I’m thinking about listing this extension under uBO on the desktop browsers page with the following text, lemme know what you think:
uBlock Origin also has a “Lite” version of their extension, which offers a very limited feature-set compared to the original extension. However, it has a few distinct advantages over its full-fledged sibling, so you may want to consider it if…
…you don’t want to grant full “read/modify website data” permissions to any extensions (even a trusted one like uBlock Origin)
…you want a more resource (memory/CPU) efficient content blocker
…your browser only supports Manifest V3 extensions
We only recommend this version of uBlock Origin if you never want to make any changes to your filter lists, because it only supports a few pre-selected lists and offers no additional customization options, including the ability to select elements to block manually. These restrictions are due to limitations in Manifest V3’s design.
uBlock Origin Lite is a Manifest V3 compatible content blocker. Compared to the original uBlock Origin, this extension does not require broad “read/modify data” permissions to function.
[download links, etc.]
uBlock Origin Lite only receives block list updates whenever the extension is updated from your browser’s extension marketplace, as opposed to on demand. This means that you may miss out on new threats being blocked for weeks until a full extension release is published.
The first two bullet points above should be pretty self-explanatory as to why I think this is a worthy addition today for certain users. I’ve also been testing it out and it is in fact pretty comparable to stock uBO if you’re the type of person who doesn’t change anything at all.
Also we’ll need to add it eventually anyways, I think the writing is on the wall for V2 extensions in Chromium-based browsers.
uBlock Origin Lite itself will consume no resources, because it uses newer APIs which make the browser process the filter lists natively, instead of running JavaScript code within the extension to handle the filtering. However, this resource advantage is only theoretical, because it’s possible that standard uBlock Origin’s filtering code is more efficient than your browser’s native filtering code. This has not yet been benchmarked.
I agree with adding it along with some explanation on Manifest V2/V3.
My work forces Edge but allows adblockers. Once/If Edge updates to Manifest V3, I now need a recommendation for an adblocker. This is just one random use case for needing Manifest V3 adblock soultion. I know some people that won’t or can’t get off of Chrome.
It would be nice to have a recommendation to point to, even if the browser is on Manifest V3.
There’s also yt-dlp and/or mpv (my preferred ways to watch youtube on desktop). You can’t browse via these, but you can instead browse youtube directly or use a search engine like duckduckgo to find videos.
Perhaps Privacy guides ought to recommend yt-dlp and/or mpv as ad-free ways to watch youtube. There seems to be a lot of demand for youtube ad blocking.
Right. Yeah, despite the “and security!!1” people on Matrix and elsewhere claiming that Manifest V3 is going to bring about the golden age of browser security, the reality is that MV3 is a sham entirely designed to target legitimate adblockers like uBlock Origin. Buuuuuut I wrote about that elsewhere already lol:
Well, they are, but Google has additional arbitrary restrictions on content blocking functionality (the API exists but is restricted to Chrome Enterprise lmao) which Firefox does not.
And Firefox isn’t making MV3 mandatory until it can do everything MV2 can do with respect to content blocking, so there’s no worry about uBO on Mozilla’s side of things. Chrome is prematurely making MV3 mandatory next year most likely, even though it’s half-baked.
On the other hand, there is still over half a year left and the V3 date has already been postponed.
Maybe things will continue to be pushed back. So far no one knows for sure when V3 will definitely come, or am I wrong?