If you have been a regular Neowin news reader, you are probably aware of what Google is up to nowadays when it comes to ad blockers and extension support. The company is waging a two-front war as it tries to render adblockers and content blockers useless, at least on YouTube, with supposed server-side-injected ads that could potentially become very difficult, if not impossible, to block.
Second, the company also has plans to make it impossible to enable unsupported adblockers, among other extensions and add-ons, on Chrome which include the likes of the highly popular uBlock Origin. These unsupported extensions are based on Manifest V2 API which has been succeeded by Manifest V3. The latter promises better privacy, security and performance.
In case you missed it, earlier this month, we reported on a new change Google is working on in its Chrome extension manager. The company is testing the option to disable the option to enable unsupported browser extensions like uBlock Origin such that users will no longer be able to use them and the only option will be to look for supported alternatives.
For those who may not be familiar with it, the Google Chrome extension manager currently offers a toggle to keep using unsupported add-ons like uBlock Origin. However, the company's support article has already confirmed this is just a temporary thing. It notes:
Important: You can only re-enable an extension for a limited period of time after it has been disabled. We recommend you find an alternative extension before it’s permanently disabled.
Thus, the toggle to enable such extensions, which is currently in Canary, will soon be greyed out in Stable channel releases as well.
When one tries to download MV2 extensions like uBlock Origin from the Chrome Web Store a warning message is displayed that says "This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions."
Hence Google feels uBlock Origin and other such MV2 extensions are not the best for your PC and wants you to move on to MV3 alternatives. The author of uBlock Origin officially recommends uBlock Origin Lite which is based on the newer API and thus is officially supported. If you want to keep using uBlock Origin till June next year, you can also try this official Windows Registry trick.
As an online publication, Neowin too relies on ads for operating costs and, if you use an ad blocker, we'd appreciate being whitelisted. In addition, we have an ad-free subscription for $28 a year, which is another way to show support!
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