> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with.
> - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.
> - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin.
> - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists.
Memory-safe code can make a huge difference in trust and software risk. Google has said that a 70% of Chrome vulnerabilities are related to memory (un)safety. This is in the browser with dominant marketshare.
> This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.
Oof, so even people that should really know better are now equating MV3 with "no more ad blocking"? I think at this point the entire thing just needs to be renamed.
(Only Chrome removed the request blocking API from their MV3 implementation; Firefox did not.)
We shouldn't equate it with "no more ad blocking" because it didn't ship with an attempt to make ad blockers less effective or because that's not all it shipped with?
> However, DeclarativeWebRequest is limited in the number of rules that may be set, and the types of expressions that may be used.[336] Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself. As the Chrome Web Store review process has an invariable length, filter lists may not be updated in a timely fashion.[337][338]
The people who know better should also know that tech social media was flooded with people not knowing what they were talking about mentioning manifest versions.
It wouldn't be the first time tech gossip rags would take something Mozilla did out of proportion to make outrage videos about that become a hit on Reddit.
When Mozilla added some weird AI thing (I think it was page summaries?) I was asked by people whose algorithm picked up this nonsense whether it'd be better for their privacy to switch back to Chrome or Edge.
> It wouldn't be the first time tech gossip rags would take something Mozilla did out of proportion to make outrage videos about that become a hit on Reddit.
Sounds like the issue here is paid social media platforms, where everybody is looking for ways to differentiate their slop from the rest. It would be weird to expect a different outcome.
Of course everything based on Chromium will inherit most of Chrome's decisions, including this one. (Unless they fork their entire web extension implementation and maintain the fork forever.)
Safari isn't exactly non-major. By the way, it seems like WebKit Embedded (~resource-efficient Linux port) has regained some steam due to Igalia's work over the last two years or so.
Non-Chrome Chromium browsers should band together and support request blocking for Mv3 at this point. It would be one compelling feature that differentiates them from Chrome.
I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
Many people seem to treat it synonymously with "no more procedural request blocking", but that's not a thing Mozilla ever did:
> For Manifest V3 extensions, Chrome no longer supports the "webRequestBlocking" permission (except for policy-installed extensions). Instead, the "webRequest" and "webRequestAuthProvider" permissions enable you to supply credentials asynchronously. Firefox continues to support "webRequestBlocking" in Manifest V3 and provides "webRequestAuthProvider" to offer cross-browser compatibility.
The permission model also seems much more reasonable (less permissions have to be requested upfront at install time) than MV2, so I actually hope Firefox does deprecate it at some point.
I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those.
Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
Helium still supports MV2, because the upstream hasn't removed related code. They basically turn on/off some macros to enable MV2 again. And this won't last long for sure.
> I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase.
I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env.
I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it.
Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June).
It seems to me that --unless you really, strictly compartimentalize your browser usage--, using multiple browsers will only supply your data to more parties.
Isn't this blog post more evidence that drewdevault became an extreme leftist?
I mean he's basically going off a checklist of leftist stereotypes here and trying to check as many of them as possible.
Meanwhile the other guy he's criticising is literally just a standard right-wing conservative, not far right, not alt right, just the regular kind. The far right I've seen is basically beyond the idea of being merely anti-immigration, they demand ICE style mass deportations immediately and in every country.
If both of them met in a bar through sheer coincidence, I'd expect drewdevault to start the fight.
what's the diff between lite and full? i dont even remember what i use on safari, wipr or something. mostly use firefox but sometimes i casually just let things launch in safari
Why do people say crap like this... Safari was the first browser to completely remove mv2. From all the major browsers Safari has the worse adblocking experience and support for adblocking extensions...
1. Third-party cookie blocking by default — 2003 (Safari 1.0); industry first.
2. Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), using on-device machine learning to identify and limit cross-site trackers — 2017; industry first.
3. Storage Access API prompts for embedded third-party content (e.g., social login widgets) — 2018 (ITP 2.0); industry first (co-developed by WebKit, later adopted as a web standard).
4. Full third-party cookie blocking (no exceptions) — 2020 (ITP in Safari 13.1); industry first for a major browser.
Apple only does things to progress their own business model. Apple failed at becoming an ad business so they pivoted to subscriptions and app revenue. Now they are building an ad business. Just look at their ad revenue.
Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers.
I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
>Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
And to go one step further, for achieving a profile-per-firefox-window workflow, I suggest to have a look at the underrated extension Sticky Window Containers [0]
While far from being perfect, I find it good enough for keeping things separated, especially when using a desktop/workspace workflow. For example, in workspace/desktop 2 I have a Firefox window opened with the first tab set to "container A", so hitting ctrl-t there opens new tabs with the same container "A", so I'm logged-in for all projects A. In another Firefox window in workspace 3 I work with "business project B" tabs (where I'm logged into different atlassian, github, cloud, gmail, ...)
