Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other extensions in Edge
www.neowin.net
Microsoft is now in the process of turning off Manifest V2-based extensions in Edge, such as uBlock Origin. However, not everything is lost at this point.

The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: “This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it.” Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking “Manage extension” and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).

At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft’s documentation, however, still says “TBD,” so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of “unexpected changes” coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.

Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge’s stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store

  • @[email protected]English
    13•12 hours ago

    If you don’t want to be compatible with what millions of websites are written in (because that’s the complicated part), you now have to convince all of them to invest lots of money to migrate to your new web standard… Good luck…

    • @[email protected]English
      3•10 hours ago

      You don’t have to replace the html web. If a new system was sufficiently fun to create with, people might use it for all kinds of cool new projects. Kind of like Flash used to be. You’d go there for a specific thing you heard about.

      A new web free of cruft might turn out to be cheaper to develop for, and that might appeal to the corporate types. Maybe useful for intranet type apps where the browser is specified anyway and you have a captive audience.