It's funny how a legitimate ad blocker suffers from zealous enforcement while malicious extensions are generally fine.
For instance: https://palant.info/2025/01/13/chrome-web-store-is-a-mess/
For instance: https://palant.info/2025/01/13/chrome-web-store-is-a-mess/
In a world where ad blockers and other responsibly written extensions don't expect to proxy all web requests, I think a lot fewer people will grant this permission to a "plant trees for free" extension.
Chrome Web Store reviewers have been letting malicious extensions slide for years, and Manifest V3 did nothing to change that.
One of the things that didn't make it is the entire request control dashboard. No more granular reporting or controls, at all. No more "medium mode" or "hard mode" (blocking unknown domains by default and making exceptions as you go). Sure, if you didn't use it before, you won't miss it.