Then with a Window Manager like i3wm or Sway I set keybinds to jump directly to the window (and workspace), using the mark feature [1]
It's also possible to open websites directly in specific containers so it's flexible. For example on my desktop 8 I have all my AI webchats in "wherever my company pay for it" tabs: `firefox --new-window 'ext+container:name=loggedInPersonnal&url=https://chat.mistral.ai' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessA&url=https://chatgpt.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://gemini.google.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://claude.ai'`
It's also the only way I found to keep opened multiple chat apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, ...). The alternative electron apps are as resource-hungry, and in my experience never handled multiple accounts well (especially Teams).
Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes.
In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
> Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser.
However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
In general, install a proxy which has its own certificate, resign every tls session with those keys, add the certificate of the proxy as a trusted certificate on your device.
I’m not familiar with off the shelf solutions for this that have ad blocking built in. Also ads are injected by JS so you need a mechanism to detect that.
More and more ads are now served from the same domain as the site making it harder to distinguish them from real content.
That's why GP wrote MITM, not just network blocking. MITM implies the middlebox is trusted by the browser in which it has installed a certificate, so can see and modify content.
I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking.
My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice.
I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.
There is a single toggle to turn this off, if it makes people rage so much for something you get for free (I realize not free beer/freedom) then I don't know what else to say.
To be clear, the toggle is to turn off the 'wallet' feature that isn't even enabled until you use it. So you are just disabling seeing the thing at all... with a simple toggle.
I also have to disable the "acceptable ads", with a simple toggle.
And the AI bullshit from their builtin search engine, I'd guess that too is a simple toggle.
Without googling, I'd put good money that there's a thing called "Brave VPN" in the homepage by default, and I have to disable that with a simple toggle.
In two years I may have to disable the crypto-miner, still with a simple toggle, of course, very user convenient.
This is the entire industry in a nutshell. Everyone, from every direction, at all times, is trying to squeeze you for a few cents with antagonistic "features" enabled by default. I have very little patience for this.
"But it's a simple click." Have some self respect, we can do better than this.
People build on chromium for the same reason they build on Linux. I’d personally prefer if they built on illumos or bsd but at a certain point people would rather spend their innovation budget higher up the stack and benefit from the platform that has the most open source engineers working on it.
It's too bad that Mozilla does everything they can to alienate its users, with failed attempts to attract a different but non-existent new user-base. Without them, and with Safari being run by a company that likes to tie its software to its hardware, there's pretty much no reasonable non-Chrome-based web browsers, so it's the new Internet Explorer, and many web pages only work on it, because no one tests their web pages on anything else.
People online rant about Firefox all the time for adding stuff Google and Microsoft shoved into their Chromium forks a few years ago, but when they do it the response is always "well what did you expect from <x>" while when Mozilla does it, the response is "this is an outrage, I'm switching to <some browser that already has the shitty feature anyway>".
I don't think there is or ever will be a "new internet explorer". If your page works in Chrome, there's a 99% chance it'll work in Firefox and Safari. Web standards have been unified to the point painting and layout algorithms are now part of the spec. It's why Ladybird managed to get a decently compatible engine in an extremely short time frame.
And people treat Mozilla like the devil when while they make mistakes, they routinely fix them too. E.g: when people had concerns about the AI stuff, they added a general opt out with a feature-by-feature opt-in.
To make an obviously unproven and not universal observation: I feel like it's people who just like the google integration in Chrome and want an excuse to run it, even though they feel like they should use Firefox because it's more compatible with their world view, so they latch onto any issues Firefox has to go "see, they are all the same anyway", and then just repeat vague "Mozilla sucks" stuff.
> I feel like it's people who just like the google integration in Chrome and want an excuse to run it, even though they feel like they should use Firefox because it's more compatible with their world view
What world view is this? Considering that Mozilla is a puppet Google basically owns if you look at where the funding comes from.
With current standartization the issue of "page not working on non-Chrome browser" is non-existent. Thanks god nowadays everything (pages) work everywhere in very similar manner, I am using chrome, firefox, safary and opera and have zero problems last 5+ years. Old days are gone.
I'm doing a goofy thing and buying it, despite knowing I can debloat Brave, because I already do that. I didn't know this existed till I read this thread. I've been benefitting from Brave for many years now; it's great that they've provided a way to pay for this without dealing with the crypto stuff, and I'm extremely happy to do so, because they deserve some of my money.
That's such a weird reaction. There's constantly, for years, people here asking for Firefox to just start offering a paid version to get away from needing support from Google. And yet when someone actually does that apparently it's goofy and we should just be manually stripping that out without paying.
If you can't afford it or don't want to pay, fine. But why are you trying to influence other people to do that by labelling it "goofy"?
How would you strip those things out mobile, by the way?
uBlock Origin was and is the BEST adblock. And it was one of the fist suggested add-ons when you get in the add-ons page. It should have been integrated.
i've never known what to think about brave because it was being pitched by cryptocurrency bros so i've always ignored its existence. who are these guys and is it genuinely good software?
But Brave was founded by someone who donated 8k in favor of a conservative anti gay legislation instead of going straight for Epstein island stuff so you're already half a fascist for using Brave, so better not run it on a Framework computer using Omarchy or the transition will be complete and your right arm will keep on twitching.
