Mozilla has been suspiciously silent about Google and Manifest V3

Notice: Last week, Google announced that it would be removing extensions using Manifest V2 from its Chrome Extensions Store very soon, and that extension developers would have to upgrade to Manifest V3 if they wanted their extensions to continue working for users.

Manifest V3 offers limited support for features related to blocking ads and other network trackers, and may render extensions like uBlock Origin useless to provide complete ad protection.

In fact, Google itself has placed a giant yellow banner on the uBlock Origin extension’s webpage to indicate that it may no longer be supported in the future because of this:

Currently, uBlock Origin users are advised to upgrade to uBlock Origin Lite, a Manifest-V3 based Chrome extension that has limited ability to block all types of ads/trackers on Chromium based web browsers.

But there’s one giant red panda lurking in the shadows who has yet to weigh in on all of this.

Mozilla is the creator of the popular Firefox browser, which has always used its own web engine called “Gecko” and is therefore not at all affected by these measures from Google.

Firefox users using the uBlock Origin extension to block ads can continue to do so without any issues.

Instead of using this news as a good marketing material to promote the only viable and independent web browser on the Internet, and how it can still block annoying ads on users’ machines, Mozilla has not released anything about it at all.

Their social media accounts remain silent on the news, and their official blog talks about AI and inclusivity.

While Firefox users are recommending Chrome users to ditch their cursed web browser for Firefox as an effective alternative to blocking ads on the Internet, the company itself has apparently chosen not to say a single word about it and avoid the opportunity to increase its user base.

This isn’t really a surprise if you understand Mozilla and how it gets its funding.

About 81% of Mozilla’s funding comes from Google, which pays it billions of dollars a year to remain the default search engine for Firefox.

And Google itself, of course, makes billions of dollars in revenue from running its ad networks.

But if the number of users blocking ads were to increase (it currently stands at 35% globally and 80% on our website), it could seriously harm Google’s business model and revenue.

This explains why Google recently cracked down on ad blocking methods for YouTube and why it also ditched uBlock Origin and other ad blocking extensions.

But perhaps this also explains why Mozilla has remained silent on all this; while their web browser is the primary destination for users who want to maintain their privacy and security, and block annoying ads, they have chosen not to damage their primary source of revenue by encouraging this behavior.

And all they have to do is keep quiet about it and act as if nothing happened.

Currently, the number of Firefox users stands at 153 million worldwide, a decrease of 10% from the end of 2023 and 25% from 2020.

Clearly, the lovely web browser is losing users, and this should have been a great marketing opportunity to restore momentum and get more users to switch to Firefox, but unfortunately, Mozilla’s financial situation and its complete reliance on Google and its ad revenue is a barrier to that.

Such silence on important issues should be a major red flag: if the company cannot increase its user base because of its financial situation, then its financial situation must change as soon as possible to avoid disaster.

The company is expected to create services and products, and develop ways to raise money from Google and its advertising-based revenue model.

Ironically, the company is moving in the opposite direction: Mozilla is buying “privacy-based” advertising companies like Anonym and building “privacy-based ad support” into Firefox in order to further salvage Google’s position in this space instead of hindering it.

This situation should, of course, worry all Internet users who do not want to be under Google’s monopoly wherever they go. It should worry all those who want to have multiple web rendering engines for the Internet.

With a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Hanny has over a decade of experience with Linux and open source software. He has developed Linux distributions, desktop programs, web applications, and much more. All of this has attracted tens of thousands of users over the years. He also manages other open source-related platforms to promote it in his local communities.

Hanny is the founder of FOSS Post.