In recent years, Google has been actively encouraging the transition of browser extensions to the Manifest V3 protocol. This new protocol brings about significant enhancements in the security and performance of extensions, achieved through structural adjustments. These include the introduction of service workers to take the place of traditional background pages, the adoption of a declarative network request API, and the reinforcement of content security policies. However, these advancements have come with a trade-off: a noticeable decrease in the blocking efficiency of ad-blocking tools. This is particularly evident in the case of the open-source ad-blocking extension, uBlock Origin. Manifest V3 imposes restrictions on network request permissions for extensions, prohibits the use of remotely hosted code, and drastically reduces the maximum number of filtering rules. Consequently, the functionality of ad-blocking tools that rely on dynamic rule updates and flexible network request blocking is curtailed. Although developers have rolled out a Manifest V3-compatible version, known as uBlock Origin Lite, its capabilities are diminished compared to the original version and fall short of meeting the advanced requirements of users.