At least that's the nonsense you hear when you recommend Brave as a decent alternative to someone.
Brave being led by an absolute asshole does indeed make it less palatable as a main browser to me. It's on the list, right after the crypto stuff and the full page ads on the new tab screen that are enabled by default.
It's still the best Chromelike that's easily available, but I'm not switching my default any time soon.
There is an obvious difference between someone who is still actively involved in running something and working on it, profiting from it's success in the market, and using something someone invented but is no longer leading development of or profiting from.
It's normal and reasonable to discover someone who makes bad decisions is running something and decide that makes using it a higher risk for you. Sometimes you don't have a choice, but sometimes you do.
> so you're already half a fascist for using Brave,
Are you really calling the 100M monthly brave users half fascist? Can you explain more how you reach this conclusion, specifically relative to every other product you judge people for using?
I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation.
Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.
If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold.
I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices.
Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms.
But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since
What is the use case for keyboard shortcuts on handheld devices?
On desktops/laptops, keyboard shortcuts save reaching for a mouse, aiming (on the relativley large screen), and clicking. On handhelds, I don't think it's faster to use a shortcut than to simply tap something an inch away.
Also, on handhelds, the keyboard blocks a significant part of the screen. And keyboard shortcuts typically use accelerator keys, which are hard to use on handhelds.
I use an Android tablet with detachable keyboard and works great also with Samsung DEX if you want something more for basic multitasking and there i want the shortcuts, I actually used it a lot, before firefox switched to Fenix base, for navigating tabs, opening closing them really really smooth but then....
I stopped paying attention when the major browsers started to act somewhat against the interests of ad-blocking add-ons, some years ago.
Would anyone who has kept up let me know what would be the 2026 "industry standard" in terms of an ad-blocking and privacy stack?
I primarily use Chrome on Mac and Safari on iPhone but I'm willing to change browsers for better ad-blocking and privacy.
I would also be interested in solutions that scale beyond a single machine, for when I'm at home (e.g. should I get a little box and use it as an ad blocker between my internet my router and my network or something?)
Great. Coming just in time when people think the "main stream" browsers are too boring.
I'm actually glad to see Mozilla has grown a little bit "predatorial" if it can bring good to the users. The implementation is polite too, as it lets you know there was an ad been muted.
There's a lot of things that can still be done in the browser space. For example, one-click login even without entering email, easy purchase without the website ever collecting your card number (or other financial detail beyond necessary), etc etc. Ads can also be improved too, by making them not violating nor annoying.
The possibilities are still great, I hope Mozilla can figure out a way to tap into it.
It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.
I'm so glad Brave arose from all this overblown mess. What a solid product, one you disable the web3 crap. Using Firefox and derivatives feels like using a Java application on the desktop years ago. Every interaction seems foreign. Meh.
Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR
Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh).
On desktop the recommendation is much easier:
Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF
This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.
If he showed up in the Epstein files I'd stop using Brave. Until then, I'll keep on rolling my eyes whenever someone brings up this stuff from... 2008.
You are literally in a thread where 90% of the discussion is surrounding chromium and you think this isn’t a connected idea?
Edit: also crazy that someone who doesn’t want to support the Brave guy would support the browser using the Brave guy’s stuff, but I guess I see lots of chick-fil-a haters shopping in Amazon these days, so who am I to question what’s in vogue?
Well the guy running Brave must’ve had absolutely nothing to do with Brave’s Adblock engine going into Firefox, so I can see why you’re acting so smug. After all, why would the guy involved with Brave be involved with Brave’s thing going somewhere other than Brave? Maybe it’s just random evolution! Excellent point, friend. I can tell you thought it out.
Same. The entire company more or less turned on him. Not picking a side, that's your right. But to then start 'borrowing' from someone you refused to work with feels... hypocritical.
Brendan Eich didn't personally write the code, and he doesn't benefit from Firefox using it. If anything this hurts him, since Firefox is catching up to an advantage of Brave without investing their own development resources.
No matter from what angle I look at this situation, your complaint makes no sense.
Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.
Same reason people want Chromium to stay around: their forks will collapse within months if the free work from upstream stops happening.
Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Tor Browser, Librewolf, they're all little more than reconfigurations and reskins of Chromium when you look at the entire code base. Yes, the Brave as block engine and Operas power saving modes are non-trivial, but the engine they're built on is the size of an operating system.
> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with.
> - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.
> - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin.
> - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_wi...
This is what the official Firefox account had to say when this came up on reddit.
From TFA:
> The browser now ships adblock-rust, Brave's open source Rust-based ad and tracker blocking engine.
It makes sense that Mozilla would test this. The amount of Rust code in Firefox is already at 12%.
https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
Memory-safe code can make a huge difference in trust and software risk. Google has said that a 70% of Chrome vulnerabilities are related to memory (un)safety. This is in the browser with dominant marketshare.
https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/memory-safet...
> This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.
Oof, so even people that should really know better are now equating MV3 with "no more ad blocking"? I think at this point the entire thing just needs to be renamed.
