12 ms·

Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

761 points by twapi 16d ago

Glitcher255 16d ago
Brave still lets you enable MV2 Extensions in its settings despite being built on chromium and its adb-locker does not rely on the extension system afaik.
joinjune 14d ago
When I was younger I would do computer repair and maintenance for friends and family. The deal was I didn't charge them and they let me set the computer up to be more secure and useful. Back in the XP days I used a Winsock32 Fix to replace a section of the registry to remove malware before installing an antivirus I chose. Regardless of what else I did, I would install Mozilla (later Firefox) and change the icon in Windows to be that of Internet Explorer. Later, with newer versions of Windows, I would change the icon to open Chrome. Eventually, everyone switched to using Chrome and I stopped having to do this. Strange how I now need to change the Chrome icon to open Firefox or Brave if I keep volunteering my time. No way will I use Chrome out of the box nor will I let others use it if they want my help.
mohsinq227 14d ago
[flagged]
SuoDuanDao 13d ago
The trouble with adblocking is that it causes discomfort to a powerful party without making any demands. We withhold attention at scale, but we never say what we'd accept in exchange for giving it back. The only thing the advertisers can do is escalate, and they own most of the spaces we operate in. There probably is a bargain - however faustian - to be struck. Advertising optimises for money transferred immediately over long term positive-sum introductions. It's obvious why they do that, but adblocking could be the leverage needed to encourage something more long-term beneficial for all. What I can't work out is who the counterparty even is. My own hope is that Google and Meta face a 'kodak moment' - with genuinely better advertising simply overtaking their business. What I'm unsure about is how advertising's equivalent of the digital camera finds buyers - plenty of us want to walk away from advertising, and it's possible to adopt something less mutually destructive as a user... but the free stuff advertising currently pays for is not so easily replaced. Anyone have an idea what disruption would even look like in that space?
hyveops 12d ago
[flagged]
mrd3v0 16d ago
One Google doom over, another to go: https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/
- good8675309 16d ago
  Can't wait until we are forced to actually make Linux Phone systems actually good, but no one will invest until Android is closed
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 16d ago
    No one will invest even after Android is closed. The Android/iPhone duopoly is nearly impossible to break because very few people want to carry two personal phones, and it takes only one app that they can't do without being only available on Android/iPhone to make it impossible to choose anything else. The app providers likewise have no incentive to support anything else because everyone has one of these two. Bank apps are the prime example here that's unlikely to start supporting other systems. Public transit (and in some places parking) is another potential problem where even the unhinged "well just change banks to the one that does support your favorite phone" argument fails. ID apps (either governmental or de facto standards like the Swedish BankID) are coming too.
    - fsflover 15d ago
      [flagged]
- WarmWash 16d ago
  Blame the brain damaged judge that literally told Google "The Apple app store is not a monopoly because Apple has no competitors on their platform." Google is just doing what they need to do to stop being a monopoly....by becoming a monopoly, because of a ruling that the internet actually celebrated. Which we can trace back to Epic not being happy that sideloading on Android wasn't perfectly frictionless. (Note: Epic also sued Apple, but lost, because the Apple app store is not a monopoly.)
malfist 16d ago
Switch to firefox
- abroszka33 16d ago
  AND try to not use Google, Facebook, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Oracle and other similar products made by asshole companies.
  - Henchman21 16d ago
    Honestly, at what point do we just throw our kit in the trash and go back to pen & paper?
    - abroszka33 16d ago
      Yesterday. Do we actually need any of this stuff? Probably not. But it's damn hard to stop enjoying it.
    - tentacleuno 16d ago
      Reintroducing pen and paper to your note-taking repertoire might not be such a bad idea, anyway -- it's a much more creative medium than most digital, textual forms.
      - gonzalohm 16d ago
        It's extremely complicated to organize it, though
        tentacleuno 16d ago
        I suppose it's harder to cross-reference and find things, though I suspect you could utilize some sort of organizational system to mostly overcome that. I really do think pen and paper will slowly regain prominence; I personally find that it can be much more liberating than digital media. It's great to be able to use the page as a canvas, writing wherever you want, without having to meet the constraints of a text editor or the likes. Doodles help to visualize and understand problems, too. Tangent for macOS is my current go-to for note-taking, and it works quite well: it's mostly just a Markdown editor, a tree structure of folders (which is really just a normal folder), and the ability to cross-reference and embed images. I suppose the primary problem of note-taking apps is that they sort of have to be opinionated in some way to be useful (that's been my experience, anyway.) Markdown files are also guilty of this: they constrain you to a certain layout, which can either be a negative or a positive. Anything too complicated can be off-putting, whilst anything too simplistic can also be limiting. It's a surprisingly complex field, and it could explain why there's so many different apps for it.
deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
throwaway613746 16d ago
[dead]
gardnr 16d ago
I remember in 2010 when Chrome made the web so much better for everyone. All the early adopters were singing its praise and encouraging friends and family to use it. Now, I encourage people to use anything but Chrome. Firefox is really great these days.
- gitowiec 16d ago
  I will keep the same
- sirfz 16d ago
  Firefox was amazing even when Chrome was released
  - insanitybit 16d ago
    No need to be revisionist. Chrome brought amazing work to the table. The multiprocess, sandboxed system was incredible - it's not to say that Chrome was the first (IE did it earlier) but it was certainly way ahead of Firefox for a long time. Chrome is the reason we have Seccomp V2 on Linux. Chrome made "software is always up to date" the standard. Before Chrome, Blackhole and PoisonIvy absolutely ruined people's computers - click to play Java, click to play and sandboxed Flash, etc, were massive improvements to every day user security, probably some of the biggest security improvements to computers in my lifetime. Firefox took a long time to catch up and their CEO was utterly incompetent, which seriously harmed Mozilla.
    - ashleyn 16d ago
      I remember for a while that Firefox had a single process architecture for all tabs. This often frustrated me as one bad tab could just crash the whole browser while Chrome used separate processes for each tab, prompting me to switch to Chrome for a bit. Firefox caught up ages after chrome, and now I went back to them over the manifest v2 stuff.
      - thaumaturgy 16d ago
java-man 16d ago
[flagged]
mannanj 16d ago
I know people don't like apple and safari here, but I like safari. It works good enough for me. And when an experience is off, it helps me develop my web developer hat by better understanding webkit and why safari has a different experience or frontend like behavior.
- hirvi74 16d ago
  I'm with you. I've been riding with Safari for almost 20 years now. It's been nothing but great for me. I cannot think of a time I have used a website that did not function properly in Safari. Prior to the reintroduction of UBO (lite), I feel like Safari helped me reduce my trash content consumption. Page with tons of ads? Not worth visiting. Youtube keeps playing ads? My frustration is a sign I need to get off YouTube and do something else. I do not need nor want to mange tens of plugins. I like to keep things simple and slim. So, perhaps that is one dealbreaker for some? Even if I believe Apple hung the Moon, I still seriously recommend Safari to anyone using Apple devices.
  - mannanj 16d ago
    >I feel like Safari helped me reduce my trash content consumption. Page with tons of ads? Not worth visiting Nice. I thought that was just me! Same with ads on YouTube. One thing you may be surprised with, not sure if this helps or harms you lol, is you can develop some decent safari plugins for personal use with todays AI tools. I made a little popout extension for giving me a more minimal viewer experience with a button in safari with a few days of work (still maintain and update it occasionally, getpoppy.io if you're curious - and the vibe code tools also used webkit in the browser engine of its Mac app)
monneyboi 16d ago
I'm hoping that Mozilla Firefox can adopt a similar foundation/donation strategy as Signal has proven to work quite well. We really need independence from Google in the browser landscape if we want the open web to survive.
Lovesong 16d ago
Few years ago when google announced their MV2 plan I moved to Firefox. I don't think in all this time I ever missed Chrome for anything in particular outside of maybe 1 or 2 websites that didn't have proper support. Switch to Firefox if you haven't already really.
- tentacleuno 16d ago
  Firefox is genuinely quite a good option. There are some Google-driven web proposals that they've refused to implement[0] (I'm sure I disagreed with some of them, though I forget which), but overall I've found that I've never really had to think about the browser: it's just a medium for the web. They do offer some integrated services (which some would denote as bloat), though unlike Chrome, they do let you actually turn things off, which I'm very appreciative of -- they don't seem to be nearly as forceful as Google, who recently added a 4GB download to every Chrome install[0]. As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more appreciative of platforms which don't try to redefine the problem scope, and instead just provide a platform for other things. GrapheneOS does this perfectly too. [0]: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ [1]: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chromes-silent-4gb-ai-download-problem https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chrome...
