52
votes
Google Chrome to fully remove legacy support for manifest v2
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- Title
- Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Microsoft Edge, Opera to follow
- Authors
- Sayan Sen, Usama Jawad, Taras Buria
- Published
- Jun 11 2026
- Word count
- 1122 words
Most prominent effect is the end of support for Ublock Origin. While a version targeting manifest v3 exists it has significant limitations.
What this effectively means due to Chrome and chromium dependent forks having a major market share is further locking down of the web.
While the security issues that publicly led to the deprecation of manifest v2 are legitimate it is very convenient how neatly it cripples the most capable rendered website modification tool that anyone could have access to for nearly no effort.
Are there many examples of websites where uBlock Origin Lite fails to block ads but uBlock Origin works? I never noticed any issues after switching to uBlock Origin Lite but I never rigorously compared them.
Having run it for a couple years now, AdGuard MV3 works for me in 99.5% of situations. The one exception is that YouTube sometimes delays the start of the video stream for a few seconds, detecting that the ad isn't playing. Otherwise, the internet today is just as it was before the adpocalypse.
I prefer AdGuard for its cosmetic filtering, but uBlock Lite is still a good option if you prefer a completely permissionless extension.
Kind of a detour here but, when would you consider the start of adpocalypse? Because, to me, annoying ads have been part of the internet since as far back as I can remember the internet. Its just that 20 years ago it was pop ups that were the biggest issue.
Also I run uBlock origin so maybe I'm out of touch with how bad current ads are.
Not OP, but personally I'd consider the start around the late 90s and early 2000s. The perfect storm of growing commercialization of the Internet, this newfangled concept of online stores becoming mainstream, a new company called Google, and the global transition from dial-up to faster ADSL.
Also the reign of Internet Explorer 6, when every company had their own free toolbar that you could install and BonziBuddy on your desktop.
Before that I'd consider pop-unders the most insidious form of ads that I'd encounter. The good old days when what would become adblockers were still called "pop-up blockers", and I had to use a "download accelerator" to be able to use the high-tech feature of pausing/resuming a download.
There were plenty of banner ads (especially to anyone who hosted a Geocities or Angelfire site, including me) but they weren't nasty enough today that you wouldn't need to block them with zero tolerance, and dial-up was slow enough and Javascript was simple enough that they couldn't blast you with autoplaying video or obfuscated malware like now.
There are, even if not in a volume the average user would notice, but there's about to be a lot more.
A good time to switch to firefox or other browsers who respect their users, if you haven't done so already.
Personally I mainly use Librewolf but Chrome and chromium forks have too large a marketshare to fully ignore.
I've been able to fully avoid Chromium, never once used Chrome. I'm not sure what the problem is, I've personally never had a website not work. I've been using 'Mozilla' since the Netscape Navigator days.
I can see it as a developer problem but yeah, the ONLY spot i've been using chromium is on my iphone, and that's because it won't let me put adblock on my firefox for mobile, but Orion is allowed to (I could just safari and might).
Orion is WebKit, not chromium. So you are chrome free
Ohhh yeah. I think it was brave or something else I tried first that was a chromium off shoot and I just forgot.
Firefox for Android has uBlock origin though?
It does, I'm using it right now.
iPhone.
The iOS version of FF does not allow extensions like the Android one does
Worth trying Safari and Orion too, been using Safari myself for a few months now. Safari’s extension system isn’t my favorite and Orion can be a bit buggy at times but they’re still decent.
Just switch to firefox. Why anyone would let an ad company be the proxy between them and the entire internet is beyond me.
As far as I'm concerned WWW is unusable without Ublock Origin. Youtube is so bad I can't believe anyone puts up with that level of ads, it's disgusting.
Mozilla get a lot of funding from Google.
Sure, but ublock origin still works fine on firefox.
And that's a problem, but it's not a problem that's solved by using chromium.
There's always Ladybird
That has its own ball of ethical problems with the leadership.
Lightly explain.
Here is a blog post that goes over some of the issues
https://drewdevault.com/blog/Cloudflare-and-fascists/
Aw nuts. Why people got to be like this? I've just been lightly following the development videos on YouTube
So what chromium forks do y'all like? Will any be able to keep manifest v2? I've been a Firefox (+forks) user for decades but I can't totally dump chromium bc some sites just don't work off it.
Out of curiosity, what sites don't work? I've only used Firefox for almost a decade and besides an ancient missouri state government form I needed once, everything has worked fine.
When I first swapped to Linux, Google Sheets wouldn't work, but seems OK with my current setup and version now. Mostly niche stuff like you mention though.
I also have a site and develop games primarily targeting browsers so even if everything works on FF, I gotta make sure my stuff works for all the rest of folks using chromium too.
Surf the web like it's 2003: Install a user-agent switching addon.
Turns out setting your UA to Chrome/Windows made it work just fine.
I use Vivaldi. Good sync between installations, and as cross platform as I need it to be (Mac OS, iOS, Linux).
I really like Vivaldi. It includes a ton of shit I don't need, but the UI is quite customizable. So I got my essential vertical tabs (and on the right side too!) and almost no other UI. Unlike Orion, which I used previously (and isn't chromium), it's actually stable enough for daily use.
I just use Firefox for 99% of websites and keep Ungoogled Chromium around as a backup and to use for one specific site/web-app that does not work well woth FF