Firefox 109 with support for controversial adblock blocking feature is out

Mozilla has released Firefox 109 in the stablechannel. In it, extensions are grouped in the taskbar. A bigger change is that the browser now supports Manifest V3 extensions, despite much controversy about it. However, according to Mozilla, ad blockers will continue to work.

Firefox 109.0 officially out in the stablechannel, the generally available channel. It contains some minor bug fixes and changes, including multiple security patches. In addition, the Colorways feature that allowed users to put certain color palettes in Firefox. According to Mozilla, users can use themes and add-ons as an alternative.

Two major changes to the browser are in the add-ons. They can now be grouped in the task bar at the top. They can be called up there via a button that unified extensions is called.

That new add-on menu is a result of the switch to Manifest V3 for extensions. This is an extension standard supported by Google. The technology has received a lot of criticism in recent years. For example, extensions running on Manifest V3 have a limit on api calls for WebRequest. For example, adblock extensions suffer a lot from this. Google no longer wants to allow extensions based on Manifest V2 in June of this year, but only on Manifest V3, although that plan has since been postponed due to much criticism. Many users fear that this means that it will become more difficult to block ads in the browser from then on. Google has made promises in recent years that ad blockers will still be useful, but critics are skeptical about the measures.

Firefox now also supports Manifest V3 extensions. But, Mozilla says, that doesn’t mean add-ons are blocked. The company says support for V2 extensions will still remain in the browser. However, the fear is that developers are less likely to create or maintain such V2 extensions because it is more interesting for them to develop add-ons for Chrome. After all, that browser has a much higher market share. Mozilla already said it last year WebRequest blocks continued to be enabled.