  - tech234a 16d ago
    And some of these proposals are available as polyfill browser extensions for Firefox
    - tentacleuno 15d ago
      That's great from a user perspective, sure. From my perspective, with all of these different web APIs, I imagine Mozilla are walking a tightrope: if they refuse to implement all of them, there's a good chance that websites will ask the user to use Chrome, pushing it further into obscurity. Go too far, however, such as implementing Google-driven proposals like Topics, and you weaken the privacy advantages of the browser. I'm glad that they take both a moral and technological stance here - someone needs to.
jack_pp 16d ago
Haven't used chrome in years, Firefox has served me well
mlh496 16d ago
I've been using the Brave browser for years. I just turned off all the crypto stuff. How does Firefox today compare with Brave today?
- thenewwazoo 16d ago
  You don't have to turn off any crypto stuff.
  - PyWoody 16d ago
    Instead, you just get inundated with ads and pop culture garbage whenever you open a new tab.
    - serenadeineb 16d ago
      Not sure why you say this. I've been using Brave for years, and after spending like 20 seconds to turn off the 'show on new tab' things, I get a blank page ( well, with a random photo background ) when I open a new tab.
      - PyWoody 16d ago
        I've been using Brave forever and agree. I was referring to You don't have to turn off any crypto stuff. being an argument in favor of Firefox. I have to use Firefox every once in a while and I'm always surprised to see the garbage they peddle on the start page. I know I can turn it off but I never use it enough to bother.
- wild_pointer 16d ago
  Same here, not using firefox because of worse compatibility (maybe not their fault, many devs only test in chrome) and weaker security (maybe not their fault, they don't have as much money). I appreciate the people who do and help diversify the ecosystem though.
ValentineC 16d ago
I made a conscious attempt to try to switch to Zen (built on Gecko/Firefox), but ended up switching back to Chromium-based browsers because pages just feel like they load faster with Chromium. :(
- littlecranky67 16d ago
  Doesnt matter which browser you use, if you don't have proper adblock in it, the pages will load waaaay slower than any other engine.
  - slfnflctd 16d ago
    I recently switched to Zen with Ublock Origin and it does seem like some sites are slower than before. It's got me suspicious that site owners are increasingly throttling users with adblockers. YouTube absolutely does. Zen is my favorite browser experience by far, and I've been using the web since Netscape in 1994. But the slowdowns do put a damper on things. Also some of the streaming platforms don't seem to play nice with it.
achr2 16d ago
Waterfox is the best browser I have ever used. Native tree style tabs, minimalist UI, built in ad blocking, Firefox extensions.
- doublerabbit 16d ago
  Yeah, kind of the same. Out of the other "firefox" clones, Waterfox is my goto.
- senfiaj 16d ago
  If I remember correctly, ~10 years ago one of Waterfox's main points was 64-bit + Intel compiler with aggressive optimization flags. At that time Firefox was 32-bit only on Windows, at least the stable version. From my experience, it didn't feel faster. Actually, it felt slightly more sluggish, I guess pointers and some data structures become larger, so the browser used more memory and put more pressure on CPU caches. It's probably no longer relevant as all major browsers are 64-bit by default.
rickette 16d ago
I'm fairly happy with uBlock Origin Lite. Sure the original was better but this one does the job as well. uBlock Origin Lite is a MV3 extension, by the same author.
- judge2020 16d ago
  Yeah I don’t seem to feel any performance or functionality degradation myself. What <X> ad blocking related feature has been made impossible with MV3?
  - novafunc 16d ago
    I believe the main things are that block lists have to be updated through the Chrome Web Store and there is an upper limit for things that can be blocked.
  - zamadatix 16d ago
    https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ) https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as... has a few of the more practical concrete examples. Namely content can load without the blocker being ready to filter, CNAME cloaking can't be handled properly (in Chrom* at least), and the filter rules aren't as flexible. Interestingly, the rule count limits themselves do not (currently) seem to be much an issue despite it being one of the more common concerns on the original MV3 announcement.
    - taviso 16d ago
      > content can load without the blocker being ready to filter This isn't an MV3 issue, it's a Chromium design decision that extensions cannot block browser initialization. It was also true with MV2. In fact, MV3 has improved the situation because DNR rules are enforced immediately. You could certainly argue that Chrome should allow extensions to block browser initialization, or that it should be user configurable - but it seems like an entirely defensible Chrome decision. Regardless, it's nothing to do with MV3. > the filter rules aren't as flexible. That's true, but they are still very flexible, and DNR makes some very nice features possible in uBO lite that were not possible in uBO. For example, did you know that you can change your User-Agent with uBO lite? Go to the Custom DNR rules tab, and enter something like this to pretend to be Lynx on whatever.com: id: 5 priority: 100 action: type: modifyHeaders requestHeaders: - header: User-Agent operation: set value: Lynx/2.9.2 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 OpenSSL/3.5.7 condition: requestDomains: - whatever.com resourceTypes: - main_frame I don't think that's possible in uBO, so clearly there are some benefits to switching. I have a ton of custom dnr rules, and love this feature.
cuuupid 16d ago
Serious question: why do people use non-OS browsers? Most devs I know are on Mac. Why not just use Safari? Works in most cases, helps you catch issues earlier on, looks beautiful and is super customizable, still supports UBlock, has vertical tabs, syncs profiles to your focus, is way more memory efficient, etc. I've daily driven Safari for ~3y after Arc got sunset and the only site that gives me issues is Hulu (but not Disney+ weirdly). Similarly drive Edge on Windows, I can't think why I'd ever reach for Chrome.
- infecto 16d ago
  My number one reason. Safari won’t let me customize the search engine. If I had that I would use safari all day long.
  - jooize 16d ago
    It's such a silly limitation. There are extensions, but they're all imperfect hacks.
    - infecto 16d ago
      They are annoying hacks too because the common one the search still goes to the chosen default and then the extension hijacks and redirects.
  - hughw 16d ago
    I see 5 choices for search engine in Settings? Are you saying you want one not listed?
    - infecto 16d ago
      Yes. The obvious choice for HN is not listed in it. It’s a silly limitation anyway.
    - abawany 16d ago
      yes, for example they have Ecosia but not Qwant (they are said to share their index but for my searches, I often flip over to Qwant when Ecosia results for the same query are not adequate.) I understand why Safari went with a search engine whitelist but I wish there was a way to make exceptions.
ranger_danger 16d ago
ungoogled-chromium (https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-portablelinux/releases https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-por...) still supports MV3/uBO and is de-Googled. However, this paper[1] suggests that uBO Lite (MV3) which is still supported in the latest Chrome/chromium browsers, works at least as well for almost all users as the original (MV2) uBO, and, in some cases even better than before... so it's really no cause for alarm IMO. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01000 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01000
- littlecranky67 16d ago
  I am a webdev and sometimes I have issues with ungoogled-chromium so I switched to firefox. One time I had to debug a push notification issue and realized ungoogled-chromium simply doesn't support it (but never displayed information about that when registering the service worker). That was years ago, situation might be different now.
- btown 16d ago
  This (whether MV3 blocking is sufficient) is the right question to ask, but also a premature answer. Because here's the future: Google is already promoting that sites have their tag management (including ad network JS) resolve at the CDN level, with randomized custom-built URLs baked into your page source as served. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/gateway/setup-guide https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/gatew... https://blog.cloudflare.com/google-tag-gateway-for-advertisers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/google-tag-gateway-for-advertise... In this context, the only thing that can sufficiently block ads as this is more broadly adopted, is dynamic code whose definitions and behaviors can be updated regularly. Because ad networks, including Google, will become increasingly creative (especially with the ability to use AI) in having a near-infinite set of embedding techniques. And Google sits as both the beneficiary of unblockable ads, and (with MV3) the gatekeeper of timing for executable code updates for ad blocking extensions. Core to the MV3 model is that any use of dynamically loaded code not bundled with the extension (and subject to a mandatory review period for every update) is forbidden. Google doesn't need to do something as drastic as disallow uBO and other extensions; they simply need to "boil the frog" over the course of years as more and more of their clients move to Tag Gateway and similar approaches, and give their ad implementation an increasing "head start" by delaying approval of uBO code updates that are trying to keep pace. The absence of evidence is not evidence of permanent absence.
Night_Thastus 16d ago
I know Firefox's share of browser share has dwindled to almost nothing. I know sooner or later, well within my lifetime, it will be gone. But I will keep using it until they pry it from my hands. And if they do, I'll use forks until those break down too. I can't stand Google, or what Chrome has become. No single company should have such unilateral control over the internet and its information.
- Asmod4n 16d ago
  Firefox is still popular in Germany, at around 10%
  - sunaookami 16d ago
    I remember when it was the last bastion of Firefox users with a majority marketshare there when everyone else already switched to Chrome...
- bogzz 16d ago
  Alphabet needs to be broken up. Chrome, Search, Android, Youtube need to be separate companies. It's not the only company that needs this treatment.
  - cjarrett 16d ago
    Was saying this about Chrome and Android a decade ago.
  - coldpie 16d ago
    We had a glimpse of that antitrust future on the horizon with the previous admin. This spooked all the big tech weirdos so much that they put their weight behind the other guy and, well, they won. Antitrust is dead for another generation. Yay.
    - bogzz 16d ago
      Lina Khan is lying in wait.
cisc 16d ago
The solution is to use Firefox. uBlock Origin always worked best in Firefox anyway: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
- mococa 16d ago
  AFAIK firefox also will remove MV2
  - goda90 16d ago
    Based on what?
  - jolmg 16d ago
    https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signing-available-november-21-on-firefox-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signi... > Towards the end of 2023 [...] we’ll decide on an appropriate timeframe to deprecate MV2. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manif... > Firefox, however, has no plans to deprecate MV2 and will continue to support MV2 extensions for the foreseeable future. Seems they changed their mind in 2024.
  - bhelkey 16d ago
    Firefox declared that they intend to keep MV2 support[1]. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adblockers/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adbl...
  - clipsy 16d ago
    No, they do not: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manif...
- qudat 16d ago
  Or just run pihole or any other dns blocking service
insanitybit 16d ago
The reality is that Chrome users still have sufficient ad blocking so as to not be impacted by this. What will be interesting is if it stops being sufficient, at which point I think people will migrate. But until then, why would they? Most people don't really care if their extension is MV2 or MV3, they just want their youtube video to play faster.
- charcircuit 16d ago
  And in the case of Brave the ad blocker is built into the browser itself.
mikephilly 16d ago
dd
saejox 16d ago
Google for me died when they banned my many years old gmail account out of blue. Because i used vpn to access it. It was such a big hit to my online life to lose my email like that. Their appeal system is fully automated, impossible to get a human to look at your case. This is warning to any reader of this comment, do not depend on your google account to be forever.
- Diti 16d ago
  This exact issue is why I have been paying for my e-mails for the last 5 years.
  - jmm5 16d ago
    It's nice to be the customer, instead of the product.
mindcrash 16d ago
I'm pretty sure it is just a matter of time before the first (open source?) extensions marketplace for Chromium fork extensions will hit the net. A party like Helium or Brave might even already be working on it. Because while Google might not like it at all, a huge chunk of people love extensions like uBO and ease of use a little bit too much.
- Dwedit 16d ago
  Brave Browser offers "Brave-hosted" versions of uBlock Origin and uMatrix.
Havoc 16d ago
Allowing Google to capture both phones (android) and browsers (chrome) was a mistake. Needs to be broken up...
sanp 16d ago
How about Brave? Any thoughts?
- drnick1 16d ago
  Avoid Brave. It is basically Chromium, with commercial shitware slapped on, and an ad-blocker which performs worse than UBlock Origin on Firefox. Brave Inc. (a for-profit company) is openly hostile to forks and independent builds, and expects you to run and trust their binaries. It also wants to charge you a one-time fee for a build free of crapware, i.e. something you can get for free from Chromium.
- dannyobrien 16d ago
  I like Brave, and I know and respect many of the technical team there. I looked into the various stories about the browser that led to it being unpopular in some key communities, and I really couldn't find anything some misunderstandings, common business practices (which you can legitimately disapprove of), and a wish to register opposition to their connection to cryptocurrency/web3. I think many people would choose not to use Brave because of its association with Brendan Eich (details at Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CE... ), which stands as separate from the browser itself, or the actions of the company.
  - andai 16d ago
    I agree that inventing JavaScript is unforgivable, but surely we can't cancel people permanently.
    - BrendanEich 15d ago
      If not for JS, VBScript: VBSConf.us, vQuery.vbs, React.vbs if conceivable.
  - deleted 16d ago
    [deleted]
- 16d ago
shevy-java 16d ago
Google's Evil knows no more boundaries. Hopefully more and more people wake up as to what this adMonster has become. If we want a real open world wide in the future, we need to do something about Google. UBO is not the only one killed by Google here. They will continue on their wicked path. (And, while it may be great that Ladybird exists, I have some doubts that this will really be a contender. We should not become lazy and think that Google will just comply with the demands of The People here - its business is based on controlling influx of adMoney via its Evil Empire, and it secures this by de-facto controlling the browser stack. Just look how many people in % use the chrome-codebase now. That IS effectively a monopoly powered by greed.)
heelix 16d ago
Ironically, this is a fantastic time to use Firefox with UBO. I made the switch back when Chrome first threatened to block UBO and it was clear they were just kicking the can. What I've come to find is most of the things with ads won't take the time to 'block' UBO on Firefox. Perhaps it is not a big enough segment to justify anti adblocking coding. Youtube seems to have given up trying to fight it. Most things just work. It has been a long time since I've needed to fire up Chrome for anything.
hiccuphippo 16d ago
Google has been boiling the frog for a long time with this one. I for one will keep using Firefox.
- ssl-3 16d ago
  Last year, I moved back to Firefox after a decade or so exclusively on Chrome, which is something I'd been procrastinating about doing for some time. It was mostly painless. Bookmarks were automatic. I had some extensions to reconfigure and some passwords to migrate to a different password manager. I wished I'd gotten it over with sooner.
lofaszvanitt 16d ago
I don't get it why don't they include it in a separate fork in Chromium..... problem solved.
beloch 16d ago
Ad blocking has become a safety issue. My parents are at an age where they fall for things. If a malicious ad pops up and offers to install McAfee, some other form of crapware, or outright scamware, they'll click that ad and install the thing. Then I'll get called over when the computer starts acting screwy. If Google, MS, etc. had ever gotten together and developed a way to filter malicious ads out of their own ad services, maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. They didn't do that and probably never will. If my parents get a new machine, the first thing I do is uninstall or, at least, delete the icons for Edge, Chrome, etc.. On goes Firefox, uBlock Origin, and a couple other extensions. They don't care what browser they use. They can't even name it. I just try to make sure they use a browser that isn't horribly unsafe. We should all do this for people we care about. Don't ask them what browser they prefer. Odds are they don't know or care. Don't try to convince them to install Firefox themselves. They won't. Just do it for them. Think of it like picking up a rusty nail that's on their lawn. Sooner or later they're going to step on that thing if you don't.
- account42 15d ago
  > They didn't do that and probably never will. They would if they were held liable for the damages caused by the ads they server, which they should be.
- cwnyth 16d ago
  The better thing would be to hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network. If they cannot do that, they should not be in business selling ads then. Yes, that means amending the law (in the US). But the law as it is written facilitates crime.
  - siliconc0w 16d ago
    Agreed It's not just malicious software ads, they also sell ads to entities mitming every government service.
  - bborud 16d ago
    How would one hold Google accountable? By fining them $1bn? $10bn? $100bn? To them it is just the cost of doing business. We're beyond holding huge companies accountable. The only way they could be held accountable is if there was personal risk involved for the CEOs. There isn't.
cantalopes 16d ago
All that hassle to sell youtube premium
xnx 16d ago
Seems to be an unpopular opinion, but uBlock Origin Lite has been fine so far. Next front in the ad-blocking war will be AI-based instead of simple heuristics anyway.
- timbit42 15d ago
  It doesn't block all tracking.
poulpy123 16d ago
I suspect it's to force even more people to use they AI
socalgal2 16d ago
This entire thread is so ridiculous. UBlock Origin Lite still blocks all the ads.
- deleted 16d ago
  [deleted]
- garbagewoman 16d ago
  For now
- tavavex 16d ago
  Why do you think it's called 'Lite'? Are you going to argue that Google did us a favor by benevolently removing functionality?
- Gud 16d ago
  Not as well as "uBlock origin". Why do you accept this behaviour from Google?
  - socalgal2 16d ago
    This entire thing started with Apple in 2019 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-13-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not... As for why, because it hasn't affected me all. All the ads are still blocked.
- timbit42 15d ago
  It doesn't block all the tracking.
chrysoprace 16d ago
There's never been a better time to switch to Firefox. Hopefully soon we'll have another player in this space with Ladybird but for now, Firefox is almost necessary to use the internet unimpeded. There are also some good Firefox forks out there, and I have been daily driving Zen for nearly a year. However, Librewolf and Floorp are both good options if you don't like Firefox's defaults or their push for more AI features (which you can turn off, to be fair).
goawaydang 16d ago
Switched the family to Firefox. I use Libre but I understand it’s a hard sell. FF is much easier and the regular user can’t tell the difference anyway since they don’t spelunk into the details.
taviso 16d ago
I think the new features in MV3 are great, and UBO lite is great. The initial versions of UBOl worked, but definitely lost some power user features. Those are basically all back, it now has full scriptlet support, custom dynamic filters work, element zapper is back and you can now have custom dnr rules. That's a very powerful feature that doesn't exist in UBO. The big loss for me with the mv2 deprecation was uMatrix, so I made my own replacement. It's a prototype, but you can try it if you like: https://github.com/taviso/matrix3 https://github.com/taviso/matrix3 I think the real question is how have Edge and Mozilla shipped WebExtension support on Android, but Google hasn't. If other competent vendors can ship it then there can't be a technical reason, it must be a policy decision. I'm more open to hearing conspiracy theories about that than MV3 :)
andxor 16d ago
uBlock Origin Lite
- mococa 16d ago
  It is nerfed.
  - andxor 16d ago
    What is a concrete example of an ad you are seeing that it can't remove?
    - timbit42 15d ago
      It doesn't block all tracking.
mococa 16d ago
Pick my mother-in-law phone, is full of apps that pushes mensages every second, ad block is a way to prevent web to become IE with that toolbars, remember?
glenstein 16d ago
"No way to prevent this" say users of only browser where this regularly happens.
- wtallis 16d ago
  Mozilla has had their share of mass extension deprecation and breakage.
  - glenstein 16d ago
    They moved over to a new extension platform for legitimate development reasons. I agree there was pain but it wasn't a self interested flexing of power to remove ad blocking extensions.
    - wtallis 16d ago
      Having what you consider to be a good excuse doesn't mean it didn't happen. Multiple times.
      - glenstein 16d ago
        The "excuse" is a distinction between different types of motivating factors and consequences which has everything to do with the relative merits of those two examples.
ninjahawk1 16d ago
What Google means to say is that MV3 will allow them to more closely control what you’re able to do with your time, since this was done primarily to target ad blocking software. Not that this matters much anymore as Google is now more an AI than it is a search engine, and an unreliable one at that.
deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
crystaln 16d ago
Apparently uBO can't be ported to MV3, as dynamic request interception is no longer allowed, only fixed block lists. "For security and privacy"
spaceman_spift 16d ago
I can imagine business reviews within Google that are seeing precipitous drops in Ad revenue given the uptake of AI Mode, which needs to be balanced out. And this becomes an easy tap that they can open, in the pretext of 'security', so Ad Words campaigns weren't getting rendered previously start showing up. If they'd only look at cracking down on malicious Ads rendered through their systems, it would be applause worthy, but I guess we're asking too much.
jacquesm 16d ago
There is a very easy solution to this problem, it's called FireFox. Now if only Mozilla would stop messing with it and instead would turn it into a class example of speed and memory efficiency I'd be even happier. But it's pretty good and I'm running it routinely with way too many tabs open (in the 100's, on a 32G laptop). I do have to be careful about unloading stuff. So, kick the Chrome habit.
luisgvv 16d ago
Been using FF since they announced this. The only disadvantage I've found is that I think it consumes more memory compared against chromium based browsers. Hoping my browser gets some love in the near future
teaearlgraycold 16d ago
As a longtime Firefox user: shrug
txheilmann 16d ago
[dead]
Karupan 16d ago
I’m irrationally angry with Mozilla for the way they’ve handled Firefox over the past few years. Clearly we need an independent, safe browser and there are no major alternatives for the common folk. Just let me pay a monthly fee to keep Firefox lean and fast instead of jamming AI tools and 3rd party integrations.
techteach00 16d ago
People fall for "think of the children!" so let's also try "think of the elderly!". We're a society that ruthlessly opposes individual responsibility and individual outcomes.
SoftTalker 16d ago
When you make your money selling ads, you're not going to want your users to block ads. It's as simple as that. Google should not be allowed to both sell web ads and control a browser platform.
teki_one 16d ago
The media just have to report the removal of ad blocking as a security/safety issue. If users are made aware that what Chromium is doing, they can make a better decision, but it has to be called out in every post about Chromium (preferably mentioning a few safer choices), otherwise it will disappear in the noise.
- aembleton 16d ago
  Most people won't care
amazingman 16d ago
The same day I finally migrated from Arc to Zen. What a coincidence ^^
Deprogrammer9 16d ago
[dead]
datadrivenangel 16d ago
Firefox is still great!
snibsnib 16d ago
Weirdly enough, you can install the full version of uBO on Edge, and I think it's a great option for less tech savvy family and friends. It's basically chrome but without the 'make this your default browser' shenanigans.
TheMiddleMan 16d ago
15 years ago: "why is google putting so much effort into building a web browser? it must be because they want to see the web grow and by extension more people will use their services"
- Gud 16d ago
  Why would it not be, "Since Google is an advertising company, it stands to reason they want to squash the open web and make it a platform for them to serve advertisement and increase their margin"? That was always the obvious answer.
zuzululu 16d ago
Contrary to some confusion about whether firefox will keep mv2: Yes they will. Also I predict that MV2 is going to be a major boon for firefox. It has taken a long time to prove the value of firefox to the masses and I believe mv2 extensions in particular ublock origin will be what keeps people coming back to it I've not touched chrome in decades. Firefox stands strong. I would donate but in EU that comes with tax issues.
Swalden123 16d ago
This caused me to go back and try Firefox again, I struggled with performance years ago on Mac when I did this. This time it’s been great, I switched from Arc to Zen and don’t see any reason to go back.
- krrrh 16d ago
  Zen is genuinely so nice. I have been a Safari die hard because for so long it’s been remarkable at resource efficiency. After switching my macOS window management to aerospace, Zen finally got me to switch away. And it’s great that it loads all the Firefox extensions.
jobuildsstuff 16d ago
[flagged]
phendrenad2 16d ago
For most people, mv3 is "good enough". But that's mostly just random chance. If sites really start taking advantage of the deficiencies in mv3 to push ads, I think Chrome will lose a lot of users. And I think at that point Google will be forced to backtrack and bring back mv2. (Quite contrary to people who think this is just the start of the slippery slope, boiling the frog move to manifest vEvil which will disable adblocking entirely).
ChicagoDave 16d ago
I stopped using chromium browsers years ago. After this move, not sure why anyone would. If I can’t install an ad/malware blocker, I’m not using your browser.
ghm2199 16d ago
Thank you google for hosting the downloader that exists for making it easy to use for automated testing('cause all the other people still use it). Its the only use case that exists for me(actually my ai) to use it.
Gud 16d ago
Funny how many people shit on Firefox in this thread. To some of us it was ALWAYS OBVIOUS this was going to happen. Google is an advertisement company, after all. “Chrome is better still except for the shit we’re getting rammed down our throats” Firefox <3 open web <3 corporate demons </3
whyagaindavid 16d ago
The real issue is one fine day all web devs will gangup and say - This site works only with Chrome or Edge. I sincerely hope worldwide software devs grow up some ethics and resist doing such things.
thoopring 16d ago
[flagged]
Markoff 16d ago
This summer when visiting father I noticed he is using Firefox with uBO as his default browser on desktop, it made much easier to switch from Chrome to Firefox also on his phone since there was not Google sync across browsers argument present, but I can imagine this can make switching for people invested too much into Google account troublesome, since 3rd party Chromium browsers don't support Google Sync, neither does Firefox, though they could just switch to Firefox on both and use Firefox Sync. Personally I am fine with having desktop (Vivaldi) and phone (Firefox) completely separated without sync (not using Google account in any of them, using only dummy account in Android TV for Smarttube and play store (I'd like to thank Google for disabling X-plore file manager, which is not possible to reenable, but anyway I switched to Cx file explorer which lets me to connect over FTP, which is all I need to manage ATV)), it's just not that easy to sync passwords, bookmarks and other settings when switching to other phone once in a few years.
drewg123 16d ago
I'm more of a firefox person, but does this impact other chromium based browsers that have retained MV2? Eg, is there another repo for extensions beyond the chrome web store? I'm wondering because my wife has a subscription to speechify (commercial text to speech app), and uses it to listen to online textbooks. It has recently pretty much stopped working properly (auto-reads headers, but not the main text of the book). I thought it might be due to MV3 and the extension no longer being able to parse the page properly. I was about to try the chrome variants that haven't gone to MV2, but I guess this removal of MV2 exensions would mean that all MV2 browsers are now crippled..
- jqzeng 7d ago
  [dead]
riverbirch 16d ago
[dead]
VCFundedGenYer 15d ago
I don't understand why anyone uses Chromium browsers other than being part of the herd. Firefox-based browsers are the last bastion of safe web browsing. Even vanilla Firefox is starting to falter, but it's still worlds better than ANY Chromium based nonsense.
aand16 15d ago
Actual title is "Google Has Removed Manifest V2 Extensions From the Chrome Web Store, Including uBlock Origin"

761 points by twapi 16d ago

Brave still lets you enable MV2 Extensions in its settings despite being built on chromium and its adb-locker does not rely on the extension system afaik.

joinjune 14d ago

When I was younger I would do computer repair and maintenance for friends and family. The deal was I didn't charge them and they let me set the computer up to be more secure and useful. Back in the XP days I used a Winsock32 Fix to replace a section of the registry to remove malware before installing an antivirus I chose. Regardless of what else I did, I would install Mozilla (later Firefox) and change the icon in Windows to be that of Internet Explorer. Later, with newer versions of Windows, I would change the icon to open Chrome. Eventually, everyone switched to using Chrome and I stopped having to do this. Strange how I now need to change the Chrome icon to open Firefox or Brave if I keep volunteering my time. No way will I use Chrome out of the box nor will I let others use it if they want my help.

mohsinq227 14d ago

[flagged]

SuoDuanDao 13d ago

The trouble with adblocking is that it causes discomfort to a powerful party without making any demands. We withhold attention at scale, but we never say what we'd accept in exchange for giving it back. The only thing the advertisers can do is escalate, and they own most of the spaces we operate in. There probably is a bargain - however faustian - to be struck. Advertising optimises for money transferred immediately over long term positive-sum introductions. It's obvious why they do that, but adblocking could be the leverage needed to encourage something more long-term beneficial for all. What I can't work out is who the counterparty even is. My own hope is that Google and Meta face a 'kodak moment' - with genuinely better advertising simply overtaking their business. What I'm unsure about is how advertising's equivalent of the digital camera finds buyers - plenty of us want to walk away from advertising, and it's possible to adopt something less mutually destructive as a user... but the free stuff advertising currently pays for is not so easily replaced. Anyone have an idea what disruption would even look like in that space?

hyveops 12d ago

[flagged]

mrd3v0 16d ago

One Google doom over, another to go: https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/

good8675309 16d ago
Can't wait until we are forced to actually make Linux Phone systems actually good, but no one will invest until Android is closed
- tgsovlerkhgsel 16d ago
  No one will invest even after Android is closed. The Android/iPhone duopoly is nearly impossible to break because very few people want to carry two personal phones, and it takes only one app that they can't do without being only available on Android/iPhone to make it impossible to choose anything else. The app providers likewise have no incentive to support anything else because everyone has one of these two. Bank apps are the prime example here that's unlikely to start supporting other systems. Public transit (and in some places parking) is another potential problem where even the unhinged "well just change banks to the one that does support your favorite phone" argument fails. ID apps (either governmental or de facto standards like the Swedish BankID) are coming too.
  - fsflover 15d ago
    [flagged]
WarmWash 16d ago
Blame the brain damaged judge that literally told Google "The Apple app store is not a monopoly because Apple has no competitors on their platform." Google is just doing what they need to do to stop being a monopoly....by becoming a monopoly, because of a ruling that the internet actually celebrated. Which we can trace back to Epic not being happy that sideloading on Android wasn't perfectly frictionless. (Note: Epic also sued Apple, but lost, because the Apple app store is not a monopoly.)

malfist 16d ago

Switch to firefox

abroszka33 16d ago
AND try to not use Google, Facebook, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Oracle and other similar products made by asshole companies.
- Henchman21 16d ago
  Honestly, at what point do we just throw our kit in the trash and go back to pen & paper?
  - abroszka33 16d ago
    Yesterday. Do we actually need any of this stuff? Probably not. But it's damn hard to stop enjoying it.
  - tentacleuno 16d ago
    Reintroducing pen and paper to your note-taking repertoire might not be such a bad idea, anyway -- it's a much more creative medium than most digital, textual forms.
    - gonzalohm 16d ago
      It's extremely complicated to organize it, though
      - tentacleuno 16d ago
        I suppose it's harder to cross-reference and find things, though I suspect you could utilize some sort of organizational system to mostly overcome that. I really do think pen and paper will slowly regain prominence; I personally find that it can be much more liberating than digital media. It's great to be able to use the page as a canvas, writing wherever you want, without having to meet the constraints of a text editor or the likes. Doodles help to visualize and understand problems, too. Tangent for macOS is my current go-to for note-taking, and it works quite well: it's mostly just a Markdown editor, a tree structure of folders (which is really just a normal folder), and the ability to cross-reference and embed images. I suppose the primary problem of note-taking apps is that they sort of have to be opinionated in some way to be useful (that's been my experience, anyway.) Markdown files are also guilty of this: they constrain you to a certain layout, which can either be a negative or a positive. Anything too complicated can be off-putting, whilst anything too simplistic can also be limiting. It's a surprisingly complex field, and it could explain why there's so many different apps for it.

deleted 16d ago

[deleted]

throwaway613746 16d ago

[dead]

gardnr 16d ago

I remember in 2010 when Chrome made the web so much better for everyone. All the early adopters were singing its praise and encouraging friends and family to use it. Now, I encourage people to use anything but Chrome. Firefox is really great these days.

gitowiec 16d ago
I will keep the same
sirfz 16d ago
Firefox was amazing even when Chrome was released
- insanitybit 16d ago
  No need to be revisionist. Chrome brought amazing work to the table. The multiprocess, sandboxed system was incredible - it's not to say that Chrome was the first (IE did it earlier) but it was certainly way ahead of Firefox for a long time. Chrome is the reason we have Seccomp V2 on Linux. Chrome made "software is always up to date" the standard. Before Chrome, Blackhole and PoisonIvy absolutely ruined people's computers - click to play Java, click to play and sandboxed Flash, etc, were massive improvements to every day user security, probably some of the biggest security improvements to computers in my lifetime. Firefox took a long time to catch up and their CEO was utterly incompetent, which seriously harmed Mozilla.
  - ashleyn 16d ago
    I remember for a while that Firefox had a single process architecture for all tabs. This often frustrated me as one bad tab could just crash the whole browser while Chrome used separate processes for each tab, prompting me to switch to Chrome for a bit. Firefox caught up ages after chrome, and now I went back to them over the manifest v2 stuff.
    - thaumaturgy 16d ago

java-man 16d ago

[flagged]

mannanj 16d ago

I know people don't like apple and safari here, but I like safari. It works good enough for me. And when an experience is off, it helps me develop my web developer hat by better understanding webkit and why safari has a different experience or frontend like behavior.

hirvi74 16d ago
I'm with you. I've been riding with Safari for almost 20 years now. It's been nothing but great for me. I cannot think of a time I have used a website that did not function properly in Safari. Prior to the reintroduction of UBO (lite), I feel like Safari helped me reduce my trash content consumption. Page with tons of ads? Not worth visiting. Youtube keeps playing ads? My frustration is a sign I need to get off YouTube and do something else. I do not need nor want to mange tens of plugins. I like to keep things simple and slim. So, perhaps that is one dealbreaker for some? Even if I believe Apple hung the Moon, I still seriously recommend Safari to anyone using Apple devices.
- mannanj 16d ago
  >I feel like Safari helped me reduce my trash content consumption. Page with tons of ads? Not worth visiting Nice. I thought that was just me! Same with ads on YouTube. One thing you may be surprised with, not sure if this helps or harms you lol, is you can develop some decent safari plugins for personal use with todays AI tools. I made a little popout extension for giving me a more minimal viewer experience with a button in safari with a few days of work (still maintain and update it occasionally, getpoppy.io if you're curious - and the vibe code tools also used webkit in the browser engine of its Mac app)

monneyboi 16d ago

I'm hoping that Mozilla Firefox can adopt a similar foundation/donation strategy as Signal has proven to work quite well. We really need independence from Google in the browser landscape if we want the open web to survive.

