Google is killing uBlock Origin in Chrome, but this trick lets you keep it for another year
Google is switching the ruleset for extensions in Chrome soon. The updated version is controversial, as it will end several popular extensions for Chrome, including the world's most popular ad-blocker uBlock Origin.
Note: these changes will also impact other Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Opera, or Vivaldi. Brave is special, as the developers announced that they will continue to support uBlock Origin and several other extensions (but not all).
The ad-blocker will stop working in Chrome and most Chromium-based browsers once Google launches the change. Any other extension that has not been updated, or cannot be updated because of the changes, will also be disabled by Google.
There is a way to keep on using the classic extensions for longer. While Google turns off support for home users immediately, it is giving Enterprise customers an option to extend support by one year. Good news is that you can also utilize this to extend support.
How to extend uBlock Origin support in Chrome by one year
The policy in question is called ExtensionManifestV2Availability. It defines support for classic extensions in Chrome.
The policy has the following values:
- 0 - Default behavior, determined by Google Chrome and Google.
- 1 - Manifest V2 is deactivated. This means that uBlock Origin won't work anymore.
- 2 - Manifest V2 is enabled. This extends support by a year.
- 3 - Manifest V2 is enabled for forced extensions only. This limits the extensions to addons specified by an administrator.
Windows users can set it in the following way:
- Activate the Start button.
- Type regedit.exe.
- Load the Registry Editor.
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome.
- Note: some of the keys may not exist. In this case, right-click on the previous key, e.g. SOFTWARE and select New > Key. Name it accordingly to create the path.
- Right-click on Chrome and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.
- Name it ExtensionManifestV2Availability.
- Double-click on the new Dword and set its value to 2.
- Restart the PC.
This enables the Enterprise policy on the system. Chrome will not disable the old system for extensions this year, because of it.
Tip: you can load Chrome://policy to verify that the extension is set correctly.
Linux and Mac users may want to check this Chrome support document for instructions on setting policies on their devices.
Which extensions are affected?
It takes a few seconds to find out. Google has started to display incompatible extensions on Chrome's extensions page.
You load chrome://extensions/ and check "These extensions may soon no longer be supported" at the top.
Tip: if you do not see this yet, load chrome://flags/#extension-manifest-v2-deprecation-warning and set the value to Enabled. Restart Chrome, and you will see the warning at the top of the page.
What happens to extensions once the change lands in Chrome?
Google Chrome will disable extensions like uBlock Origin once the change lands. The extensions are not uninstalled, at least not immediately. The screenshot above shows the disabled uBlock Origin extension. The toggle to enable it is inactive, which means that you cannot enable it anymore in the browser. The only options provided are to view the details and to remove it.
Most users of uBlock Origin may notice quickly that the extension is disabled. Websites and services will start to show advertisement again.
I had to add the “ExtensionManifestV2Availability” reg value to Vivaldi browser since the new Vivaldi 6.9 release came out near end of August 2024, which started to show Ublock Origin addon as no longer being supported in Vivaldi 6.9.
in RegEdit, I had to add this reg key for Vivaldi browser:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Vivaldi
then add the Dword, ExtensionManifestV2Availability and set its value to “2” & reload Vivaldi and I can continue to use Ublock Origin until June 2025
Since I have enabled “ExtensionManifestV2Availability” policy with value 2, I cannot use the “Use secure DNS” setting anymore on Google Chrome, MS Edge and Chromium (on Linux).
The switch to enable this option is now just grayed out, stating that it is disabled on managed browsers. Is there a solution to re-enable this setting, while staying with i.e. uBlock Origin (MV2) ?
Thank you.
There is a DNS over HTTPS policy: https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#DnsOverHttpsMode
Or just stop using Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi and possibly Brave too.
Stop feeding the monster.
For edge you could simply update your group policy and change it there. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/download-group-policy-templates-for-new-microsoft-edge-chromium-browser
Somebody in the comments said something about DNS. Well I recommend to try nextdns.io – blocking ads, works on any OS, free if you under 300k requests in month
Off to Firefox then.
One word: Firefox.
@Martin
@everyone
The link to Google “explaining” how to do this in Chrome is *way* too unclear and generic…it’s basically useless/for ninjas only.
Anyone who’s figured it out, can you kindly post what to do so we can actually do this?
Thanks!
Desde hace tiempo, me pase a Firefox que ahora funciona muy rápido y estable.Antes utilizado Chrome y despues Edge, pero desde hace unos siete mese, que volvi a probar Firefox, me llevé la grata sorpresa de que había mejorado mucho en velocidad de arranque y carga web, ahora es mi favorito.Uso siempre la versión beta en todos los navegadores. esta de firefox 130.Ob6 funciona realmente bien.
The most effective trick is to pull the carpet out from under google.
Get off of Chrome.
Done!
The shitification of the internet continues unabated, great.
Recently in FF I had slow or not loading sites, with left under “Transferring data from….”. It was unbearable.
Found that this is already circa 15 years occasionally occurring.
An advice I found was to renew the FF-profile, so uninstalling FF and deleting its data (profile). And the completely reinstall FF + make the settings + install the extensions + reload the (back upped) bookmarks. This solved the problem, but I lost confidence in FF.
@ Anonymous,
What you just described is exactly the issue I was experiencing recently, switch your computer to a different DNS. Your current one is what is causing that problem.
Interesting remark on DNS-provider. I am going to look into this.
@ Anonymous,
Although the symptoms you described are entirely possible, the simple answer is to create a new profile not to delete the existing one.
To do that, run “firefox.exe -p” (without quotes) and the use the menu which appears to create alternative profiles. Be sure to remove the checkmark from “Use the selected profile without asking at startup” so that when you click the desktop shortcut again later on, you’ll always get that same menu window and can choose which profile you want to use. You can create as many profiles you wish, each of which will be identifiable by the description you gave them.
I use different profiles for different tasks. For example, I use the Default profile for banking where my online bank demands to know who I am, but another one which includes all the “about:config” settings I’ve created and which I use together with the VPN (Mullvad) I’m subscribed to. A third profile is used for buying clothing from Zalando.nl which requires Firefox tracking protection to be disabled. I’m not bothered about that since that profile isn’t used anywhere else on the Web and therefore the only data Zalando can retain is what I bought from them that day. In addition, any tracking is shortlived since it’ll be deleted when I exit that profile.
I never considered segmenting my internet usage to multiple profiles, each one used for a more specific purpose like online banking, Shopping, One for VPN etc. thanks for the smart tip, my default profile is just bogged down with too many extensions and bookmarks.
will it save the enabled extensions to the profile, and their settings? cuz that would be very useful for different configurations etc.
|I have been using cloudfare for a solid free DNS and Have definitely noticed an improvement in speed, tracking/ads, and security overall. go to their website for easy howto guides. default DNS for them is 1.1.1.1
The cloudfare WARP software is also free and is basically a VPN and makes your internet traffic private.
I guess its time to ditch Chrome. Free and open software is always a better option. thanks for the tip about LIBRE Wolf! huge fan of LibreOffice and other featured software at the FSF.org. GAAMM big tech companies are ruining the internet and privacy.
Can’t wait until blockchain tech is more accepted as a UTILITY for various use cases to greatly increase security, trust (trustless), efficiency, privacy, and lower costs most of the time. Decentralization is the way and the future for preserving and protecting human rights.
Thanks for your explanation.
I will keep this bookmarked for the next time when I run in this situation.
I am additionally testing Floorp and Librewolf as hopefully better versions of FF.
Sure it happened. Seethe more.
input “ExtensionManifestV2Availability” entry & set its value to DWORD “0x2” into reg key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge” for MS Edge
Even Google translation services are a complete joke now. The following link is to an image I just copied from a Dutch weather station and in the Dutch language: https://i.postimg.cc/gc7jjqgf/original-language.png
Google translates “Wind WZW 4” into this: https://i.postimg.cc/g0fddNzD/google-english-translation.png
Hepatitus is an inflammatory liver disease: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/hepatitis
Try it for yourself. Here’s the site where these screenshots came from: https://nieuw.weerplaza.nl/nederland/amsterdam/5575/
I used the TWP addon which is incorporated into the Floorp browser, but you can also get the standalone TWP addon from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/traduzir-paginas-web/
If everyone is so worried about new versions of Firefox, why did most folks upgrade in the first place…
NoScript and uBlock-Original play well together on FF-51, not to mention there are many great compatible block-lists to be had…and
One can still create one’s own filters as needed.
On another note, Windows now says, disable IPV6 on Win10 & Win11 to avoid the
Blue-Screen-of-Death *Why did many disable IPV6 on Win7 years ago*
11r20 says >>> ((Back to the Future Baby))
Reminder that LibreWolf is a privacy-centric soft-fork of Firefox with uBO already included, so switch to *it* for a privacy headstart. Then add whichever additional privacy extensions you want.
+1 for LibreWolf, it’s a very good browser.
I’m keeping Chrome around for the rare occasion where I need to cast something, but other than that LibreWolf does everything.
LibreWolf is (almost) as good as FF with the arkenfox user.js applied, in my exalted opinion……
I can’t understand why anyone who actually cares about these kind of privacy issues would use Chrome in the first place.
I wish Cloudflare free DNS had a version that blocks ads, tracking, and phishing with 1.1.1.3 address.
@ samurai cat,
Use Mullvad VPN free DNS service. You can configure the stuff you want to block by using the appropriate profile. Instructions here: https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls Scroll down to: “Hostnames and content blockers” to see what the options are.
Also, Martin created setup instructions last year in this article: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/11/11/mullvads-public-encrypted-dns-servers-run-in-ram-now/
Adguard DNS does. That’s what I use.
Thru trial and error, I spend my life finding things that work. Ublock Origin works. What is Google going to do next, tell me I can’t use my auto mechanic or HVAC repair service?
Instead of procrastinating, use Firefox now. Google is done. The search engine and other services are now utterly useless. Every new version of Android becomes worse. Their UI team develops some of the ugliest designs ever.
Reads like it came straight out the Mozilla Corp. marketing department. The fact is, nobody cares:
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
Firefox hemorrhaging 50 million monthly active users since 2019.
@Iron Heart Now show Brave world usershare
Right so. Google has always been done, and not only its browser. Thing is, blind may happen to see what Google is, always has been and always will be : an advertisement company. How can anyone use, keep on using whatever is proposed by this junk-company is over my understanding.
Junk-company but not an idiot one, and likely it has weighed the pros and cons, which would mean that Google addicts will continue their unfortunate partnership with a company which makes it business with their privacy. Pathetic.
No problem. DNS ad-blocking is good enough together with hostfile 0.0.0.0. No need of extensions.
I always use the extension umatrix in FireFox. Which is still my browser of choice. And that extension prevents much, if not all scripts to be loaded when opening any webpage. That sometimes results in spectacular failure. Still, I take that over all the crap that is served to any other browser on my computer.
But as I need to work in xwiki a lot, swapping between pages is a lot slower in FireFox than in the Edge, Opera or Vivaldi.browsers.
From all the Chromium-based browsers, Vivaldi I like best, but Windows is really pushy about using Edge. The VPN client I’m forced to use only works well with Edge to my chagrin.
Haven’t used Chrome in years, and I don’t feel I missed much because of that.
You’d be surprised …
And what about, i.e. 3rd-party connections to servers which are never listed in an adblocker, or whatever blocker (hoping you have the best lists, valid, updated, as complete as possible) yet are called for basic cross-site data sharing, a process extensively used by the GAMAM (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft), what about 3rd-party connections which are of NO utility, won’t harm yet increase the site’s rendering? And many more … As UBO’s AMO page states it, “uBlock Origin is not an “ad blocker”, it’s a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature.”.
You’d be willing to abandon such a defense for the sake of remaining sticked to an advertisement company which now forbids the use of the most valuable content blockers, not to name other extensions such as ‘DeepL Translate” as i see it appear on the article’s screenshot?
Good luck.
It’s bad enough that Google has infested most of the web with their garbage, and every website either nags me to sign in with Google or makes me complete Captchas to work to train their recognition algorithms for free. Now they’re using their entrenched position on the web to squash projects they don’t like.
Apparently the US is considering splitting Google up, but I have more chance winning the lottery. Regulators only want some money from Google and some phony promises that will mean nothing and be completely scrapped six months from now, because that’s how it always works in the US.
Last few days on various tech news sites and forums, enormous shilling for Mozilla and Firefox. In 2017, Firefox killed its powerful XUL add-ons and replaced it with WebExtensions, they introduced Google’s extension APIs in a carbon copy fashion, to facilitate cross-browser extension development. Mozilla did promise to extend WebExtensions with further powerful APIs and that never happened (empty words). Now I am supposed to believe that they will maintain the webRequest API after Google actually removes it from the code after June 2025? LOL. I doubt it, strongly doubt it, in fact.
Mozilla in FF 128.0 (conveniently also the new ESR base) introduced a mechanism where the browser directly phones home in the interest of advertisers, gHacks did report on that recently. That happened after the Mozilla Corporation had acquired Anonym, an ad company. Very friendly to the ad industry, they are. And if they kill uBO, where will you go next? Chrome? Edge? Haha.
Extensions are always at the mercy of the browser maker and the APIs the browser provides, that is why a sustainable solution that is actually independent needs to be part of the browser code itself. As a Brave Browser user, I do not give a single shit about what Chrome, Edge, or potentially Firefox do to extensions, I never relied on the bandaid fix that are extensions in the first place. And that’s also what I would generally recommend to other users as well.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Mozilla, against all well-informed expectations, actually goes through with their plan to maintain the webRequest API after Google no longer provides them the code on a silver platter (lol), if I was a website maintainer I would have substantial incentive to discriminate against the Gecko rendering engine in retaliation. Why should I support a browser whose adblocking ain’t neutered, and which the adblock advocates always mention in conjunction with its bandaid uBlock Origin? Discrimination against Firefox, contrary to discrimination against Brave might I add, is also trivial to implement, by just breaking your website on Gecko.
Mate, Brave seems to be a religion to you and that’s probably what caused the weird wall of shite you just spewed.
It’s just a browser, cool down and stop behaving like Brave is your church.
@Iron Heart
https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-brave-browser/
By the way is BAT crap still in Brave? How much money it shared with creators?
Enjoy Brave browser full of crap. I’m happy with Firefox.
Last few days on various tech news sites and forums, enormous shilling for Google and Brave. In 2024, Google killed its powerful Manifest V2 add-ons and replaced it with V3, Brave follows Google in a carbon copy fashion, to facilitate Chromium development, so they can focus on adding crypto mining bloat. Brave did promise to extend Manifest V2 and that will never happen (empty words). Now I am supposed to believe that they will maintain the Manifest V2 API after Google actually removes it from the code after June 2025? LOL. I doubt it, strongly doubt it, in fact.
Google introduced a mechanism where the browser directly phones home in the interest of advertisers, gHacks did report on that recently. That happened because Google is an ad company. Very friendly to the ad industry, they are. And if they kill uBO, where will you go next? Brave? Edge? They are all based on Google Chromium. Haha.
Extensions are always at the mercy of the browser maker and the APIs the browser provides, that is why a sustainable solution that is actually independent needs to be part of the browser code itself. As a Firefox Browser user, I do not give a single shit about what Chrome, Edge, or potentially Brave do to extensions, I never relied on the bandaid fix that are extensions in the first place. And that’s also what I would generally recommend to other users as well.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Brave, against all well-informed expectations, actually goes through with their plan to maintain the Manifest V2 API after Google no longer provides them the code on a silver platter (lol), if I was a website maintainer I would have substantial incentive to discriminate against the Brave crypto bloat in retaliation. Why should I support a browser whose adblocking is neutered, and which the adblock advocates always mention in conjunction with its band aid uBlock Origin? Discrimination against Firefox, contrary to discrimination against Brave might I add, is also hard to implement, by just breaking your website on Gecko, because it is trivial to spoof the user agent.
@traeh nori
You think you are funny and smart right now, but the shit satire you are writing sadly makes no sense. Brave does not need to maintain Manifest V2 to have functional adblocking in light of its native adblock lol. And good luck discriminating against Brave, it is using Chrome’s UA and is based on Chromium, whereas it’s trivial to break a site on Gecko with zero consequences.
I thought @traeh nori was pretty funny, myself.
Isn’t is ‘ironic’ that @Iron Heart seems to feel threatened by tiny marketshare Firefox. Now why is that? Is there some other motive you’re not telling us here? Hmmm?
After all, according to your dire predictions, Mozilla should be out of business by the end of the year, so what do you have to worry about?
;)
@IronTard
I will continue to use Firefox. Stay mad.
> I will continue to use Firefox. Stay mad.
Until they too block uBO because they can’t and won’t maintain the API on their own, lol.
@Iron Heart
>Until they too block uBO because they can’t and won’t maintain the API on their own, lol.
