> They want to replace API to provide better performance.

The replacement API is incompatible with what it is replacing. The supposed gain in performance is not without loss in ability to block ads.

> ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge.

Some kinds of ad-blocking is simply impossible in the new API, without replacement or workaround. No extension can implement those methods.

Incidentally these new declarative rulesets are useless against some very simple tricks. I know people who are working full time on defeating ad blockers and the new Manifest v3 seems to have made their lives so much easier.

this change is intended to move control over the blocking process from the extension author to Google

once they're in total control of how the blockers can operate: I doubt they'll be responsive to what the developers of the blocking extensions want...

If performance was the criteria by which they made decisions then they would probably bake ad-blocking directly into chrome, since ads/tracking is one of the leading reasons for poor performance

By that reasoning Microsoft didn't prevent others from writing .doc-compatible word processors either - they just defined the format as basically a memory dump of Word :)

This is how a company implements measures that could be a legal problem: By formally making a technical decision and having the actual goal as a by-product of that decision.

> By that reasoning Microsoft didn't prevent others from writing .doc-compatible word processors either - they just defined the format as basically a memory dump of Word :)

It's funny because for years MS kept officially supported, feature complete, portable format for use in interchange, while DOC being shared was kinda unintended consequence that just wasn't fought against.

The very requirements of the original DOC spec required it to be a memory dump.

They didn't need to replace the current API, adding a new API would have sufficed. If it was truly better, the major addons would have transitioned it voluntarily. No need to force it.

> They are not trying to kill advertisements. They want to replace API to provide better performance.

So they say. I see literally no reason to believe that claim, though.

Apple did similar move with Safari. And they are not ad company. So probably it is the valid reason.

Apple has a bit more credibility than Google, too.

They are killing the functionality that has supported robust adblocking for a long, long time. Any extensions that replace the current model will be less effective.