Google’s campaign against ad blockers across its services just got more aggressive. According to a report by PC World, the company has made some alterations to its extension support on Google Chrome.

Google Chrome recently changed its extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the new Manifest V3 framework. The browser policy changes will impact one of the most popular adblockers (arguably), uBlock Origin.

The transition to the Manifest V3 framework means extensions like uBlock Origin can’t use remotely hosted code. According to Google, it “presents security risks by allowing unreviewed code to be executed in extensions.” The new policy changes will only allow an extension to execute JavaScript as part of its package.

Over 30 million Google Chrome users use uBlock Origin, but the tool will be automatically disabled soon via an update. Google will let users enable the feature via the settings for a limited period before it’s completely scrapped. From this point, users will be forced to switch to another browser or choose another ad blocker.

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    • Frozzie
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      1211 months ago

      Yes, however Brave’s built-in ad blocker is not

    • TheNickOfTime
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      1711 months ago

      Sadly yes. Almost all, if not all derivates are affected since they inherit the codebase from it. Unless they implement manual Manifest v2 patches + have their own extension store they manage

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            I’m not saying what’s “the correct play” or not, I’m refuting the claim all Chromium-based browsers are immediately affected, because I know of at least one that will keep V2 support.

            But I will keep using Vivaldi. It will take me the same time to migrate to Firefox regardless if I do it today or a year from now when Vivaldi drops V2 support. I have nothing to gain by migrating sooner, but potentially much to gain by waiting.

            • Vivaldi might decide to keep support indefinitely,
            • Vivaldi might decide to update the built-in ad blocker to use UBlock Origin tech,
            • Google might backtrack the decision (hah!),
            • a whole different browser I want to try might come out in the meantime and I’d have to migrate twice,
            • Firefox might die after losing Google funding due to the monopoly ruling.
            • I will build a new PC in a year and it will be a good time for a software refresh,
            • Or, the most likely, none of this will happen, and I will migrate to Firefox then, if that’s the best move at the time.
          • TheNickOfTime
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            211 months ago

            Not for everyone. For me it’s unusable since I rely on stuff ff never implemented (using bluetooth from a web page to configure some of my home appliances, grab api keys for them, stuff like that). Also I’m not too thrilled that it laks any kind of official PWA or Chromecast support. Not to mention they still have some ugly bugs when rendering some gradients.

            And besides this, I used to love everything Mozilla did, but at one point I grew to hate how they left ff to stagnate which made me switch.

            I still reconsider it from time to time, but I always get disappointed by how little things have changed and how much even more things seem to be missing/buggy since the last time.

      • [email protected]
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        511 months ago

        So that basically means that Firefox and Safari are the only two unaffected, since it seems like everything else is Chromium these days. Yikes.

    • TXL
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      511 months ago

      Brave is a series scam company.

    • @[email protected]
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      411 months ago

      all chromium browsers are affected, so if a chromium browser wants to support manifest v2, they have to manually maintain it separately from the main chromium build. whether individual companies will do so ofc is tbd. braves built in browser probably not affe ted

      • haui
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        6711 months ago

        I‘m really anxious for firefox as google is the main financier afaik.

        • @[email protected]
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          1111 months ago

          IIRC, only like 2% of Mozilla spending goes towards FF (I may be misinterpreting something, but I remember 2% being thrown around), so funding FF without rest of Mozilla bullshit shouldn’t be that hard. Of course, since Mozilla did spend so little on FF, it’s a question how much they actually care about FF and what would happen if they lost access to their golden goose. They shouldn’t have problem funding FF, but they probably have other bullshit they don’t want to let go and that has more priority for them.

            • @[email protected]
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              1411 months ago

              You are right, it was unfairly harsh wording, I apologize for that. Most of those products are super cool and important, I’ve kind of extrapolated it from what I’ve read in other posts about them spending too much on stuff like events and other, non-developemnt, related stuff that I actually never checked, while also not realizing that they also have a ton of other projects, which mixed with the dissapointment with the recent development about the Meta partnership led to me choosing that wording unfairly.

