Reminder to switch browsers if you haven’t already!
- Google Chrome is starting to phase out older, more capable ad blocking extensions in favor of the more limited Manifest V3 system.
- The Manifest V3 system has been criticized by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation for restricting the capabilities of web extensions.
- Google has made concessions to Manifest V3, but limitations on content filtering remain a source of skepticism and concern.
Back in the Dim Times (1990s), before ad-blockers appeared, there was a program called WebWasher. It’s basically a proxy server you run on your own computer and it contained all the ad filters. You just configured your browsers network setting to point to WebWasher and it would handle all the ad filtering.
So even if companies completely remove extension support from their browsers, we’ll still have an alternative. :)
Still not unheard of today if you’re using a VPN. For example, if you’re using Mozilla VPN (Mulvad), in the DNS settings it gives you choices between regular DNS, DNS + ad blocking, or DNS + ad blocking + tracker blocking.
I did not know about WebWasher, that’s very interesting.
Hey that’s awesome! Thanks for sharing