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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  • @chalupapocalypse
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    93 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

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

    • Possibly linux
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      3 months ago

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

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