As Google Chrome disables uBlock Origin, Brave assures it won't, flaunts its default adblock

The Brave logo on an orange and black background

For some time now, Google has been 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.

And also, the tech giant wants 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 (MV2) 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 toggle 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 MV3 alternatives. The toggle would be greyed out preventing users from using unsupported MV2 add-ons.

Besides, Google had already confirmed that enabling the extension via the said toggle could only work for so long as it will eventually be "permanently disabled" since such extensions, the company feels, are not the "best" for users.

As such, the process has started and Google has begun disabling uBlock Origin and other such MV2 extensions. If you want to keep using uBlock Origin till June next year, you can also try this official Windows Registry trick.

Rival Brave saw the opportunity and chimed in on such a post where an X user was complaining about the development. It has reminded users that, unlike Chrome, it will continue to work with uBlock Origin and also hinted about its own built-in adblocker and tracker-blocker.

Hope you’ll give us a shot! Our browser has built-in ad and tracker blocking and still supports uBO as well.
— Brave (@brave) October 14, 2024

If you are considering something that is non-Chromium, Mozilla's Firefox is the only notable option as it is based on Gecko and it does indeed continue to work with uBlock Origin.

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!