There was a time in Chrome when it didn't support extensions at all. If Google had release an extension API like manifest v3 then, would that have been abuse of market position?
The reason why Chrome waited for so long to add extensions was the danger they posed to users. I was at Google when Sergey often worried about what extensions would do to non technical and older users who get tricked into installing them, then I saw first hand that danger with my own grandparents. They had extensions intercepting every network request, redirecting certain sites to fake sites, and injecting code into pages. It was horrifying, and they were lucky that they didn't have significant money or identity theft.
Before the introduction of extensions, Chrome supported NPAPI. I can't readily verify whether that was present in the first Chrome release, but it was present in very early releases. Browser Extensions was the alternative Google came up with to have a blessed API and sandboxed execution.
Abuse of extensions was certainly a problem with IE. But, Google was also happy to use IE controls for Google Toolbar and other functionality. It irks me when a company/tool makes use of another's more permissive policies/APIs in order to gain a foothold and then restricts others from doing the same with its products. It feels like pulling the ladder up behind you.
So it's impossible for a company to make a mistake and rectify it? If they settle on the same approach as their major competitor, it's bait and switch?
it seems overly charitable to give Google, THE advertising company, the benefit of the doubt here when the biggest impact is it will now show way more advertising.
If it's really that big of a problem this can be addressed by locking extensions by default and hiding the on switch where casual users won't look. But come on, this is obviously a pretext. You expect people to believe that the most prolific adertising and surveilance company in history is crippling the ability to block ads and trackers for altruistic reasons?!
It's not "obviously" a pretext. I don't think that the change in ad revenue to Google is going to be significant between v2 and v3 ad blockers. It might be to ad networks and sites that employ significant ad blocker counter measures though.
And it's not "altruistic" - it's because eval() and webRequestBlocking are bad for security and performance, so they're bad for a lot of users. Users who will switch to Safari or another browser without that extension API, because the browser is faster or didn't exfiltrate their banking credentials.
The reason why Chrome waited for so long to add extensions was the danger they posed to users. I was at Google when Sergey often worried about what extensions would do to non technical and older users who get tricked into installing them, then I saw first hand that danger with my own grandparents. They had extensions intercepting every network request, redirecting certain sites to fake sites, and injecting code into pages. It was horrifying, and they were lucky that they didn't have significant money or identity theft.