That means that after its own implementation of Manifest V3, it will still support the ad-blocking version of browsers’ WebRequest API. Mozilla on the other hand has just announced that within Firefox, ad-blockers will continue to work as normal. Which means that in a bid to enhance the end-user security of its platform extension, Google may just have punched a hole in Chrome’s ad-blocking capability. Google users have been concerned that when Manifest V3 is implemented, their privacy-based ad-blockers may stop working. It changes Google’s philosophy around end-user privacy, and gives a head-nod to Mozilla’s perpetual security focus. Manifest V3 is, as Google says, “one of the biggest shifts” in its extension platform since Chrome was launched. In fact, it was one of the main features that drove people to adopt it in the first place, especially during Internet Explorer’s period of dominance, a time when “browser-based security issue” was a common trope in cybersecurity briefings. Mozilla’s Firefox has always lived and breathed security. Known as Manifest V3, the changes are meant to increase user security on Chrome-based browsers.

Particularly given a set of changes that have just been made to Chrome. But it’s a mistake to count Firefox out just yet. That has led some tech watchers to assume that Firefox has lost its grip on what users need from a browser in the 2020s. In fact, it’s lost around 30 million active users between 2019-2022.

Mozilla’s Firefox, once a must-have browser for its security features, has been in trouble during the pandemic years. The silver medal browser, with a comparatively meager 576 million users, was Safari. As of 2021, Google’s browser, Chrome, was the market leader, with over 3.2 bn user worldwide. Internet Explorer, once the dominant player has been retired this month (although a handful of long term support contracts ensure it’s still around). A handful manage to cling on, and begin a long process of upgrades to keep offering what the public wants from a browser.

Mozilla firefox adblock add on