November 21 AMO Catalog (Addons.mozilla.org) will begin to accept and certify the digital signature of additions using the third version of the Chrome manifesto. The specified additions can be tested in the night assemblies Firefox. In stable issues, the inclusion of support for the third version of the manifesto will be made in Firefox 109, scheduled for January 17, 2023. Support for the second version of the manifesto in the foreseeable future will be preserved, but at the end of 2023, after evaluating the dynamics of the transfer of additions to the third version of the manifesto, the question of the possibility of translating the support of the second version of the manifesto into the category of obsolete.
Chrome manifesto defines the capabilities and resources available for additions written using the WebexTensions API. Starting with version 57 Firefox completely switched to the use of API WebexTensions to develop additions and stopped supporting XUL technology. The transition to Webextensions made it possible to unify the development of additions with Chrome, Opera, Safari and Edge platforms, simplified porting the additions between various web browsers and made it possible to fully use the multi-percept mode of operation (recovers of WebExTens can be performed in separate processes, isolated from the remaining parts of the browses). To unify the development of additions with other browsers in Firefox, almost complete compatibility is ensured with the second version of the Chrome manifest.
Currently, the Chrome has been working on the transfer to the third version of the manifesto, and support for the second version will be discontinued in January 2024. The main goal of the changes made to the new version is to simplify the creation of safe and high -performance additions, and the complication of the possibility of creating unsafe and slow additions. Since the third version of the manifesto has become an object of criticism and will lead to a violation of the work of many additions to block unwanted content and ensure security, Mozilla decided to move away from ensuring full compatibility with the manifesto in Firefox and realize other changes.
The main dissatisfaction with the third version of the manifesto is associated with the transfer of the API webrequest one that allowed their own handlers with complete handlers. Access to network requests and capable of modify traffic on the fly. The specified API is used in Ublock Origin and many other additions to block unwanted content and security. Instead of the Webrequest API, the third version of the manifest is proposed to the API declaativeNetrequest . locks that do not allow the use of its own filtration algorithms and does not allow you to set complex rules that overlap each other depending on the conditions.
Among the features of the implementation of a new manifesto in Firefox: