Your Chrome extensions may stop working in 2024
Google has resumed the plan to deprecate Manifest V2 extensions and will end support for these by mid-2024.
Extensions for Google Chrome use Manifest V2, a kind of rulebook that highlights what extensions can and can't do, or Manifest V3, an updated version. Google made major changes to Manifest V3, which limited certain kinds of extensions. Content blockers, such as uBlock Origin, were affected by the announced changes negatively.
Google claims up to today that the changes have nothing to do with limiting content blockers. The company's main source of revenue comes from advertising. Instead, Google says that the changes improve privacy and security.
Google increased its efforts on YouTube to crack down on ad blockers recently.
David Li, product manager at Google, announced the resuming of the transition to Manifest V3 on the Chrome Developer blog.
Google plans to begin disabling Manifest V2 extensions in all development editions of Google Chrome from June 2024 on. The change will roll out to the entire development editions population over time to monitor the change.
Installed Manifest V2 extensions will be disabled by Google in the browser and users may no longer install Manifest V2 extensions in the browser once the change has landed. Google notes that Manifest V2 extensions will have their featured badge removed in the Chrome Web Store by the time as well.
Google says that it will take at least a month to monitor the rollout and gather feedback. Once completed, Google will begin the rollout to stable versions of the Chrome browser. This rollout will also happen gradually.
In other words, Chrome Stable users may have their Manifest V2 extensions disabled as early as July 2024.
Enterprise customers may set the ExtensionManifestV2Availability to extend support for Manifest V2 extensions until June 2025.
Google says that it has improved Manifest V3 in several areas during the pause. It lists the following in particular:
- Offscreen Documents support.
- Better control over Service Worker Lifetimes.
- User Scripts API.
- Improving content filtering support.
Closing Words
The switch to Manifest V2 extensions will affect lots of extensions for Chrome. Apart from extensions that are no longer maintained, it also affects extensions that can't be migrated fully to the new extensions Manifest.
The popular uBlock Origin extension, for example, would be limited under Manifest V3. The developer created uBlock Origin Lite, a reduced version that is compatible with Manifest V3.
Other web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, will continue to support Manifest V2 extensions. They will also support Manifest V3, so that users are not limited when it comes to the installation of extensions.
Now You: do you use Manifest V2 extensions?
I’ve already installed uBlock Origin Lite on Ungoogled Chromium and Edge ahead of the Manifest v3 apocalypse. I’ve left uBO Lite disabled at the moment until the switch happens, but Firefox is still my mainstay though.
Spelling mistake or other grammatical error (5th paragraph following the screenshot) It reads, “onac ethe”
Brave is a dying browser, no one uses Brave when compared to the more users that use the vastly superior Firefox.
Brave layed off its staff because it is a dying browser.
Brave has no ability to spoof the screen resolution. Brave when manifest V2 is gone is left with a sub-par ad-blocker that can not block javascript on a granular level like no-script can do on Firefox.
The API exposed by Chromium to browser extension is not as powerful and flexible as its Mozilla-developed counterpart. This is already true in Manifest V2, and gets much worse with Manifest V3, especially hurting privacy and security innovation. Therefore, even if NoScript is compatible with most browsers, some of its most advanced features are available only on Firefox and its derivatives, such as the Tor Browser. In details, these are the current limitations imposed to NoScript by Chromium-based browsers such as Google Chrome, Edge or Vivaldi:
The Injection Checker XSS filter is disabled because there’s no asynchronous blocking webRequest API
The Cross-tab Identity Leak Protection (TabGuard) is unavailable (same reason as above)
The LAN protection works for numeric IPs but cannot resolve domain names (no DNS API)
FIREFOX IS SUPERIOR TO ANY CHROMIUM CLONE.
No expert security professional into security and privacy would use or reccommend Brave.
STOP THE GOOGLE MONOPOLY. SWITCH TO FIREFOX!
…and i am sick of corporations giving of taking whatever they see fit for products and services which have become an every day commodity… the internet and products/services around it should be governed by the public…
It’s in everyone’s best interest that Google loses half of it’s user base.
Whilst it may not happen for the most part there is a subset of people that consider themselves tech savvy and are being made aware of this and many of the other scummy things Google is doing so even if they lose a few more of these people then its a good thing.
It’s not entirely true that extension developers prefer to support popular browsers. You might find that if they can no longer develop their addons/extensions then they will either be forced to drop support for that particular browser or discontinue development altogether such was the case when Mozilla went with webextensions and many of those extensions were fantastic and popular too.
Nobody wants to rewrite an entire extension to only have a deeply watered down version to support a browser than is actively trying to destroy you. The only motivation there is to undermine Google and their garbage but even then some developers will not be willing to play the short term game when the long term victory is to let Google poop in their own backyard and see them fail.
It will be extremely difficult for Google to lose market share and that is because they have done a good enough job of fooling people over the years and spreading their wings in many directions. Their sheer dominance in the mobile phone market makes it a slam dunk because its very likely your family members or friends or friends parents and family use an android mobile phone and just use chrome because they have little sense at all.
This is no limited to older people. I speak to younger people that have absolutely no idea about tech stuff and the world that lives outside of default apps or whatever and they get frustrated even at the polite mention of a valid solution to their problems.
Stupid things like. “Why do I get so many ads” Well you should install _____ that will fix this and do so many things better.
“No, I don’t trust it”
… then happily installs some random app because a popup told them too.
ANNOYING!!!
These are the type of people we are dealing with when sheer stupidity and ignorance is in abundance. This is where Google’s prime market is and they know it. If they cannot fool you then they try to force you by dictating web standards via their hijacking of the web standards.
Make no mistake Google is a deplorable company that has been empowered to this level and they cannot and will not lose a lot of market share overnight but I feel over the last few years it has become cooler to hate google and whilst that not be the best reason I will take it because nobody should have that much unchecked power or dominance not even Mozilla.
Chances are if someone helped another person to install addons/extensions to fix their chrome browser problems its likely they will be oblivious to the change once their addons/extensions stop working and then even when told about it or given a valid solution or alternative they will just say “It doesn’t matter. I like Chrome and am used to it. Just leave it as is!”
2 weeks later… “I have a virus!”
I sometimes feel like its best to toss those people to the wolves.
Some of these sacks of meat have become far too involved with the internet these days.
Ad blocking must be on the rise since Google is trying to press for more changes to stop it but all they are actually doing is making people more aware of such things which is and even bigger endorsement for change than any of us could really advocate for. Some of these people might actually have to learn something and do it for themselves for once and then become a productive member of the internet rather than just some stupid social media influencer.
don’t use chromo
Manifest v3 is the breaking point for me. I am using Edge, but as soon as it will switch to manifest V3 by by Edge and hello to whatever browser that will continue to support Manifest V2.
Will this affect AdGuard on Windows? (Not the browser extension).
The change affects only browser extensions.
The hell with Chrome. Long live Firefox…
Privacy in itself is obviously not enough to get people to leave Chrome. However, significant numbers of people may well leave if their adblockers stop working. I can’t really imagine why anyone would want to watch ads popup when they don’t have to be bothered by them, but time will tell.
They always leave out the fact that it is Googles Privacy and Security they are protecting, not yours.
So many Chrome and Brave fanboys in comments.
No, just common sense
This change will mostly affect power users and developers. You are mistaken if you believe there is going to be a mass exodus from chrome when it drops v2 support. Other browser vendors would have to implement hybrid support for both versions if they want to keep API conformity. I imagine v2 will eventually be dropped completely when google pushes more significant changes to the API because addon developers prefer the platform with more users.
Use Brave and you’ll be fine. You won’t have to crawl back to Google’s concubine Mozilla.
What Google does mostly affects Google. Nobody, who’s is not clinically insane, will ever watch a video interrupted by disgustingly stupid adds; very few will be lethally stupid and stubborn to pay for premium. There are alternative ways to watch YT. Every Google move wakes more people up.
Thinks Brave is free of Google, while fails to realize Brave is a Google Chrome fork.
“use Brave”
looooooooooooooool
Brave’s internal adblocker doesn’t use any extension APIs and will continue to work no matter what Google does with the extensions. Don’t care.
And thus Iron Heart proves he doesn’t care about anyone other than himself.
All that shitting over Firefox, all that defense of Manifest V3. It’s all because he can hate on anything and screw over everyone that’s not himself.
A lot of other people will care when their other extensions stop working.
Brave originally was a fork of Firefox. Too bad, looks like they made the wrong choice when they decided to be subservient to Google. Could have been a really good long-term project instead of just an odd historical footnote.
What they really should have done was fork Firefox code from version 52 or 56 like Pale Moon or SeaMonkey. Brave could have been a great, wholly independent browser by now, instead of Chrome’s stepchild.
A big no to forking an ancient version of Gecko. WebExtensions are here to stay. Brave should fork manifest v2 though.
Two browsers have already shown that webextensions can be made to work with Gecko engines from the Firefox 52-56 era. And modern Pale Moon shows that webextensions are unnecessary as their xul extensions are more capable.
@Kong
>I will make popcorn next year and laugh when people will ditch Chrome, millions and millions of them
I wouldn’t be so sure. Let’s meet here next year!
On my Ryzen 9 chromium based browsers are all crap on YouTube anyway, been using Firefox for some time now. Haven’t missed other browsers at all. I will make popcorn next year and laugh when people will ditch Chrome, millions and millions of them. Never underestimate the power of the ad-free guerrilla! Freedom Gorilla will kick your ads so far up your ass you’ll choke on them in your throat. Internet was never meant to be your endless cash cow. Internet is not yours to exploit.
Regardless of what you think of Chromium based browsers, performance is definitely not an issue. Ironically you’re just giving fanboys more reason to dunk on AMD.
Point being, you’ve fucked up your system somehow if you’re having performance issues with any browser.
actually the percentage of people using ad blocker are less than 1% if not lesser…really. only tech savvy people use ad blockers and geeks like people her hanging out on tech websites. lol …regular folks don’t even know what ad-blocker is.
If the percentage would be 1%, Google wouldn’t bother, because the potential benefits wouldn’t justify the required effort.
Actually the percentage of people using adblockers is rather around 33% (percentage varies between age groups) … that’s still quite low, but it’s high enough to start putting holes into Google’s revenue stream.
Important general rule in business:
if there is now problem, you don’t waste resources trying to fix it. You only start doing so, once it manifests itself a real problem.
If something is a real problem or not is solely determined by the bottom line, meaning: the difference between the cost of fixing a problem compared to the added profit if fixed (all valued in USD), although there are other factors too (strategic allocation of resources, allocation of resources to alternative, more profitable activities etc).
Actually, 42.7% of internet users worldwide (16-64 years old) use ad blocking tools at least once a month.
See:
[https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users]
Can confirm, this is truth, only delusional people think that 1% userbase use adblocker.