Really really nice write up on the most important frontier of human-computing agency in the solar system, Web Extensions.
It's a little harder to lump in with Manifest V3, but blocking dynamic code & effectively ending the days of being able to have free-form extensions like Greasemonkey is, imo, a colossal tragedy, a huge loss of dynamism & potential. This change is purely to assert higher top down control & order. There is no technical benefit here, this is an entirely political shift to disallow certain kinds of code & code-styles.
I am sincerely super not happy that extensions are only now permitted with fixed behaviors. My dream world is me uploading scripts & capabilities to my extensions, my extensions being script executors for some greater system of agency of mine. Disallowing dynamic execution entirely is like Apple disallowing other browsers, it's insisting on a monopoly of the platform, a way of holding back potential good. It insures Google gets a tight reign, tight control over what Extensions emerge. It's a hugely disappointing sacrifice. I hope we can subvert this & keep a community alive that still uses & explores the use of more dynamic extensions.
It's a little harder to lump in with Manifest V3, but blocking dynamic code & effectively ending the days of being able to have free-form extensions like Greasemonkey is, imo, a colossal tragedy, a huge loss of dynamism & potential. This change is purely to assert higher top down control & order. There is no technical benefit here, this is an entirely political shift to disallow certain kinds of code & code-styles.
I am sincerely super not happy that extensions are only now permitted with fixed behaviors. My dream world is me uploading scripts & capabilities to my extensions, my extensions being script executors for some greater system of agency of mine. Disallowing dynamic execution entirely is like Apple disallowing other browsers, it's insisting on a monopoly of the platform, a way of holding back potential good. It insures Google gets a tight reign, tight control over what Extensions emerge. It's a hugely disappointing sacrifice. I hope we can subvert this & keep a community alive that still uses & explores the use of more dynamic extensions.