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uBlock Origin on Firefox would be more powerful than uBlock Origin on Chrome, but does it mean that uBlock Origin webextension on Firefox will be as powerful as uBlock Origin "legacy" Firefox extension ?

This is a post of gorhill from the last months Firefox - Google Analytics fiasco:

> Legacy uBlock Origin can block the network request to GA.

> However webext-hybrid uBO as per Network pane in dev tools does not block it. Same for pure webext Ghostery, the network request to GA was not blocked, again as per Network pane in dev tools.

> What is concerning is that both uBO webext-hybrid and Ghostery report the network request to GA as being blocked, while it is really not as per Network pane in dev tools. It's as if the order to block/redirect the network request was silently ignored by the webRequest API, and this causes webext-based blockers to incorrectly and misleadingly report to users what is really happening internally, GA was not really blocked on about:addons, but there is no way for the webext blockers to know this and report properly to users.

https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue...



The issue you linked is specific to the `about:` pseudo-protocol. uBO's WebExtensions version works as intended on the web.


I know that, thanks. I posted it as a real life example of where webextensions are still not as powerful as the so called legacy extensions and wonder if that specific case still applies, is it fixed, planning to be fixed, or are there other specific examples where webextensions fall short.


Yeah, that specific case wasn't fixed; it appears that Mozilla doesn't intend to let addons run on `about:`. However, they did make `about:` respect DNT by disabling GA.

WebExtensions currently fall short when it comes to any addon that modifies the UI significantly (tree-style tabs etc), though it's been mentioned in some other comments here that they're talking to addon devs to extend the API where possible.


> However, they did make `about:` respect DNT by disabling GA.

The irony is that since most people have DNT disabled having it enabled would make it easier for you to be tracked.

> it appears that Mozilla doesn't intend to let addons run on `about:`.

Why is that?




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