        • @[email protected]
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          211 months ago

          For now. They could default to yahoo and make money. Maybe not as much, but they could sustain browser development.

          Firefox is still far superior to chromium.

          • haui
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            211 months ago

            I agree. That could work. We‘ll see.

            • @[email protected]
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              511 months ago

              A CEO is a needed possition, I know in the past the Brendan Eich was controversial in his political views, but Laura Chambers seems ok so far

          • haui
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            1711 months ago

            Not sure firefox will be on our side after the recent ad tracking debacle. If they implement one more anti consumer feature I‘m jumping ship.

            • @[email protected]
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              2711 months ago

              Jump ship to what? Not like there’s s lot of choices out there. You could always try LibreWolf.

              • TWeaK
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                411 months ago

                Plenty of Firefox forks out there.

                • @[email protected]
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                  2611 months ago

                  Purged of unwanted and intrusive features, UBO pre installed, and is pre configured for increased privacy.

              • haui
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                411 months ago

                That would be my first address, assuming the librewolf folks will never accept anti community code, hopefully.

                If everything fails i‘m fine to join a small project and help with it. I have some skills and can contribute financially.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            using a novel engine based on web standards.

            Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…

            • Possibly linux
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              211 months ago

              I am hopeful they will get some more corporate backing. We can donate all day but that is a drop in the bucket compared to a few million from some large companies

            • @[email protected]
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              411 months ago

              It’s hard to take a project seriously for championing our privacy if the only communication options are Discord & Microsoft Github

              • haui
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                211 months ago

                Feel free to offer hosting something else for them. Be the change you want to see.

                • @[email protected]
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                  211 months ago

                  There are free (both kinds) options to these problems if they can’t afford it—and that still isn’t an excuse to require all coms go thru US-based proprietary services with big privacy implications.

  • TXL
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    1111 months ago

    Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin

    No they don’t. And can’t. It’s not their product.

    Headlines these days. Are they all complete lies?

    • @[email protected]
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      1711 months ago

      I’ll assume you’re being intentionally obtuse because no one could actually be that dumb.

    • The Cuuuuube
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      511 months ago

      Using the internet without an adblocker is genuinely dangerous. Everyone really should be using uBlock Origin. Using a web browser that prevents uBlock Origin puts you in danger

  • _haha_oh_wow_
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    5711 months ago

    Remember like 2 weeks ago when Google’s very own ad networks were distributing malware?

    Pepperidge Farm remembers.

  • @[email protected]
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    1011 months ago

    The title should be “Google pulls plug out of Chromium”

    Too bad that even when people start switching, people writing drafts for the W3 spec are mostly Google employees. I’m sure that’ll be their next battleground.

  • @[email protected]
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    311 months ago

    I’m not sure if it’s related, but I’ve been getting popups that prevent navigation away from pages on the Google Android browsers

  • @[email protected]
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    911 months ago

    Does this affect edge as well? Pushing out ublock via policy to both edge and chrome has saved me a lot of headaches at work, this is gonna be a pain in the dick.

    • Possibly linux
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      11 months ago

      Microsoft still hasn’t made a stance. However, Edge isn’t private and is an advertising platform.

      Maybe figure out if you can do a very customized version of Firefox. I would take inspiration from Librewolf but keep in mind things will break if you start applying privacy patches.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      In future news: Work efficiency drops dramatically because all workers have to fight with ads while researching solutions 😮

    • @[email protected]
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      1611 months ago

      DNS blocker will be as useful or maybe even less than ubo lite. E.g. it just cannot block youtube ads like ubo does.

      Also Google and removed both bypass your DNS blocker. They use their own DNS server and DoH protocol to resolve their ad servers. DoH is also hard to block because it uses port 443 with https.

      The best bet right now is to use either a DNS or even better: packet filter level blocker such as zenarmor; together with ublock origin on firefox. Nothing else will not really block tracking in 2024.