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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  • @HowManyNimons
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    403 months ago

    It is a worry. I think we might end up needing to pay for Firefox ourselves.

    • lnxtx
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      353 months ago

      I will happily donate.
      If, of course, money won’t go to the CEO.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        it is lol, have you seen how much the ceo is paying herself?

        its kind of a reddit situaton, where money wouldnt be that much of an issue if it werent all for the ceo.

      • @[email protected]
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        -73 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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      93 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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        283 months ago

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

          • @[email protected]
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            133 months ago

            They plan a release for 2028. It’s going to be a while before it can be used for everyday browsing.

            • @[email protected]
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              63 months ago

              That’s true, but it’s worth waiting. Until then Librewolf is probably the best choice.

          • asudox
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            3 months ago

            I agree.

        • haui
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          43 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.

        • TWeaK
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          33 months ago

          Plenty of Firefox forks out there.

          • @[email protected]
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            263 months ago

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

            • @[email protected]
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              33 months ago

              Tried librewolf recently and although worked well (linux mint) had all sorts of scaling issues and wouldn’t keep my settings. Just using as a backup to FF until I can figure it out. FF only just started failing to play YT unhindered.

              • @[email protected]
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                33 months ago

                Things are getting strange if you activate too much privacy settings. For example, all websites appear in light mode (because most people use light and thus is less value to track you) and for some reason, webUI with integrated terminals were not able to draw the ASCII text, it was just rainbows 😂 (proxmox and hombridge)