Google has begun disabling several popular Chrome extensions, including the widely used ad blocker uBlock Origin, as part of its transition to the new Manifest V3 specification. The move has generated significant negative reaction from users and developers, who argue that the changes benefit advertisers at the expense of user control over the content they access.
According to a report from The Verge, the transition to Manifest V3, which Google claims is designed to improve privacy and security, restricts certain capabilities of extensions, making it difficult for ad blockers such as uBlock Origin to function effectively. While uBlock Origin Lite will continue to be available, its ad filtering capabilities will be limited due to the new restrictions.
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Impact on users
Users have reported that Chrome has automatically disabled older extensions, displaying notifications that they are âno longer supported.â This change is part of Googleâs ongoing efforts to phase out Manifest V2, which officially lost support in October 2023 and which it wants to sweep away for good in the coming months.
The impact of this transition extends beyond Chrome, affecting other Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Brave. While Brave has confirmed that it will offer limited support for ad blockers after the transition. It doesnât look like that will be the case with Edge, which will follow a similar path from what weâve seen recently, when they also removed extensions like uBlock in the testing version (plus Microsoft usually follows in the same footsteps as Google in this regard). Some users are already setting their sights on the few non-Chromium alternatives present, among which Firefox stands out as the most obvious path.
As Google continues to roll out Manifest V3, users and developers are expressing concerns about the implications for online privacy and user control. The debate over the balance between security and functionality in browser extensions is likely to continue as a transition that will be complete by June 3, 2024, moves forward.
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