Earlier this year Google confirmed it would start phasing out extension support for the Manifest V2 framework. That’s very bad news for uBlock Origin, one of the best ad blockers, because it means the app would end up being disabled in the Chrome browser. And that process has just started kicking off.
uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill retweeted a screenshot of one user, who found that uBlock Origin had been disabled in Chrome. Hill also added that “The depreciation of uBO in the Chrome Web Store has started”.
The deprecation of uBO in the Chrome Web Store has started.https://t.co/VhvsZ2bhLaOctober 15, 2024
Chrome regularly disables extensions that it doesn’t want you to use, for whatever reason. The label claims that the extensions in question don’t “follow best practices for Chrome extensions” or because they breach the store’s terms of service. The uBlock Origin page on the Chrome Web Store says as much, noting that the extension “may soon no longer be supported” for the former reason.
Often you can still enable those extensions in Chrome, but it seems the days may be numbered for uBlock Origin. I was able to add the extension to my own Chrome browser though, which suggests that this change is rolling out in phases — rather than impacting everyone at once.
The change has been a long time coming, and Google has been heavily criticized for this move. Considering Google makes most of its money from advertising, it’s never going to be a big fan of adblock software. The fact it’s in a never-ending battle with adblockers on YouTube is testament to that.
Google claims that Manifest V3 will still allow adblockers on Chrome, and uBlock Origin Lite already uses that framework. Though this is more of a stripped down version of the extension, hence the name, with Hill noting last year that it isn’t as capable as the MV2 version of uBlock — especially in terms of content filtering. Presumably capability issues with MV3 are why the main version of uBlock Origin is still running on the older framework.
So if you’re a loyal uBlock origin user, be aware that the extension may stop working at some point in the very near future. Your only options when that happens are either to install uBlock Origin Lite, which even the developer says isn’t as good, or switch to a different browser. The full version of uBlock Origin is still compatible with Brave and Firefox.
