Google Chrome is disabling one of the world’s biggest ad blockers — what you need to know

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uBlock Origin may be on its last legs, thanks to Google

Image of an Apple MacBook with a Google Chrome logo on the display
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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”.

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, telling Tom's Guide that " Now, over 93% of actively maintained extensions in the Chrome Web Store are running Manifest V3, and the top content filtering extensions all have Manifest V3 versions available - with options for users of AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin and AdGuard."

Wait, uBlock Origin? That's right, there is an MV3 uBlock Origin app called uBlock Origin Lite. Though this is advertised as 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. However XDA reports that the difference isn't really noticeable, pointing out that uBlock Origin Lite seemingly offers "added privacy and performance benefits".

However there must be a reason why the full uBlock Origin app is still running on the older MV2 framework — and we can only guess that the alleged capability issues are somehow related.

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.

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Tom Pritchard
Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.