During these last years, Mozilla Foundation has only ever been at its best – or up to any real good – when it was doing work to develop, support, and promote its one and only true core project, the free and open-source browser Firefox.
So, every now and again (instead of that being the focus) we hear a bit of good news about Firefox – this time, it’s that the browser will support both Google’s controversial V3 – but also, V2.
Firefox was, way back when, a rising and winning browser that seemingly effortlessly exposed all of Microsoft Internet Explorer’s many critical shortcomings (did you know – and such is the complacency of a monopoly – in the mid-2000s, IE didn’t even bother having browser tabs).
And from there on, introducing that and many other features to the wider user base, Firefox started to quickly gain browser market share – only to then be suppressed by Google Chrome.
It’s not all about Google – Firefox just sadly didn’t have a good custodian behind it. Instead what it has and continues to have is the Mozilla Foundation.
As Google rose to an advertising (facilitated by “search” among other components) business, Chrome was there to eventually drive all of it, dominating the global market (outside of China and Russia).
So it makes sense for Google, to get rid of the ability for developers to fully implement security and privacy components by replacing the Chrome API Manifest V2 with Manifest V3.
The main targets appear to be ad and tracking blockers like uBlock Origin.
Now Firefox is confirming that it will continue to support both versions of the API.
Sadly, Firefox has been sidelined by the Mozilla Foundation on a number of failed occasions in an apparent bid to “branching out” – whether it was about shipping its own “devices” – or spending money on “woke” advocacy projects.
That doesn’t mean users should not take advantage of Firefox continuing to offer privacy and tracking protection, especially on the mobile where the “ecosystem” is getting ever smaller.
At least for the time being, V2 remains supported.
Worth noting though, is that the Mozilla Foundation, however, has for years been financially supported with hundreds of millions of dollars each year from a Google search deal.