Lovesong 16d ago

Few years ago when google announced their MV2 plan I moved to Firefox. I don't think in all this time I ever missed Chrome for anything in particular outside of maybe 1 or 2 websites that didn't have proper support. Switch to Firefox if you haven't already really.

tentacleuno 16d ago
Firefox is genuinely quite a good option. There are some Google-driven web proposals that they've refused to implement[0] (I'm sure I disagreed with some of them, though I forget which), but overall I've found that I've never really had to think about the browser: it's just a medium for the web. They do offer some integrated services (which some would denote as bloat), though unlike Chrome, they do let you actually turn things off, which I'm very appreciative of -- they don't seem to be nearly as forceful as Google, who recently added a 4GB download to every Chrome install[0]. As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more appreciative of platforms which don't try to redefine the problem scope, and instead just provide a platform for other things. GrapheneOS does this perfectly too. [0]: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ [1]: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chromes-silent-4gb-ai-download-problem https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chrome...
- tech234a 16d ago
  And some of these proposals are available as polyfill browser extensions for Firefox
  - tentacleuno 15d ago
    That's great from a user perspective, sure. From my perspective, with all of these different web APIs, I imagine Mozilla are walking a tightrope: if they refuse to implement all of them, there's a good chance that websites will ask the user to use Chrome, pushing it further into obscurity. Go too far, however, such as implementing Google-driven proposals like Topics, and you weaken the privacy advantages of the browser. I'm glad that they take both a moral and technological stance here - someone needs to.

jack_pp 16d ago

Haven't used chrome in years, Firefox has served me well

mlh496 16d ago

I've been using the Brave browser for years. I just turned off all the crypto stuff. How does Firefox today compare with Brave today?

thenewwazoo 16d ago
You don't have to turn off any crypto stuff.
- PyWoody 16d ago
  Instead, you just get inundated with ads and pop culture garbage whenever you open a new tab.
  - serenadeineb 16d ago
    Not sure why you say this. I've been using Brave for years, and after spending like 20 seconds to turn off the 'show on new tab' things, I get a blank page ( well, with a random photo background ) when I open a new tab.
    - PyWoody 16d ago
      I've been using Brave forever and agree. I was referring to You don't have to turn off any crypto stuff. being an argument in favor of Firefox. I have to use Firefox every once in a while and I'm always surprised to see the garbage they peddle on the start page. I know I can turn it off but I never use it enough to bother.
wild_pointer 16d ago
Same here, not using firefox because of worse compatibility (maybe not their fault, many devs only test in chrome) and weaker security (maybe not their fault, they don't have as much money). I appreciate the people who do and help diversify the ecosystem though.

ValentineC 16d ago

I made a conscious attempt to try to switch to Zen (built on Gecko/Firefox), but ended up switching back to Chromium-based browsers because pages just feel like they load faster with Chromium. :(

littlecranky67 16d ago
Doesnt matter which browser you use, if you don't have proper adblock in it, the pages will load waaaay slower than any other engine.
- slfnflctd 16d ago
  I recently switched to Zen with Ublock Origin and it does seem like some sites are slower than before. It's got me suspicious that site owners are increasingly throttling users with adblockers. YouTube absolutely does. Zen is my favorite browser experience by far, and I've been using the web since Netscape in 1994. But the slowdowns do put a damper on things. Also some of the streaming platforms don't seem to play nice with it.

achr2 16d ago

Waterfox is the best browser I have ever used. Native tree style tabs, minimalist UI, built in ad blocking, Firefox extensions.

doublerabbit 16d ago
Yeah, kind of the same. Out of the other "firefox" clones, Waterfox is my goto.
senfiaj 16d ago
If I remember correctly, ~10 years ago one of Waterfox's main points was 64-bit + Intel compiler with aggressive optimization flags. At that time Firefox was 32-bit only on Windows, at least the stable version. From my experience, it didn't feel faster. Actually, it felt slightly more sluggish, I guess pointers and some data structures become larger, so the browser used more memory and put more pressure on CPU caches. It's probably no longer relevant as all major browsers are 64-bit by default.

rickette 16d ago

I'm fairly happy with uBlock Origin Lite. Sure the original was better but this one does the job as well. uBlock Origin Lite is a MV3 extension, by the same author.

judge2020 16d ago
Yeah I don’t seem to feel any performance or functionality degradation myself. What <X> ad blocking related feature has been made impossible with MV3?
- novafunc 16d ago
  I believe the main things are that block lists have to be updated through the Chrome Web Store and there is an upper limit for things that can be blocked.
- zamadatix 16d ago
  https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ) https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as... has a few of the more practical concrete examples. Namely content can load without the blocker being ready to filter, CNAME cloaking can't be handled properly (in Chrom* at least), and the filter rules aren't as flexible. Interestingly, the rule count limits themselves do not (currently) seem to be much an issue despite it being one of the more common concerns on the original MV3 announcement.
  - taviso 16d ago
    > content can load without the blocker being ready to filter This isn't an MV3 issue, it's a Chromium design decision that extensions cannot block browser initialization. It was also true with MV2. In fact, MV3 has improved the situation because DNR rules are enforced immediately. You could certainly argue that Chrome should allow extensions to block browser initialization, or that it should be user configurable - but it seems like an entirely defensible Chrome decision. Regardless, it's nothing to do with MV3. > the filter rules aren't as flexible. That's true, but they are still very flexible, and DNR makes some very nice features possible in uBO lite that were not possible in uBO. For example, did you know that you can change your User-Agent with uBO lite? Go to the Custom DNR rules tab, and enter something like this to pretend to be Lynx on whatever.com: id: 5 priority: 100 action: type: modifyHeaders requestHeaders: - header: User-Agent operation: set value: Lynx/2.9.2 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 OpenSSL/3.5.7 condition: requestDomains: - whatever.com resourceTypes: - main_frame I don't think that's possible in uBO, so clearly there are some benefits to switching. I have a ton of custom dnr rules, and love this feature.

cuuupid 16d ago

Serious question: why do people use non-OS browsers? Most devs I know are on Mac. Why not just use Safari? Works in most cases, helps you catch issues earlier on, looks beautiful and is super customizable, still supports UBlock, has vertical tabs, syncs profiles to your focus, is way more memory efficient, etc. I've daily driven Safari for ~3y after Arc got sunset and the only site that gives me issues is Hulu (but not Disney+ weirdly). Similarly drive Edge on Windows, I can't think why I'd ever reach for Chrome.

infecto 16d ago
My number one reason. Safari won’t let me customize the search engine. If I had that I would use safari all day long.
- jooize 16d ago
  It's such a silly limitation. There are extensions, but they're all imperfect hacks.
  - infecto 16d ago
    They are annoying hacks too because the common one the search still goes to the chosen default and then the extension hijacks and redirects.
- hughw 16d ago
  I see 5 choices for search engine in Settings? Are you saying you want one not listed?
  - infecto 16d ago
    Yes. The obvious choice for HN is not listed in it. It’s a silly limitation anyway.
  - abawany 16d ago
    yes, for example they have Ecosia but not Qwant (they are said to share their index but for my searches, I often flip over to Qwant when Ecosia results for the same query are not adequate.) I understand why Safari went with a search engine whitelist but I wish there was a way to make exceptions.

ranger_danger 16d ago

ungoogled-chromium (https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-portablelinux/releases https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-por...) still supports MV3/uBO and is de-Googled. However, this paper[1] suggests that uBO Lite (MV3) which is still supported in the latest Chrome/chromium browsers, works at least as well for almost all users as the original (MV2) uBO, and, in some cases even better than before... so it's really no cause for alarm IMO. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01000 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01000

littlecranky67 16d ago
I am a webdev and sometimes I have issues with ungoogled-chromium so I switched to firefox. One time I had to debug a push notification issue and realized ungoogled-chromium simply doesn't support it (but never displayed information about that when registering the service worker). That was years ago, situation might be different now.
btown 16d ago
This (whether MV3 blocking is sufficient) is the right question to ask, but also a premature answer. Because here's the future: Google is already promoting that sites have their tag management (including ad network JS) resolve at the CDN level, with randomized custom-built URLs baked into your page source as served. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/gateway/setup-guide https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/gatew... https://blog.cloudflare.com/google-tag-gateway-for-advertisers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/google-tag-gateway-for-advertise... In this context, the only thing that can sufficiently block ads as this is more broadly adopted, is dynamic code whose definitions and behaviors can be updated regularly. Because ad networks, including Google, will become increasingly creative (especially with the ability to use AI) in having a near-infinite set of embedding techniques. And Google sits as both the beneficiary of unblockable ads, and (with MV3) the gatekeeper of timing for executable code updates for ad blocking extensions. Core to the MV3 model is that any use of dynamically loaded code not bundled with the extension (and subject to a mandatory review period for every update) is forbidden. Google doesn't need to do something as drastic as disallow uBO and other extensions; they simply need to "boil the frog" over the course of years as more and more of their clients move to Tag Gateway and similar approaches, and give their ad implementation an increasing "head start" by delaying approval of uBO code updates that are trying to keep pace. The absence of evidence is not evidence of permanent absence.

Night_Thastus 16d ago

I know Firefox's share of browser share has dwindled to almost nothing. I know sooner or later, well within my lifetime, it will be gone. But I will keep using it until they pry it from my hands. And if they do, I'll use forks until those break down too. I can't stand Google, or what Chrome has become. No single company should have such unilateral control over the internet and its information.

