The writing is almost literally on the wall for Chrome’s most popular ad blockers. After months of warnings that extensions like uBlock Origin would be removed after Chrome’s Manifest V3 extension update, Google is now telling Chrome users who try to download it from the Chrome Web Store that it “may soon no longer be supported.”
On a more recent Chromebook review unit, the download button is fully disabled. uBlock Origin cannot be installed at all.
The new warning that uBlock Origin “doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions” was spotted on Twitter and reported by BleepingComputer. While most of the popular commercial ad blocking solutions have been updated for Manifest V3 compatibility, the solo, unpaid developer of uBlock Origin has kept the extension on Manifest V2 as a way to highlight the issues with the updated standard.
An alternative version called uBlock Origin Lite — less capable but compatible with the newer standard — has also been released. The original uBlock Origin has 39 million users according to the Chrome Web Store (and there are many more when you count Firefox and alternative Chromium-based browsers) while the newer uBlock Origin Lite extension currently only shows 700,000 users.
Update: A Google representative responded to this story with an official statement, below, emphasis theirs.
“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.”
The developer of uBlock Origin is not the only one who has a problem with Google’s changes. In a recent interview with PCWorld, the developers of the Ghostery ad blocker told me that Manifest V3 does not improve privacy or security as Google claims. Its restriction of the browser’s network layer is something that hobbles the effectiveness of all major ad blocking extensions, even as they’re essentially forced to comply with the standard.
Ghostery CEO Jean-Paul Schmetz recommends that users who care about ad blocking effectiveness should switch to Firefox, the only major third-party browser left that isn’t based on the open-source Chromium project controlled by Google. The original, unhobbled uBlock Origin is still working on Firefox, though developer Raymond Hill has run into some issues with Mozilla as well.
“If we were talking at the bar, I would try to convince you that Firefox is your best friend,” said Schmetz. “It’s possible that in the future only Firefox will allow ad blockers and be able to block certain kinds of ads.”
Further reading: These ad blockers still work with Chrome
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.