Google Backtracks on Chrome Modifications That Would Have Crippled Ad Blockers (zdnet.com)

Google has changed its stance on upcoming Chrome Manifest V3 changes as benchmark shows they lied about performance hit. Catalin Cimpanu, writing for ZDNet: A study analyzing the performance of Chrome ad blocker extensions published on Friday has proven wrong claims made by Google developers last month, when a controversy broke out surrounding their decision to modify the Chrome browser in such a way that would have eventually killed off ad blockers and many other extensions. The study, carried out by the team behind the Ghostery ad blocker, found that ad blockers had sub-millisecond impact on Chrome's network requests that could hardly be called a performance hit. Hours after the Ghostery team published its study and benchmark results, the Chrome team backtracked on their planned modifications. At the root of Ghostery's benchmark into ad blocker performance stands Manifest V3, a new standard for developing Chrome extensions that Google announced last October.

Comments

What backtracking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only commitment given by Google is to keep the observational API, but that's not the API adblockers care about! Adblockers need the blocking API, and there's no commitment to keep it by Google. Most likely Google will still remove it later, when the heat is off and people moved on to the next outrage.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[lister king of smeg]

Already been done. Get yourself some Brave Browser and enjoy.

Just because I want a independent browser does not mean I want one with associated shady micro transaction processor and cryptocurrency bolted on thank-you very much. I think I will stick with Firefox for a truly independent browser that at least tries to respect my privacy between ill-conceived attempts by their corporate overlords to shoot themselves in the foot.