Google has been hard at work to establish Manifest V3 as the new and only set of rules for Chrome extensions. Report suggest that Google has shifted the process into a higher gear and is disabling classic extension support for more Chrome users.
The effect is the following: any extension that is not compatible with Manifest V3 will be disabled. Chrome displays “was turned off” messages to users in that case on start. A check of the extensions management page reveals a similar message: “This extension was turned off because it’s no longer supported”.
Most Chrome users will probably experience this with the popular uBlock Origin extension. It cannot be ported fully to Manifest V3, as Google changed core functionality.
In other words, the change has a very positive effect for Google, as it gets rid of what is probably the most popular content blocker for Chrome.
While there is uBlock Origin Lite by the same developer, it is limited in some regards to the classic version. It is better than no content blocking, but still inferior.
Users who really need to use Chrome can postpone the death of uBlock Origin and other Chrome extensions that are not compatible with Manifest V3 by setting a policy. This will work only until mid-2025 though, unless Google pushes the change back a bit.
Your options
In the end, it may be better to switch to a browser that is still offering support. If you prefer Chromium, you could give Brave or Opera a try. Both companies have pledged to support Manifest V2 extensions, at least some of them, even after Google ends support in Chrome.
Another option is to switch to Firefox or a Firefox fork, like Mullvad Browser. Mozilla said that it is going to support Manifest V2 extensions and V3 extensions at the same time in Firefox. Means, you can run good old uBlock Origin in Firefox without having to worry about it suddenly being turned off.
Try Brave
or as an alternative: Ungoogled Chromium.
Both are great, stable with fast browsing.
@ddk: This. I especially appreciate the mention of Ungoogled Chromium, which doesn’t seem as well-known.
Just do not use Chrome, or use it only for websites that have problems with other Browsers.
Ungoogled Chromium is not really an option since you still have to go to the Google Play Store for third party addons. By the sound of it though Google is going to disable most of those.
Also, UC doesn’t auto update and is reliant on third parties for security updates which may introduce vulnerabilities rather than prevent them.
Personally, I’ll stick with Firefox since it offers so much more including access to the internals via about:config. Martin wrote an article on the subject a while ago which is well worth a read: https://www.ghacks.net/overview-firefox-aboutconfig-security-privacy-preferences/
I use the Chromium Web Store extension to install and update extensions from the Chrome Web Store. And I use winget, which allows me to type `winget update chromium` to update the browser. With these two methods, Ungoogled Chromium is convenient and secure to use.
@TelV, https://www.osnews.com/story/141813/mozilla-is-going-to-collect-a-lot-more-data-from-firefox-users/
@Ikiu, that’s fake news, see https://chipp.in/news/mozilla-updated-its-terms-of-use-again-to-address-concerns/
As far as Firefox’s future is concerned, things are not as bright as they once appeared. Since Trump is intent on destroying much of the once free financial support to bona fide organizations like Mozilla, there’s a distinct danger that Firefox could go down the tubes unless it finds an alternative source of funding to replace the government science and technology grants they used to receive.
According to the Mozilla blog which I’m suscribed to, they would normally receive $3,55 million over three years, but that’s now in jeopardy and they’re is looking to community funding to replace the loss. That currently stands at $140,629 which is somewhat encouraging and would see them over for the first year’s loss. What they would have to do after that though is another question.