Google Chrome is planning to cripple ad blockers, however Brave and Opera remain defiant

Proposed changes to Google Chrome, the browser of choice for 63 percent of devices, would cripple ad blockers and other privacy-enhancing extensions. Meanwhile, Brave and Opera may deviate from Chrome to retain the functionality of these extensions.

Google is embroiled in another controversy around user privacy. In October, Google proposed changes to the Chromium codebase (Manifest v3) that would introduce a new set extension standards that would cripple dozens of popular ad blocking and privacy-enhancing browser extensions.

If implemented as is, the change would have far-reaching ramifications since many of the top browsers use the open-source Chromium engine. Browsers such as Brave, Opera, Vivaldi—and after 2019, Microsoft Edge—would all impacted by the change.

Extension developers outraged

“Manifest v3 will entail additional platform changes that aim to create stronger security, privacy, and performance guarantees. We want to help all developers fall into the pit of success,” said Google on its blog.

The proposed changes caused a firestorm on the Chromium bug tracker forums. Developers for uBlock, Amnesty International, Ermes Cyber Security, noScript, and others commented on how the change would largely harm the functionality of their extensions.

Raymond Hill, the original author of ad blockers uBlock Origin and uMatrix, said the changes would mean his extensions could “no longer exist.” Tens of other extension owners and developers piled on to the comment, saying the change would also hinder the capabilities of their extensions—ultimately limiting the choices offered to users.

“Extensions act on behalf of users, they add capabilities to a user agent, and deprecating the blocking ability of the API will essentially decrease the level of user agency in Chromium, to the benefit of web sites which obviously would be happy to have the last word in what resources their pages can execute,” said Hill.

Brave and Opera unaffected

Brendan Eich, the CEO and founder of Brave and its associated Basic Attention Token, said that Brave browser plans to support the old extension technology if Google goes ahead with the changes, as said in an email to ZDNet. This would allow for privacy-enhancing extensions to operate normally on Brave browser.

An Opera spokesperson said something similar, saying in an email to ZDNet that they might continue supporting the older engine as well.

“But again, this is not really an issue for the more than 300 million people who have chosen Opera,” said an Opera spokesperson.

Since both Brave and Opera come with built-in ad blockers, users who choose to use the default ad blockers would be unaffected by the update.

“This means that Opera users aren’t really exposed to these changes—unlike users of most other browsers.”

Opera was sold to a Chinese consortium for $600 million. The buyers, led by search and security firm Qihoo 360, are purchasing Opera’s browser business, its privacy and performance apps, its tech licensing and, most importantly, its name. The Norwegian company kept its consumer division, including Opera Apps & Games and Opera TV.