Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions in Edge
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It's not that bad yet. FF works on pretty much any site that's not demonstrating some sort of bleeding edge fuckery. I haven't seen a "best viewed in Chrome" for a decade or two.
Hopefully this sort of enshittification will drive more people to use other browsers.
It’s not that bad yet. FF works on pretty much any site that’s not demonstrating some sort of bleeding edge fuckery.
Yet. I lived through the first browser war (Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer) and I'd estimate we're right about the year 2000 ish. At that time both browsers were still active and reasonably well supported but it was clear that IE was going to win and somewhere in the IE6 / IE7 (2004 / 2006) time frame is when the real fuckery started. Since Edge started using Chromium in 2018(ish) we're basically following the same schedule from two decades ago.
Hopefully this sort of enshittification will drive more people to use other browsers.
Sadly this is the same thing we said back then too and we (IT & the tech community) pushed hard to get people to leave IE and adopt Chrome.
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Zen is nice
Hopefully mainline Firefox can take some design notes from Zen
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The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store
Ok maybe off topic, why does a web browser have to be one of the most complicated software artifacts on earth? So expensive to write and maintain that only a few orgs with huge developer resources can do it?
What would it look like to start from scratch with a massively simplified standard for specifying UIs, based on what we've learned works on standard browsers? A standard that a few developers could implement in a few weeks using off the shelf libraries. Rather than reimplement every bizarre historical detail in html/CSS, have a new UI layout system that's simple and consistent, and perhaps more powerful.
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90% of people and corporations are either using Edge or Chrome and since there's essentially no difference between the two they are equally bad. We're back to a browser mono-culture, just like in the bad old days of Internet Explorer.
Uuuuh.. being a web dev in those days.. You essentially first built support for proper browsers, then it was time to make things look and work as they should (or close to it) in IE.
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Just discovered them yesterday and made the switch!
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Yup. Software developer here for a small company. We use a Windows. Chrome for testing applications and edge is just there. We are all in on Microsoft, server is C# .Net, running on azure with teams and outlook and office.
I do use Firefox though but I’m the only one out of 7.
I'm also a software developer and I've never touched any of that professionally. There's a lot more diversity of ecosystems out there, bud.
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Zen is nice
Zen was amazing when they first came to light, but they keep changing how workflows work, and it destroyed the workflow I had.
For example, I am a browser minimalist. I don't need workspaces, and I don't have thousands of tabs open, because that's insane to me, personally. I now have to see the ugly Default Workspace at the top of my tab bar every time I go to open or switch tabs. This was an option before, so it was perfectly fine. They've taken that option away, which is very much not okay. Options are good. They also messed around with the New Tab icon, making it to where I couldn't move it to the bottom where I prefer it to be, instead putting it at the top, which is extra movement needed to get to the top.. They later added that back in, but again, why the fuck are you just willy nilly taking options away from people? It should just be an OPTION.
Anyway, I've had so many headaches with their approach to changing workflows that I don't even recommend it to anyone any longer. I'm sure I'm just the crazy person who wants some of the offerings, while not being FORCED to use some of the others.
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The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store
Did both Edge users complain?
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The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store
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Who fucking uses edge?
My workplace configures edge and chrome by default, were very office365 integrated and support chrome for some dates specific thing.
Now i am privileged with local admin powers so i have firefox. Still the integrations with edge run deep so i still have to use it lots of times. There are plans for copilot (which i find very dumb personall.
I will however never use chrome (anymore). Google was the second tech giant i dropped after facebook. They cannot redeem themselves for destroying the web (opinion). I rarely use search engines anymore but i rather use bing and bing sucks. (duckduck is also based on bing)
Sorry for the rant, but that was relieving.
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I use Firefox for most things, but Google Meet maxes out all my CPUs if I use Firefox. Any kind of screen sharing kills it. Suggestions on how I can get video encoding working greatly appreciated... Intel Xe graphics.
Personally I keep a copy of chromium around just for Google meet. Everything else is on Firefox.
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Who fucking uses edge?
Edge wasn't that bad honestly, I prefer it over chrome and use it when I need to test a site on that engine.
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The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store
oh look at that. It's 'chromium based browsers are garbage o'clock.'
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Vivaldi still supports V2 Manifest (including ublock Origin) until July, I believe. Brave too, I think.
Because we want a more permanent solution than one that's only going to last until Summer. What's even the point of switching if you just gotta do it again soon?
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Ok maybe off topic, why does a web browser have to be one of the most complicated software artifacts on earth? So expensive to write and maintain that only a few orgs with huge developer resources can do it?
What would it look like to start from scratch with a massively simplified standard for specifying UIs, based on what we've learned works on standard browsers? A standard that a few developers could implement in a few weeks using off the shelf libraries. Rather than reimplement every bizarre historical detail in html/CSS, have a new UI layout system that's simple and consistent, and perhaps more powerful.
What would it look like to start from scratch with a massively simplified standard for specifying UIs, based on all we've learned since html/css was invented?
Probably a lot better. The difficult, and expensive, part is getting everyone to migrate over to this new standard, not because it'd be unfeasible but because companies don't want to spend any time or money on things that they don't think will make them profit.
What we'd need is, for example, the EU realizing that Google's attempted monopoly on the internet is dangerous and requiring a certain standard for private consumer-facing websites to get the ball rolling.
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Ok maybe off topic, why does a web browser have to be one of the most complicated software artifacts on earth? So expensive to write and maintain that only a few orgs with huge developer resources can do it?
What would it look like to start from scratch with a massively simplified standard for specifying UIs, based on what we've learned works on standard browsers? A standard that a few developers could implement in a few weeks using off the shelf libraries. Rather than reimplement every bizarre historical detail in html/CSS, have a new UI layout system that's simple and consistent, and perhaps more powerful.
Basically browsers are big because they are operating systems for web hosted applications with huge attack surfaces and lots of legacy compatibility requirements amassed over 3 decades.
A rewrite isn't the answer. Putting limits on browser functionality is. JavaScript was the turning point IMHO.
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Firefox time
Well, Firefox tries really hard to go to shit as well with their new Privacy Policy and their first ever Terms of Service.
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Because we want a more permanent solution than one that's only going to last until Summer. What's even the point of switching if you just gotta do it again soon?
Wait, is that all? Because its not a permanent forever fix for Edge users its downvote worthy?
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Maybe Vivaldi or Brave users are reading this article thinking their Manifest v2 support is ending at the same time as Edge? It isn't and I'm letting those users know.
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Maybe there is some critical functionality someone needs in a Chrome based browser and they'll take Manifest v2 support wherever they can get it for as long as they can?
Do you think your specific situation, and therefore your specific desired solution, is the only one in the world that exists?
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It’s not that bad yet. FF works on pretty much any site that’s not demonstrating some sort of bleeding edge fuckery.
Yet. I lived through the first browser war (Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer) and I'd estimate we're right about the year 2000 ish. At that time both browsers were still active and reasonably well supported but it was clear that IE was going to win and somewhere in the IE6 / IE7 (2004 / 2006) time frame is when the real fuckery started. Since Edge started using Chromium in 2018(ish) we're basically following the same schedule from two decades ago.
Hopefully this sort of enshittification will drive more people to use other browsers.
Sadly this is the same thing we said back then too and we (IT & the tech community) pushed hard to get people to leave IE and adopt Chrome.
Don’t forget Safari. On iOS it is the only usable browser currently with everything else just being a reskin of Safari. There are a lot of iOS users.
That is set to change but only in the European Union.
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It's slowly turning, too. Start looking for something else.