(Only Chrome removed the request blocking API from their MV3 implementation; Firefox did not.)
We shouldn't equate it with "no more ad blocking" because it didn't ship with an attempt to make ad blockers less effective or because that's not all it shipped with?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Manifest_V3_2
> However, DeclarativeWebRequest is limited in the number of rules that may be set, and the types of expressions that may be used.[336] Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself. As the Chrome Web Store review process has an invariable length, filter lists may not be updated in a timely fashion.[337][338]
Is that not true?
The people who know better should also know that tech social media was flooded with people not knowing what they were talking about mentioning manifest versions.
It wouldn't be the first time tech gossip rags would take something Mozilla did out of proportion to make outrage videos about that become a hit on Reddit.
When Mozilla added some weird AI thing (I think it was page summaries?) I was asked by people whose algorithm picked up this nonsense whether it'd be better for their privacy to switch back to Chrome or Edge.
> It wouldn't be the first time tech gossip rags would take something Mozilla did out of proportion to make outrage videos about that become a hit on Reddit.
Sounds like the issue here is paid social media platforms, where everybody is looking for ways to differentiate their slop from the rest. It would be weird to expect a different outcome.
Did Vivaldi? Or Brave? Will uBlock work properly with Mv3 and request blocking?
Of course everything based on Chromium will inherit most of Chrome's decisions, including this one. (Unless they fork their entire web extension implementation and maintain the fork forever.)
Yeah but then "only Chrome" is misleading, when it's actually "every major browser except Firefox".
Safari isn't exactly non-major. By the way, it seems like WebKit Embedded (~resource-efficient Linux port) has regained some steam due to Igalia's work over the last two years or so.
Every major browser except Firefox is Chrome
Brave still supports UBo though. How long they can maintain that support is an open question.
Non-Chrome Chromium browsers should band together and support request blocking for Mv3 at this point. It would be one compelling feature that differentiates them from Chrome.
A single engine/implementation deprecated the feature. I don’t think this is particularly misleading in a hacker news context.
I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.
The day Firefox drops MV2 is the day I find a new browser. We're already at <1% usershare, it's not like there's safety in numbers here
What exactly is your gripe with MV3?
Many people seem to treat it synonymously with "no more procedural request blocking", but that's not a thing Mozilla ever did:
> For Manifest V3 extensions, Chrome no longer supports the "webRequestBlocking" permission (except for policy-installed extensions). Instead, the "webRequest" and "webRequestAuthProvider" permissions enable you to supply credentials asynchronously. Firefox continues to support "webRequestBlocking" in Manifest V3 and provides "webRequestAuthProvider" to offer cross-browser compatibility.
The permission model also seems much more reasonable (less permissions have to be requested upfront at install time) than MV2, so I actually hope Firefox does deprecate it at some point.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adbl...
> What exactly is your gripe with MV3?
Running an adblocker is the defining feature of the extensions API. ublock origin has 5x as many users as the second-most-popular extension [1]
Supporting ublock isn't just a nice-to-have add-on feature for an extension API, it's literally the only thing most users care about.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/search/?promoted=re...
Firefox supports webRequestBlocking with MV3, so even if they fully remove support for MV2, ad blocking is still available.
Mozilla refused to approve MV3 version of uBlock Origin
That's a problem, but an almost completely orthogonal one to MV2 being deprecated.
I wouldn't say completely orthogonal.
That's probably why they qualified it with 'almost'.
I would say "almost orthogonal".
Why? Any links to this decision?
I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
Brave still allows you to install uBlock & some other extensions that should technically not be supported under MV3, but they still ship it with support for those.
Just heard about Helium browser, which is just dechromium + uBlock and it's still beta.
Helium still supports MV2, because the upstream hasn't removed related code. They basically turn on/off some macros to enable MV2 again. And this won't last long for sure.
Safari still supports MV2
I don't know if Edge supports MV2, but they do have uBlock available and it works just as well as on Firefox.
> I'd be genuinely curious what you could switch to that still has MV2 because, AFAIK, Firefox is the last holdout.
My last hope is ladybird right now, I don't use Firefox or Chrome as my main browsers anymore, and use them only within temporary sandboxes. Without history, without cookies, without logins for the most part.
You use ladybird as your primary web browser? And it works?
For the most part, it doesn't. It's not a consumer ready browser, but a pretty nice little rendering engine. If you use ladybird as bindings, it's a bit unstable right now because they are refactoring a lot of parts in the codebase.
I built my own tools on top of it, mostly to use internet websites and selfhosted kiwix archives with my local agentic env.
I guess what I am saying is that I don't have a primary browser anymore. Not a browser where I just can trust it that it doesn't do shit with my data. Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience if you build your own search dashboard for it, I can fully recommend it.
Have to merge my things upstream with ZIMdex when I have the time (probably around June).
[1] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/exocomp
[2] WIP https://github.com/cookiengineer/zimdex
It seems to me that --unless you really, strictly compartimentalize your browser usage--, using multiple browsers will only supply your data to more parties.
Ladybird supports MV2? I had no idea they have extensions.