So never. That’s Brave. Stay mad Braveboy.
Long story told long. No offense.
Didn’t read. I will continue to use Firefox and to don’t a give a f**k about Brave.
> I will continue to use Firefox and to don’t a give a f**k about Brave.
And I don’t give a f**k about Firefox, just like most anybody else (in spite of the constant shilling)… What now?
Funny how you FF fans gather in droves under an article that isn’t related to FF at all, but hey.
“And I don’t give a f**k about Firefox, just like most anybody else (in spite of the constant shilling)”
You give so little about Firefox, that you write a 4 paragraph 345 word text wall about it.
> will be interesting to see what happens if Mozilla, against all well-informed expectations, actually goes through with their plan to maintain the webRequest API after Google no longer provides them the code on a silver platter (lol)
Are you fucking pretend to be ignorace my friend ?
Firefox’s WebExtension is just a fucking WRAPPER of XUL
And XUL does still exist, internally
That is why you can use userChrome.js, search about it. And it can call APIs that’s as strong as XUL era back then
@upp, don’t pay too much attention about Iron’s Heart, bleeding at the sole idea of the number of users who might quit Chrome for Firefox. His next comment may be, “But don’t worry, Brave browser is the savior”. It’s become such an automatism to devaluate Firefox that the guy is 100% predictable. I knew by just reading Ghacks’ RSS that he’d pop in and have id traditional anti-Firefox speech. I think he just can’t help it. It’s funny, empty but funny.
@Tom Hawack
> bleeding at the sole idea of the number of users who might quit Chrome for Firefox
LOL. Nothing will be happening, are you even aware how many users have an adblocker installed (hint: not the majority) and the percentage of that percentage for whom the adblocking capabilities Chrome offers in the future won’t be enough? I will be surprised if this moves market share towards Firefox beyond the margin of error. What my comment means to do is to give the Firefox zealots around these quarters a realistic look into the future, because Mozilla won’t be maintaining the webRequest API after Google drops it. If they wanted to write their own APIs and not just take what Google wrote (and maintains) for them, they would have done so long ago.
@Iron Heart,
> What my comment means to do is to give the Firefox zealots around these quarters a realistic look into the future,
What does anyone know about the future. Maybe the help of divinatory arts? Please provide your secret!
@Tom Hawack: I guess, he’s too ignorance at this point to even try, like Firefox can use filterResponseData, this API was previously available in XUL, that’s why Firefox’s WebExtension get this feature and Chrome don’t.
Because Firefox’s WebExtension emulates Chrome’s WE, not a completely rewrite, just think like XUL, but more restricted.
Source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/webRequest/filterResponseData
> Firefox’s WebExtension is just a fucking WRAPPER of XUL
No. No, it’s not. Sorry.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
https://devdoc.net/web/developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Comparison_with_XUL_XPCOM_extensions.html
Que sera, sera.
You wonder why you get so many replies and engagement, you come out of the gate red hot, chill out dude, lol. You sound like you’re at war with everyone all at once.
@bruh: Because Iron Heart doesn’t give a damn about other people’s opinions.
Theirs is the only right thing, and that for them they don’t care if other people are affected, if Brave doesn’t get affected, it doesn’t matter. Google can go 1984 and Firefox can do better or way worse, doesn’t matter since their beloved Brave team can do no wrong in fixing them…ignoring things like, say NFT thing.
It’s just sheer selfishness and tribalism.
It makes sense really, chrome is getting kneecapped, yet it has the most marketshare.
So Ublock will have to make a limited functionality version for the new chrome (because that’s where most users are), and that will mean that the best and most unrestricted version of the extension will be on Firefox, where there’s a small userbase, so potentially they’d be disincentivised from putting 100% effort into the firefox version as a result.
This is a play to hurt ublock and also split it’s developerbase somehow?
Is there a way to keep it running in Edge?
If you have Edge installed, you should be able to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge and add the Dword, ExtensionManifestV2Availability.
Yes, until June 2025:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployEdge/microsoft-edge-policies#extensionmanifestv2availability
So, Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
Same dword and value.
In which form should you enter the value, same as on Chrome “new Dword and set its value to 2” or
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
new Dword 0x00000002 as written on
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployEdge/microsoft-edge-policies#extensionmanifestv2availability