Google had a tentative of dismissing the APIs that content blocking extensions and Chrome ad-blockers utilize, just a couple of months back. The planned reinstatement API would not have the same capacities, and would not be as powerful, so users and developers hugely complained about it. However, Google is not quite minding the complains and stand firm in their decision.
The actual platform utilized by Chrome extensions is known as Manifest V2, and it was rolled out back in 2012. The tech giant has been developing Manifest V3 for some time now, and it will come with new functionality and changes to the current browser characteristics.
The adjustment that has got the most negative complains was the company’s plan to replace the current WebRequest API, utilized by each content blocking extension, with a much more restricted declarativeNetRequest API. Rather than extensions managing the network filtering, they would offer a filter list that Chrome will then analyze. Numerous developers, most prominently the designer of uBlock Origin and uMatrix openly went against the planned changes.
Google Sticks To Its Plan To Remove Chrome Ad-Blockers
Google has allegedly rethought the plan in the last months, but in no small measure, the tech giant is sticking to the initial plan. A developer advocate at Google said in a forum post that Chrome is depreciating the blocking abilities of the webRequest API in Manifest V3, but not of the whole webRequest API, but still, blocking will still be on to operate distributions. Put differently, content blockers will eventually need to transfer to the new restricted API, or they will stop functioning for regular users.
Google has then revealed the outlines of the optimizations it has created to the new declarativeNetRequest API since the first time it was rolled out. Extensions will be accessible to delimit blocking rules in two paths, namely while installing and while operating. The limit is 30,000 during installation at the moment, and 50,000 while working.
Google stated in a forum post that they are planning to move up these numbers, but they won’t have updated values until they can run performance trials to discover a great upper bound that will function across all supported devices. To make it simpler to understand how the restriction might impact the ad blockers, imagine that EasyList has about 76,000 rules at the moment. These adjustments will most probably not satisfy users who are using ad blockers at the moment, but the Manifest V3 is still a long way until it will roll out, and Manifest V2 won’t be removed for one more year for two.
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