Ladybird is many years away from being usable by a casual human. The hope is it turns out to be a great browser eventually.
Good luck with the main developer being in the alt right.
> Good luck with the main developer being in the alt right.
Sources? I can't find anything on that via google/ddg (Germany)
edit: oof.
[1] https://drewdevault.com/blog/Cloudflare-and-fascists/
Isn't this blog post more evidence that drewdevault became an extreme leftist?
I mean he's basically going off a checklist of leftist stereotypes here and trying to check as many of them as possible.
Meanwhile the other guy he's criticising is literally just a standard right-wing conservative, not far right, not alt right, just the regular kind. The far right I've seen is basically beyond the idea of being merely anti-immigration, they demand ICE style mass deportations immediately and in every country.
If both of them met in a bar through sheer coincidence, I'd expect drewdevault to start the fight.
> Firefox is the last holdout.
Nope, FF is being infiltrated by adtech for last year or two. Last holdout is Safari now :)
You cannot install uBlock Origin on Safari.
The Lite version, same as on Chrome, is actually available for Safari. Still not as good as the full one on Firefox though.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
what's the diff between lite and full? i dont even remember what i use on safari, wipr or something. mostly use firefox but sometimes i casually just let things launch in safari
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
Exactly.
>Last holdout is Safari now
Why do people say crap like this... Safari was the first browser to completely remove mv2. From all the major browsers Safari has the worse adblocking experience and support for adblocking extensions...
> Why do people say crap like this...
1. Third-party cookie blocking by default — 2003 (Safari 1.0); industry first.
2. Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), using on-device machine learning to identify and limit cross-site trackers — 2017; industry first.
3. Storage Access API prompts for embedded third-party content (e.g., social login widgets) — 2018 (ITP 2.0); industry first (co-developed by WebKit, later adopted as a web standard).
4. Full third-party cookie blocking (no exceptions) — 2020 (ITP in Safari 13.1); industry first for a major browser.
Apple only does things to progress their own business model. Apple failed at becoming an ad business so they pivoted to subscriptions and app revenue. Now they are building an ad business. Just look at their ad revenue.
That's what the marketing department says.
Ad/tracking blocking is one of the things that can only be trusted if it's open source, i.e. uBlock Origin.
By the way, does this Adblock Engine actually block trackers? Or it just stops the ads from displaying?
ITP is mostly part of WebKit and open source.
If Raymond Hill says blocking doesnt work anymore, ill use... umm... Lynx?
Could definitely be writing on the wall that MV2 support will be deprecated in the future but imo not necessarily a bad thing if it’s not actively developed anyways. Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
That said, if this is writing on the wall I’d hope they’ll listen to the community this time and allow the engine to be extended / make it such that a block all ads feature always exists. I’m cautiously optimistic given Mozilla’s track record just over the past year-ish. They have released some great new features that help bring Firefox closer to feature parity with other browsers.
I am a Firefox hopeful and recently switched back to using it as my daily driver when Arc went belly up (but mainly for uBlock Origin support).
>Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
There is no feature Firefox provides that is more differentiating than ublock origin. As long as pages load and security issues are patched it is the reason to choose Firefox as a browser. What would they prioritize over it?
And there's nothing in MV2 that uBlock Origin needs that doesn't exist in MV3 on Firefox, unlike Chrome. This issue is completely overblown.
Are you disputing uBlock Origin's list of MV3-incompatible capabilities [1]?
[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
I’d like to see more investment in their new profile manager. It feels pretty barebones at the moment. Arc had the ability to link profiles to “spaces” and you could easily switch between them without opening a new window. It was very nice to so easily swap between personal, work, & side business.
The multi user containers are also very nice.
And to go one step further, for achieving a profile-per-firefox-window workflow, I suggest to have a look at the underrated extension Sticky Window Containers [0]
While far from being perfect, I find it good enough for keeping things separated, especially when using a desktop/workspace workflow. For example, in workspace/desktop 2 I have a Firefox window opened with the first tab set to "container A", so hitting ctrl-t there opens new tabs with the same container "A", so I'm logged-in for all projects A. In another Firefox window in workspace 3 I work with "business project B" tabs (where I'm logged into different atlassian, github, cloud, gmail, ...)
Then with a Window Manager like i3wm or Sway I set keybinds to jump directly to the window (and workspace), using the mark feature [1]
It's also possible to open websites directly in specific containers so it's flexible. For example on my desktop 8 I have all my AI webchats in "wherever my company pay for it" tabs: `firefox --new-window 'ext+container:name=loggedInPersonnal&url=https://chat.mistral.ai' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessA&url=https://chatgpt.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://gemini.google.com' 'ext+container:name=loggedInBusinessB&url=https://claude.ai'`
It's also the only way I found to keep opened multiple chat apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, ...). The alternative electron apps are as resource-hungry, and in my experience never handled multiple accounts well (especially Teams).
[O] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window...
[1] https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#vim_like_marks
Why does everything have to be "actively developed"? Sometimes a program is just done. Better not touch it. I actually do downgrade packages when "actively developing" causes regressions. Not curl or anything sensitive like that, but local programs definately yes.
