Starting with Google Chrome 127, there will be a warning for uBlock Origin (uBO) in your chrome://extensions/ page:
This is the result of Manifest v2 support being deprecated in favor of Manifest v3.
uBO is a Manifest v2 extension, hence the warning in your Google Chrome browser. There is no Manifest v3 version of uBO, hence the browser will suggest alternative extensions as a replacement for uBO:
uBO Lite (uBOL) is a pared-down version of uBO with a best effort at converting filter lists used by uBO into a Manifest v3-compliant approach, with a focus on reliability and efficiency as has been the case with uBO since first published in June 2014.
However the focus on reliability and efficiency in a Manifest v3 environment meant having to sacrifice many features beyond those not possible within a Manifest v3 framework.
See the official uBOL FAQ webpage for more details about how uBOL compares to uBO.
Manifest v2 uBO will not be automatically replaced by Manifest v3 uBOL. uBOL is too different from uBO for it to silently replace uBO — you will have to explicitly make a choice as to which extension should replace uBO according to your own prerogatives.
Ultimately whether uBOL is an acceptable alternative to uBO is up to you, it’s not a choice that will be made for you.
23 Comments
deanc
I see people reporting that the extension has already been forcefully removed (or disabled in some cases) from their Chrome. This hasn't happened to me (v133 on MacOS).
I have primarily been using Chrome up until this point as I was under the impression that performance (and therefore battery life) is bad with FF on MacOS. Recent results seem to indicate that Chrome is in fact the worst offender [1].
Yesterday I uninstalled Arc as they have all but abandoned their browser to work on some AI crap browser (after saying they planned to support manifest v2 for the forseeable future).
Today I installed Orion Browser [2]. It's using webkit under the hood and seems to be far lighter on battery life than Chrome, Arc (Blink) and Firefox. They fully support FF and Chrome extensions and therefore UBO seems to be working (on the whole) very well.
[1] https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-ma…
[2] https://kagi.com/orion/
Traubenfuchs
Firefox is fine as daily browser and the few websites that don‘t work in it start working if you enable the chrome mask plugin for them.
haunter
Google and Cloudflare basically owns the internet
precommunicator
I already had Manifest v2 extensions, specifically uBlock removed from Chrome. There are solutions to extend this to mid-year, and I can report that they work (search for ExtensionManifestV2Availability)
a1371
Right now uBlock Origin Lite is "featured" on Chrome web store and so far navigation has been ok in the "complete" mode.
Funnily enough, it made me review the block lists of the extension and I realized that I could select more of them. Too early to jump to conclusions.
patates
I couldn't find a good timeline of all the developments in the extension space. I started first installing extensions on Firefox with their super powerful but dangerous XUL system, then they watered it down and many extensions died, then Chrome took over the internet, then extensions could just block the ads and nothing more interesting, then suddenly for Chrome, they even can't do that? I remember Google also trying to ship some tamper protection (like DRM) for web sites… I wonder how this all will end up. I also wonder why people keep installing Chrome but not Firefox, but I digress. I really think the web needs a detailed documentary on how Google played Microsoft's EEE scheme on the whole web.
forvelin
regardless of what people complain of, firefox is still an awesome daily driver. nobody likes the direction the MF is taking the browser to but at least we can influence it, unlike google.
cpach
I tried uBlock Origin Lite for a very short time. Then I realized that in Lite, the user can’t add custom rules[0]. That’s when I had enough. So now I’m using Firefox instead, where I can use uBlock Origin.
[0] See https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1in2ls4/ubloc…
zb3
The solution on linux should be to install system-wide "policy" extensions – they support webRequestBlocking. Possibly via system package manager.
tyler33
brave browser is the only way, now even firefox sell our data
m4r1k
About time to move back to Firefox. Manifest v3 is only accelerating DeGoogle.
postepowanieadm
Google is milking a dying cow.
LLMs are much better in searching for information than advertisement-exposure optimized google.
People are paying for LLMs, consumers are no longer a commodity.
Internet will change, maybe creators will be paid for their content? But what will happen with advertisers?
zerof1l
So the time had come to finally move from Chrome. I already have Firefox as my secondary browser, but I'm thinking of using this opportunity to take a look at LibreWolf as well. Also going to have a conversation with my non-tech-savvy family members to do the same. Once you get used to having clean websites without ads and pop-ups, its hard to go back.
absqueued
So the only viable options left are LibreWolf and Waterfox?
These will die if Firefox dies as well. Its a dire situation!
molticrystal
What is the best way to migrate retaining as much as possible to a fork, like Brave or Iridium, or whatever is probably the best privacy based one with an emphasis on retaining Manifest V2/ ublock support?
Already migrated my Firefox to Librewolf, just need to find something for Chrome, as I don't really follow the scene close.
moogly
Still works on Ungoogled Chromium 133.
sam_goody
Just when there might be a whole pile of people considering to move to FF, Mozilla decides that FF should be selling your privacy.
elAhmo
This is a clear example of conflict of interest Google has.
It makes money almost exclusively from ads, and people want to block ads. No matter how they try to portray decisions like this – it is obvious they are moving in direction where people are unable to do what they want.
I am sure if Google from today would launch a browser, it would fail to gain traction knowing all the state of their core business and negative sentiment users have.
Let's hope Mozilla doesn't go the same route, but it seems they are also not under good leadership and are slowly loosing the trust of users.
avipars
A whole host of useful but forgotten extensions will be removed.
HelloUsername
Already posted and discussed back in august 2024, 45 comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41140185
boredhedgehog
It's sad that every thread about this topic turns into simplistic Firefox proselytism.
My observation is that the developers who spearheaded the MV3 transition did so for understandable technical reasons and without any consideration for marketing concerns, yet their explanations get downvoted in favor of conspiracy theories.
It's in fact the other browsers who try to market sticking to MV2 as a unique feature, even though they too will abandon it sooner rather than later.
aryonoco
Anyone looking for a new browser on the desktop, also give Floorp a look.
It’s a fork of Firefox by some young developers from Japan who seem to have good values and ideals. It’s been my daily driver for 6 months now (on Mac, Windows and Linux).
I originally found it because I wanted to easily have vertical tabs in Firefox (without the horizontal tab bar being left over) and got tired of manually editing Firefox’s chrome.css file (which acts differently on different platforms). Floorp allowed me to do this out of the box with no dramas.
I then discovered its many other cool features and Mozilla’s telemetry and their other sneaky advertising are also disabled by default. As a Firefox fork, it of course supports all Firefox extensions including proper uBlock origin.
tim333
While I was reading this I had an update and Chrome turned off uBlock origin and bypass paywalls. I was able to to go to manage extensions and turn them on but I guess if that stops working it's on to Firefox.
By the way does anyone know if you can just turn off updates on Chrome and have it keep working in its present state?