Asmod4n 16d ago
Firefox is still popular in Germany, at around 10%
- sunaookami 16d ago
  I remember when it was the last bastion of Firefox users with a majority marketshare there when everyone else already switched to Chrome...
bogzz 16d ago
Alphabet needs to be broken up. Chrome, Search, Android, Youtube need to be separate companies. It's not the only company that needs this treatment.
- cjarrett 16d ago
  Was saying this about Chrome and Android a decade ago.
- coldpie 16d ago
  We had a glimpse of that antitrust future on the horizon with the previous admin. This spooked all the big tech weirdos so much that they put their weight behind the other guy and, well, they won. Antitrust is dead for another generation. Yay.
  - bogzz 16d ago
    Lina Khan is lying in wait.

cisc 16d ago

The solution is to use Firefox. uBlock Origin always worked best in Firefox anyway: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

mococa 16d ago
AFAIK firefox also will remove MV2
- goda90 16d ago
  Based on what?
- jolmg 16d ago
  https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signing-available-november-21-on-firefox-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/11/17/manifest-v3-signi... > Towards the end of 2023 [...] we’ll decide on an appropriate timeframe to deprecate MV2. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manif... > Firefox, however, has no plans to deprecate MV2 and will continue to support MV2 extensions for the foreseeable future. Seems they changed their mind in 2024.
- bhelkey 16d ago
  Firefox declared that they intend to keep MV2 support[1]. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adblockers/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adbl...
- clipsy 16d ago
  No, they do not: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manif...
qudat 16d ago
Or just run pihole or any other dns blocking service

insanitybit 16d ago

The reality is that Chrome users still have sufficient ad blocking so as to not be impacted by this. What will be interesting is if it stops being sufficient, at which point I think people will migrate. But until then, why would they? Most people don't really care if their extension is MV2 or MV3, they just want their youtube video to play faster.

charcircuit 16d ago
And in the case of Brave the ad blocker is built into the browser itself.

mikephilly 16d ago

saejox 16d ago

Google for me died when they banned my many years old gmail account out of blue. Because i used vpn to access it. It was such a big hit to my online life to lose my email like that. Their appeal system is fully automated, impossible to get a human to look at your case. This is warning to any reader of this comment, do not depend on your google account to be forever.

Diti 16d ago
This exact issue is why I have been paying for my e-mails for the last 5 years.
- jmm5 16d ago
  It's nice to be the customer, instead of the product.

mindcrash 16d ago

I'm pretty sure it is just a matter of time before the first (open source?) extensions marketplace for Chromium fork extensions will hit the net. A party like Helium or Brave might even already be working on it. Because while Google might not like it at all, a huge chunk of people love extensions like uBO and ease of use a little bit too much.

Dwedit 16d ago
Brave Browser offers "Brave-hosted" versions of uBlock Origin and uMatrix.

Havoc 16d ago

Allowing Google to capture both phones (android) and browsers (chrome) was a mistake. Needs to be broken up...

sanp 16d ago

How about Brave? Any thoughts?

drnick1 16d ago
Avoid Brave. It is basically Chromium, with commercial shitware slapped on, and an ad-blocker which performs worse than UBlock Origin on Firefox. Brave Inc. (a for-profit company) is openly hostile to forks and independent builds, and expects you to run and trust their binaries. It also wants to charge you a one-time fee for a build free of crapware, i.e. something you can get for free from Chromium.
dannyobrien 16d ago
I like Brave, and I know and respect many of the technical team there. I looked into the various stories about the browser that led to it being unpopular in some key communities, and I really couldn't find anything some misunderstandings, common business practices (which you can legitimately disapprove of), and a wish to register opposition to their connection to cryptocurrency/web3. I think many people would choose not to use Brave because of its association with Brendan Eich (details at Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CE... ), which stands as separate from the browser itself, or the actions of the company.
- andai 16d ago
  I agree that inventing JavaScript is unforgivable, but surely we can't cancel people permanently.
  - BrendanEich 15d ago
    If not for JS, VBScript: VBSConf.us, vQuery.vbs, React.vbs if conceivable.
- deleted 16d ago
  [deleted]
16d ago

shevy-java 16d ago

Google's Evil knows no more boundaries. Hopefully more and more people wake up as to what this adMonster has become. If we want a real open world wide in the future, we need to do something about Google. UBO is not the only one killed by Google here. They will continue on their wicked path. (And, while it may be great that Ladybird exists, I have some doubts that this will really be a contender. We should not become lazy and think that Google will just comply with the demands of The People here - its business is based on controlling influx of adMoney via its Evil Empire, and it secures this by de-facto controlling the browser stack. Just look how many people in % use the chrome-codebase now. That IS effectively a monopoly powered by greed.)

heelix 16d ago

Ironically, this is a fantastic time to use Firefox with UBO. I made the switch back when Chrome first threatened to block UBO and it was clear they were just kicking the can. What I've come to find is most of the things with ads won't take the time to 'block' UBO on Firefox. Perhaps it is not a big enough segment to justify anti adblocking coding. Youtube seems to have given up trying to fight it. Most things just work. It has been a long time since I've needed to fire up Chrome for anything.

hiccuphippo 16d ago

Google has been boiling the frog for a long time with this one. I for one will keep using Firefox.

ssl-3 16d ago
Last year, I moved back to Firefox after a decade or so exclusively on Chrome, which is something I'd been procrastinating about doing for some time. It was mostly painless. Bookmarks were automatic. I had some extensions to reconfigure and some passwords to migrate to a different password manager. I wished I'd gotten it over with sooner.

lofaszvanitt 16d ago

I don't get it why don't they include it in a separate fork in Chromium..... problem solved.

beloch 16d ago

Ad blocking has become a safety issue. My parents are at an age where they fall for things. If a malicious ad pops up and offers to install McAfee, some other form of crapware, or outright scamware, they'll click that ad and install the thing. Then I'll get called over when the computer starts acting screwy. If Google, MS, etc. had ever gotten together and developed a way to filter malicious ads out of their own ad services, maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. They didn't do that and probably never will. If my parents get a new machine, the first thing I do is uninstall or, at least, delete the icons for Edge, Chrome, etc.. On goes Firefox, uBlock Origin, and a couple other extensions. They don't care what browser they use. They can't even name it. I just try to make sure they use a browser that isn't horribly unsafe. We should all do this for people we care about. Don't ask them what browser they prefer. Odds are they don't know or care. Don't try to convince them to install Firefox themselves. They won't. Just do it for them. Think of it like picking up a rusty nail that's on their lawn. Sooner or later they're going to step on that thing if you don't.

account42 15d ago
> They didn't do that and probably never will. They would if they were held liable for the damages caused by the ads they server, which they should be.
cwnyth 16d ago
The better thing would be to hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network. If they cannot do that, they should not be in business selling ads then. Yes, that means amending the law (in the US). But the law as it is written facilitates crime.
- siliconc0w 16d ago
  Agreed It's not just malicious software ads, they also sell ads to entities mitming every government service.
- bborud 16d ago
  How would one hold Google accountable? By fining them $1bn? $10bn? $100bn? To them it is just the cost of doing business. We're beyond holding huge companies accountable. The only way they could be held accountable is if there was personal risk involved for the CEOs. There isn't.

cantalopes 16d ago

All that hassle to sell youtube premium

xnx 16d ago

Seems to be an unpopular opinion, but uBlock Origin Lite has been fine so far. Next front in the ad-blocking war will be AI-based instead of simple heuristics anyway.

timbit42 15d ago
It doesn't block all tracking.

poulpy123 16d ago

I suspect it's to force even more people to use they AI

socalgal2 16d ago

This entire thread is so ridiculous. UBlock Origin Lite still blocks all the ads.

deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
garbagewoman 16d ago
For now
tavavex 16d ago
Why do you think it's called 'Lite'? Are you going to argue that Google did us a favor by benevolently removing functionality?
Gud 16d ago
Not as well as "uBlock origin". Why do you accept this behaviour from Google?
- socalgal2 16d ago
  This entire thing started with Apple in 2019 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-13-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not... As for why, because it hasn't affected me all. All the ads are still blocked.
timbit42 15d ago
It doesn't block all the tracking.

chrysoprace 16d ago

There's never been a better time to switch to Firefox. Hopefully soon we'll have another player in this space with Ladybird but for now, Firefox is almost necessary to use the internet unimpeded. There are also some good Firefox forks out there, and I have been daily driving Zen for nearly a year. However, Librewolf and Floorp are both good options if you don't like Firefox's defaults or their push for more AI features (which you can turn off, to be fair).

goawaydang 16d ago

Switched the family to Firefox. I use Libre but I understand it’s a hard sell. FF is much easier and the regular user can’t tell the difference anyway since they don’t spelunk into the details.

