google engineers are planning to make in the third version of the manifest, which defines the features and limitations for the extensions.

Release of Manifest V3 and the corresponding changes in the code base are scheduled for January 2020.

Essence of the problem lies in the fact that Google intends to limit work of webRequest API, which may adversely affect operation of content blockers and other applications. Instead of webRequest, developers will be asked to use the declarativeNetRequest API, and, according to many developers, switching to another API, which is completely different from webRequest and in many ways submissive to it, will in lead to “death” of their products.

According to the end of May 2019, Google developers decided that functionality of webRequest will remain same only for corporate clients, and for rest of API will be limited as planned earlier. These news immediately gave impetus to a new round of controversy and criticism.

However, do not forget that release of Manifest V3 will affect the code base of Chromium as a whole, that respectively will affect other browsers. Hurrying to reassure their users, developers of Opera, Brave and Vivaldi have already officially announced that they do not intend to support Google’s policy of fighting blockers.

“We will continue to support webRequest for all Brave browser extensions,” – said Brave Software CEO legendary Brendan Eich.

In particular, uBlock Origin and uMatrix, created by Raymond Hill, who is currently the main critic of the upcoming changes in Manifest V3, will continue to work at Brave.

Eich also reminded that company’s browser has a built-in ad blocker that users can use as an alternative to any extension.

Nearly same position voiced representatives of the Norwegian Internet giant – Opera.

“Most likely, we will continue to use those APIs from which Chrome will refuse. However, it should be borne in mind that the problem of advertising is generally not worth it for users who have chosen Opera as their browser”, – said a representative of Opera.

Representatives of the Norwegian company recalled that all versions of Opera have their own ad blocker, and in the worst case, users can always switch to it.

Developers Vivaldi have already reported in the official blog that it all depends on how Google implements the restrictions. However, the company promised in any case to provide users with a choice.

The developers write that there are many possible scenarios for responding to the third version of the manifest, including even restoring API functionality, which the Vivaldi team already had to do earlier. If the API is completely removed, the developers promise to consider alternatives, up to and including the creation of a directory of limited extensions.

“The good news is that whatever restrictions Google implements, we will eventually be able to eliminate them. Our mission is always to give you choice”, – wrote Vivaldi representatives.

The only browser, the developers of which have not yet indicated their position in relation to the upcoming Manifest V3, is Microsoft Edge.

Recalling, transfer of Edge from the EdgeHTML engine to Chromium was announced at the end of last year, and now a preview version of the updated browser has been released.

Source: https://www.zdnet.com