I don’t understand the second one “Distribute third-party app stores as apps, so users can switch app stores by downloading a new one from Google Play, in just the same way as they’d install any app”.
In real life you don’t see big supermarkets spread their flyers in competitors’ stores, how does that make sense digitally?
But it would use less energy afterwards? At least that was claimed with the 4o model for example.
We will now [Oct 9] begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable. This change will be slowly rolled out over the following weeks. Users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store, where they will be recommended Manifest V3 alternatives for their disabled extension. For a short time, users will still be able to turn their Manifest V2 extensions back on. Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will be exempt from any browser changes until June 2025.
So there is no single date for normal users, but June 2025 is fixed for enterprise (and expected date for Brave, Vivaldi)
uBOL is entirely declarative, meaning there is no need for a permanent uBOL process for the filtering to occur, and CSS/JS injection-based content filtering is performed reliably by the browser itself rather than by the extension. This means that uBOL itself does not consume CPU/memory resources while content blocking is ongoing – uBOL’s service worker process is required only when you interact with the popup panel or the option pages.
uBOL does not require broad “read/modify data” permission at install time, hence its limited capabilities out of the box compared to uBlock Origin or other content blockers requiring broad “read/modify data” permissions at install time.
Emphasis mine. No background processes, including a website-reading permission does indeed sound more optimized for mobile, where people may have limited resources.
But sideloading and OEM stores (Samsung, Huawei) have been available for years?