In case of the extension manifest, that's probably layered on top of the JS engine which does get attention and scrutiny. It's not like an API needs to be updated. If you'd always do that, nothing would ever be interoperable and we'd likely have a hard time trying to communicate.
> Maintaining both MV2 & MV3 support isn’t easily sustainable long term when you factor in the need to prioritize other features.
The feature that better adblockers need is one callback that's similar to one that's still in V3. It's not difficult to keep if it's your own codebase.
Try Zen! Firefox fork with Arc-like UX.
Zen is great and still mostly Firefox. I use standard Firefox on Android and everything syncs without hassle. The experience is so much better that personally cannot imagine using Chromium anymore. Of course I do wonder if the entire Firefox ecosystem is sustainable long-term funding wise.
As long as MITM proxies still work (which is something that Enterprise customers demand --- even the notoriously-closed Chrome needs to), it will always be possible to filter pages outside of any browser. I've been using one for over 2 decades and it works in any browser.
However, I am also concerned that this is an "embrace extend extinguish" move.
Tell me more, what's your setup.
I use uBlock Origin in Firefox and network ad blocker. Wondering what other options are there.
In general, install a proxy which has its own certificate, resign every tls session with those keys, add the certificate of the proxy as a trusted certificate on your device.
I’m not familiar with off the shelf solutions for this that have ad blocking built in. Also ads are injected by JS so you need a mechanism to detect that.
More and more ads are now served from the same domain as the site making it harder to distinguish them from real content.
What would prevent sites from just injecting ads into their content server-side? You'll always need both element and request blocking.
That's why GP wrote MITM, not just network blocking. MITM implies the middlebox is trusted by the browser in which it has installed a certificate, so can see and modify content.
I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking.
My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice.
I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.
So like... Google Chrome with adblocker and Tampermonkey bundled? Just need to disable the cryptocurrency stuff? You don't really make it sound good.
The Greasemonkey Firefox addon that allows you to run site specific JS has been around for two decades [1].
[1] https://www.greasespot.net/2005/03/
And they even have a name: userscripts! [1]
Chrome also used to natively support userscripts back in 2010 [2] but they mostly killed it off
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Userscript
[2] https://lifehacker.com/chrome-4-supports-greasemonkey-usersc...
It certainly is great to have first-party support for such a simple feature. It doesn't have to support the whole GM_ API
"The first thing you have to do is to turn off the cryptocurrency stuff."
Fantastic first impression. I'm good, thanks.
Can you imagine the absolute boiling rage in these comments if Firefox implemented the same kind of opt-out "crypto stuff".
It is opt-in. The amount of FUD in these threads is unbelievable, both against Mozilla, Brave, or anything else really.
There is a single toggle to turn this off, if it makes people rage so much for something you get for free (I realize not free beer/freedom) then I don't know what else to say.
To be clear, the toggle is to turn off the 'wallet' feature that isn't even enabled until you use it. So you are just disabling seeing the thing at all... with a simple toggle.
You are missing the forest for the trees my friend
I also have to disable the "acceptable ads", with a simple toggle.
And the AI bullshit from their builtin search engine, I'd guess that too is a simple toggle.
Without googling, I'd put good money that there's a thing called "Brave VPN" in the homepage by default, and I have to disable that with a simple toggle.
In two years I may have to disable the crypto-miner, still with a simple toggle, of course, very user convenient.
This is the entire industry in a nutshell. Everyone, from every direction, at all times, is trying to squeeze you for a few cents with antagonistic "features" enabled by default. I have very little patience for this.
"But it's a simple click." Have some self respect, we can do better than this.
Lol. That's actually pretty bad for a web browser.
I don’t see how supporting Chromium is better than not supporting an alternate rendering engine. Firefox for the end-user is fantastic.
People build on chromium for the same reason they build on Linux. I’d personally prefer if they built on illumos or bsd but at a certain point people would rather spend their innovation budget higher up the stack and benefit from the platform that has the most open source engineers working on it.
It's too bad that Mozilla does everything they can to alienate its users, with failed attempts to attract a different but non-existent new user-base. Without them, and with Safari being run by a company that likes to tie its software to its hardware, there's pretty much no reasonable non-Chrome-based web browsers, so it's the new Internet Explorer, and many web pages only work on it, because no one tests their web pages on anything else.
People online rant about Firefox all the time for adding stuff Google and Microsoft shoved into their Chromium forks a few years ago, but when they do it the response is always "well what did you expect from <x>" while when Mozilla does it, the response is "this is an outrage, I'm switching to <some browser that already has the shitty feature anyway>".
I don't think there is or ever will be a "new internet explorer". If your page works in Chrome, there's a 99% chance it'll work in Firefox and Safari. Web standards have been unified to the point painting and layout algorithms are now part of the spec. It's why Ladybird managed to get a decently compatible engine in an extremely short time frame.
And people treat Mozilla like the devil when while they make mistakes, they routinely fix them too. E.g: when people had concerns about the AI stuff, they added a general opt out with a feature-by-feature opt-in.
