Popular ad blocker has bypassed Google’s disruption for now

uBlock Origin, arguably the most popular ad blocker, will soon not work on Google Chrome. However, the developer of the extension has a trick that can help you bypass this ban until June of next year.

The removal of uBlock Origin from Google Chrome is inevitable, but you can stall it until next year. The extension won’t be supported on Chrome or other Chromium browsers because it’s based on the older Manifest V2 framework.

Currently, the search giant only shows a warning banner on uBlock Origin’s Chrome Web Store page saying, “This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions.”

The company says it will disable V2 extensions “gradually in the coming months” for Chrome stable users. Google aims to complete “the transition by the beginning of next year.”

However, enterprises will be given until June 2025 to migrate from the V2 framework. uBlock Origin’s founder, Raymond Hill, discussed a trick that could let you avail yourself of this extension.

Google

All you need to do is enable “ExtensionManifestV2Availability” on your browser. Hill has laid out detailed instructions on GitHub for both Windows and Mac Users.

Once Google successfully phases out the uBlock Origin, you’ll have the option to either switch to uBlock Origin Lite, which is based on the newer V3 framework, or look for another V3 extension.

Hill is currently unsure if they’ll update the current extension to the V3 manifest or make people transition to the uBlock Origin Lite.

“I haven’t decided yet how this will work, and I don’t know what is feasible. Forcing uBO Lite on people might not be the best move, as this would essentially obliterate all customization they might have made to uBO — uBO Lite is too different from uBO to make a seamless transition,” Hill said in reply to a user’s question on GitHub.

Recent years haven’t been great for ad blockers, especially those blocking YouTube ads. YouTube has been cracking down on ad blockers, sometimes skipping videos to the end or showing users a blank screen by adopting server-side ads.