taviso 16d ago

I think the new features in MV3 are great, and UBO lite is great. The initial versions of UBOl worked, but definitely lost some power user features. Those are basically all back, it now has full scriptlet support, custom dynamic filters work, element zapper is back and you can now have custom dnr rules. That's a very powerful feature that doesn't exist in UBO. The big loss for me with the mv2 deprecation was uMatrix, so I made my own replacement. It's a prototype, but you can try it if you like: https://github.com/taviso/matrix3 https://github.com/taviso/matrix3 I think the real question is how have Edge and Mozilla shipped WebExtension support on Android, but Google hasn't. If other competent vendors can ship it then there can't be a technical reason, it must be a policy decision. I'm more open to hearing conspiracy theories about that than MV3 :)

andxor 16d ago

uBlock Origin Lite

mococa 16d ago
It is nerfed.
- andxor 16d ago
  What is a concrete example of an ad you are seeing that it can't remove?
  - timbit42 15d ago
    It doesn't block all tracking.

mococa 16d ago

Pick my mother-in-law phone, is full of apps that pushes mensages every second, ad block is a way to prevent web to become IE with that toolbars, remember?

glenstein 16d ago

"No way to prevent this" say users of only browser where this regularly happens.

wtallis 16d ago
Mozilla has had their share of mass extension deprecation and breakage.
- glenstein 16d ago
  They moved over to a new extension platform for legitimate development reasons. I agree there was pain but it wasn't a self interested flexing of power to remove ad blocking extensions.
  - wtallis 16d ago
    Having what you consider to be a good excuse doesn't mean it didn't happen. Multiple times.
    - glenstein 16d ago
      The "excuse" is a distinction between different types of motivating factors and consequences which has everything to do with the relative merits of those two examples.

ninjahawk1 16d ago

What Google means to say is that MV3 will allow them to more closely control what you’re able to do with your time, since this was done primarily to target ad blocking software. Not that this matters much anymore as Google is now more an AI than it is a search engine, and an unreliable one at that.

deleted 16d ago

[deleted]

crystaln 16d ago

Apparently uBO can't be ported to MV3, as dynamic request interception is no longer allowed, only fixed block lists. "For security and privacy"

spaceman_spift 16d ago

I can imagine business reviews within Google that are seeing precipitous drops in Ad revenue given the uptake of AI Mode, which needs to be balanced out. And this becomes an easy tap that they can open, in the pretext of 'security', so Ad Words campaigns weren't getting rendered previously start showing up. If they'd only look at cracking down on malicious Ads rendered through their systems, it would be applause worthy, but I guess we're asking too much.

jacquesm 16d ago

There is a very easy solution to this problem, it's called FireFox. Now if only Mozilla would stop messing with it and instead would turn it into a class example of speed and memory efficiency I'd be even happier. But it's pretty good and I'm running it routinely with way too many tabs open (in the 100's, on a 32G laptop). I do have to be careful about unloading stuff. So, kick the Chrome habit.

luisgvv 16d ago

Been using FF since they announced this. The only disadvantage I've found is that I think it consumes more memory compared against chromium based browsers. Hoping my browser gets some love in the near future

teaearlgraycold 16d ago

As a longtime Firefox user: shrug

txheilmann 16d ago

[dead]

Karupan 16d ago

I’m irrationally angry with Mozilla for the way they’ve handled Firefox over the past few years. Clearly we need an independent, safe browser and there are no major alternatives for the common folk. Just let me pay a monthly fee to keep Firefox lean and fast instead of jamming AI tools and 3rd party integrations.

techteach00 16d ago

People fall for "think of the children!" so let's also try "think of the elderly!". We're a society that ruthlessly opposes individual responsibility and individual outcomes.

SoftTalker 16d ago

When you make your money selling ads, you're not going to want your users to block ads. It's as simple as that. Google should not be allowed to both sell web ads and control a browser platform.

teki_one 16d ago

The media just have to report the removal of ad blocking as a security/safety issue. If users are made aware that what Chromium is doing, they can make a better decision, but it has to be called out in every post about Chromium (preferably mentioning a few safer choices), otherwise it will disappear in the noise.

aembleton 16d ago
Most people won't care

amazingman 16d ago

The same day I finally migrated from Arc to Zen. What a coincidence ^^

Deprogrammer9 16d ago

[dead]

datadrivenangel 16d ago

Firefox is still great!

snibsnib 16d ago

Weirdly enough, you can install the full version of uBO on Edge, and I think it's a great option for less tech savvy family and friends. It's basically chrome but without the 'make this your default browser' shenanigans.

TheMiddleMan 16d ago

15 years ago: "why is google putting so much effort into building a web browser? it must be because they want to see the web grow and by extension more people will use their services"

Gud 16d ago
Why would it not be, "Since Google is an advertising company, it stands to reason they want to squash the open web and make it a platform for them to serve advertisement and increase their margin"? That was always the obvious answer.

zuzululu 16d ago

Contrary to some confusion about whether firefox will keep mv2: Yes they will. Also I predict that MV2 is going to be a major boon for firefox. It has taken a long time to prove the value of firefox to the masses and I believe mv2 extensions in particular ublock origin will be what keeps people coming back to it I've not touched chrome in decades. Firefox stands strong. I would donate but in EU that comes with tax issues.

Swalden123 16d ago

This caused me to go back and try Firefox again, I struggled with performance years ago on Mac when I did this. This time it’s been great, I switched from Arc to Zen and don’t see any reason to go back.

krrrh 16d ago
Zen is genuinely so nice. I have been a Safari die hard because for so long it’s been remarkable at resource efficiency. After switching my macOS window management to aerospace, Zen finally got me to switch away. And it’s great that it loads all the Firefox extensions.

jobuildsstuff 16d ago

[flagged]

phendrenad2 16d ago

For most people, mv3 is "good enough". But that's mostly just random chance. If sites really start taking advantage of the deficiencies in mv3 to push ads, I think Chrome will lose a lot of users. And I think at that point Google will be forced to backtrack and bring back mv2. (Quite contrary to people who think this is just the start of the slippery slope, boiling the frog move to manifest vEvil which will disable adblocking entirely).

ChicagoDave 16d ago

I stopped using chromium browsers years ago. After this move, not sure why anyone would. If I can’t install an ad/malware blocker, I’m not using your browser.

ghm2199 16d ago

Thank you google for hosting the downloader that exists for making it easy to use for automated testing('cause all the other people still use it). Its the only use case that exists for me(actually my ai) to use it.

Gud 16d ago

Funny how many people shit on Firefox in this thread. To some of us it was ALWAYS OBVIOUS this was going to happen. Google is an advertisement company, after all. “Chrome is better still except for the shit we’re getting rammed down our throats” Firefox <3 open web <3 corporate demons </3

whyagaindavid 16d ago

The real issue is one fine day all web devs will gangup and say - This site works only with Chrome or Edge. I sincerely hope worldwide software devs grow up some ethics and resist doing such things.

thoopring 16d ago

[flagged]

Markoff 16d ago

This summer when visiting father I noticed he is using Firefox with uBO as his default browser on desktop, it made much easier to switch from Chrome to Firefox also on his phone since there was not Google sync across browsers argument present, but I can imagine this can make switching for people invested too much into Google account troublesome, since 3rd party Chromium browsers don't support Google Sync, neither does Firefox, though they could just switch to Firefox on both and use Firefox Sync. Personally I am fine with having desktop (Vivaldi) and phone (Firefox) completely separated without sync (not using Google account in any of them, using only dummy account in Android TV for Smarttube and play store (I'd like to thank Google for disabling X-plore file manager, which is not possible to reenable, but anyway I switched to Cx file explorer which lets me to connect over FTP, which is all I need to manage ATV)), it's just not that easy to sync passwords, bookmarks and other settings when switching to other phone once in a few years.

drewg123 16d ago

I'm more of a firefox person, but does this impact other chromium based browsers that have retained MV2? Eg, is there another repo for extensions beyond the chrome web store? I'm wondering because my wife has a subscription to speechify (commercial text to speech app), and uses it to listen to online textbooks. It has recently pretty much stopped working properly (auto-reads headers, but not the main text of the book). I thought it might be due to MV3 and the extension no longer being able to parse the page properly. I was about to try the chrome variants that haven't gone to MV2, but I guess this removal of MV2 exensions would mean that all MV2 browsers are now crippled..

jqzeng 7d ago
[dead]

riverbirch 16d ago

[dead]

VCFundedGenYer 15d ago

I don't understand why anyone uses Chromium browsers other than being part of the herd. Firefox-based browsers are the last bastion of safe web browsing. Even vanilla Firefox is starting to falter, but it's still worlds better than ANY Chromium based nonsense.

aand16 15d ago

Actual title is "Google Has Removed Manifest V2 Extensions From the Chrome Web Store, Including uBlock Origin"