To make an obviously unproven and not universal observation: I feel like it's people who just like the google integration in Chrome and want an excuse to run it, even though they feel like they should use Firefox because it's more compatible with their world view, so they latch onto any issues Firefox has to go "see, they are all the same anyway", and then just repeat vague "Mozilla sucks" stuff.
> I feel like it's people who just like the google integration in Chrome and want an excuse to run it, even though they feel like they should use Firefox because it's more compatible with their world view
What world view is this? Considering that Mozilla is a puppet Google basically owns if you look at where the funding comes from.
With current standartization the issue of "page not working on non-Chrome browser" is non-existent. Thanks god nowadays everything (pages) work everywhere in very similar manner, I am using chrome, firefox, safary and opera and have zero problems last 5+ years. Old days are gone.
I simply have no idea why people hate on Firefox so much. I mean it, it feels like an outlet for frustration toward an org people think might listen.
Even better now that they have a paid offering with all that crap stripped out (Brave Origin) which is free on Linux.
Everyone has made these Brave debloat tools that basically do the same thing as their ridiculous Origin offering.
To sell for $60 a web browser that technically has all the features removed is a pretty goofy move.
> a pretty goofy move
I'm doing a goofy thing and buying it, despite knowing I can debloat Brave, because I already do that. I didn't know this existed till I read this thread. I've been benefitting from Brave for many years now; it's great that they've provided a way to pay for this without dealing with the crypto stuff, and I'm extremely happy to do so, because they deserve some of my money.
I'll also pay and support their work to provide a really good browser (which needed a bit debloating).
That's such a weird reaction. There's constantly, for years, people here asking for Firefox to just start offering a paid version to get away from needing support from Google. And yet when someone actually does that apparently it's goofy and we should just be manually stripping that out without paying.
If you can't afford it or don't want to pay, fine. But why are you trying to influence other people to do that by labelling it "goofy"?
How would you strip those things out mobile, by the way?
Eh that’s a common business model. Pay to get the ads removed is basically the same thing.
Well, I'll link to this video review by Techlore.
Brave Just Released a Paid Browser: Here's What You Need to Know https://youtube.com/watch?v=3i5KH0l895o
Just watched it. Brave Origin seems like a superior product in every single way.
I don't trust Brave though and don't want to use chromium.
> It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff
I'm living under a rock, but my first thought was that you turned off TLS.
Instead of turning it off, you can just make it useless: https://youtu.be/M1si1y5lvkk
If your mind goes to TLS when you read crypto, you surely do live under a rock ... in bliss.
As a developer, personally I would be worried if that wasn't my first thought when someone uses browser and crypto together :D
uBlock Origin was and is the BEST adblock. And it was one of the fist suggested add-ons when you get in the add-ons page. It should have been integrated.
Why not Cromite (or Ultimatum, Helium)? Hard to understand why someone reading HN use browser without extensions support.
I don't think the parent poster is talking about Android.
Do any of them support sync ootb, selfhosted?
Brave has extensions support. You can get them from the regular chrome store for them.
i've never known what to think about brave because it was being pitched by cryptocurrency bros so i've always ignored its existence. who are these guys and is it genuinely good software?
But Brave was founded by someone who donated 8k in favor of a conservative anti gay legislation instead of going straight for Epstein island stuff so you're already half a fascist for using Brave, so better not run it on a Framework computer using Omarchy or the transition will be complete and your right arm will keep on twitching.
At least that's the nonsense you hear when you recommend Brave as a decent alternative to someone.
Brave being led by an absolute asshole does indeed make it less palatable as a main browser to me. It's on the list, right after the crypto stuff and the full page ads on the new tab screen that are enabled by default.
It's still the best Chromelike that's easily available, but I'm not switching my default any time soon.
I mean he also invented the fucking JavaScript.
At that rate one needs to abolish all modern technology and go tribal. Cause I’m certain my toothbrush runs JavaScript.
There is an obvious difference between someone who is still actively involved in running something and working on it, profiting from it's success in the market, and using something someone invented but is no longer leading development of or profiting from.
It's normal and reasonable to discover someone who makes bad decisions is running something and decide that makes using it a higher risk for you. Sometimes you don't have a choice, but sometimes you do.
> so you're already half a fascist for using Brave,
Are you really calling the 100M monthly brave users half fascist? Can you explain more how you reach this conclusion, specifically relative to every other product you judge people for using?
Read my comment again and you'll have your answer.
Come on.
I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation.
Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.
If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold. I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices. Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms. But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since
Same, I'd love for the iOS version to be a little more developed. Especially support for plugins for dark mode and stuff. Safari for iOS does.
What is the use case for keyboard shortcuts on handheld devices?
On desktops/laptops, keyboard shortcuts save reaching for a mouse, aiming (on the relativley large screen), and clicking. On handhelds, I don't think it's faster to use a shortcut than to simply tap something an inch away.
Also, on handhelds, the keyboard blocks a significant part of the screen. And keyboard shortcuts typically use accelerator keys, which are hard to use on handhelds.
