Mozilla won't follow Google in limiting APIs in coming Extensions Manifest v3

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Google revealed some time ago that it was working on a new Extensions Manifest file for the Chrome web browser. The company published an early draft of the Manifest v3 file and it turned out that some extension developers were not particularly happy with some of the changes.

Developers spoke out against some of the planned changes as it could be the end for content blockers such as uBlock Origin and others. Google wanted to limit an API that content blockers and other extensions were using for the blocking and replace it with another API that had severe limitations.

Google changed some parameters in an updated version of the draft in June but planned to launch the change in development versions of Chrome in 2019.

One question that many users had was whether other browser developers would follow Google's implementation. Browsers based on Chromium share code with Google and if Google would implement the changes, would need work to make changes to the code. Most browser makers, Vivaldi, Brave or Opera, have stated openly that they would find ways to lift these changes in one way or another.

Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, is not based on Chromium but the extension system that Firefox uses is designed to be compatible for the most part with Chrome to make it easier for developers to develop extensions for both browsers.

The organization published an official statement on of the Mozilla Blog today to clarify its stance on the upcoming Manifest v3 APIs.

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