Do you use Android with a physical keyboard?
I use an Android tablet with detachable keyboard and works great also with Samsung DEX if you want something more for basic multitasking and there i want the shortcuts, I actually used it a lot, before firefox switched to Fenix base, for navigating tabs, opening closing them really really smooth but then....
I have a physical keyboard for my foldable. Works great, except that keyboard shortcuts don't typically work as expected.
Could be referring to a physical keyboard attached to an iPad
Yes, I do, now on then. I started using a keyboard on handhelds with my palm m100, so I am not in the mayority.
I stopped paying attention when the major browsers started to act somewhat against the interests of ad-blocking add-ons, some years ago.
Would anyone who has kept up let me know what would be the 2026 "industry standard" in terms of an ad-blocking and privacy stack?
I primarily use Chrome on Mac and Safari on iPhone but I'm willing to change browsers for better ad-blocking and privacy.
I would also be interested in solutions that scale beyond a single machine, for when I'm at home (e.g. should I get a little box and use it as an ad blocker between my internet my router and my network or something?)
Great. Coming just in time when people think the "main stream" browsers are too boring.
I'm actually glad to see Mozilla has grown a little bit "predatorial" if it can bring good to the users. The implementation is polite too, as it lets you know there was an ad been muted.
There's a lot of things that can still be done in the browser space. For example, one-click login even without entering email, easy purchase without the website ever collecting your card number (or other financial detail beyond necessary), etc etc. Ads can also be improved too, by making them not violating nor annoying.
The possibilities are still great, I hope Mozilla can figure out a way to tap into it.
Does this benefit people that use uBlock Origin?
Maybe uBlock Origin for Firefox could be updated to make use of this
sounds like it just uses ublocks lists.
though it doesn’t seem to work as well as ublock, the ad slots are still there with just the ad missing so there’s a giant ugly blank spot.
I'd imagine that's the reason it's not enabled by default, they're not finished fully implementing it in Firefox yet.
Probably because they don't leverage cosmetic filtering yet: https://docs.rs/adblock/latest/adblock/struct.Engine.html#me...
It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.
I'm so glad Brave arose from all this overblown mess. What a solid product, one you disable the web3 crap. Using Firefox and derivatives feels like using a Java application on the desktop years ago. Every interaction seems foreign. Meh.
For anyone looking for Android alternative:
Cromite - Chromium, MV2 extensions, good new tab page with 4x4 shortcuts (2x4 pinnable) with direct access to bookmarks
https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases
Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR
https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases
Helium - Chromium, only MV3 extensions, built in browser from Graphene
https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases
Elixir - Chromium, only MV3, tabbed interface suitable for tablets
https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases
Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh).
On desktop the recommendation is much easier:
Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF
https://vivaldi.com
Android Firefox versions that are geat as well - [Ironfox](https://github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox): Hardened - [Fennec](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/): Fully FOSS
This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.
I can certainly imagine such a world. I don't use Brave because I don't want to support Brendan Eich.
If he showed up in the Epstein files I'd stop using Brave. Until then, I'll keep on rolling my eyes whenever someone brings up this stuff from... 2008.
So instead you use, what, Chrome because you want to support Sundar Pichai??
You are literally on a thread about Firefox, and you think someone saying they don't use Brave must be using Chrome?
You are literally in a thread where 90% of the discussion is surrounding chromium and you think this isn’t a connected idea?
Edit: also crazy that someone who doesn’t want to support the Brave guy would support the browser using the Brave guy’s stuff, but I guess I see lots of chick-fil-a haters shopping in Amazon these days, so who am I to question what’s in vogue?
If only there was another browser option that was the first word of this thread's title!
Well the guy running Brave must’ve had absolutely nothing to do with Brave’s Adblock engine going into Firefox, so I can see why you’re acting so smug. After all, why would the guy involved with Brave be involved with Brave’s thing going somewhere other than Brave? Maybe it’s just random evolution! Excellent point, friend. I can tell you thought it out.
The whole organization is a huge mess that doesn't really want to accept any management.
They try to make it feel like an “us” browser, but it just comes off as a corp trying to talk cool.
You have to walk the walk too Mozilla! Saying that as a FF for years.
>"their"
It's an entirely different management team.
Same. The entire company more or less turned on him. Not picking a side, that's your right. But to then start 'borrowing' from someone you refused to work with feels... hypocritical.
Brendan Eich didn't personally write the code, and he doesn't benefit from Firefox using it. If anything this hurts him, since Firefox is catching up to an advantage of Brave without investing their own development resources.
No matter from what angle I look at this situation, your complaint makes no sense.
Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.
Same reason people want Chromium to stay around: their forks will collapse within months if the free work from upstream stops happening.
Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Tor Browser, Librewolf, they're all little more than reconfigurations and reskins of Chromium when you look at the entire code base. Yes, the Brave as block engine and Operas power saving modes are non-trivial, but the engine they're built on is the size of an operating system.
Maybe they're being realistic about how long these projects could survive without Mozilla doing all the work upstream?