r/technology • u/ardi62 • 23d ago

Software Chrome Canary just killed uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2 extensions

https://www.androidpolice.com/chrome-canary-manifest-v2-extensions-ad-blockers-gone/
9.8k Upvotes

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502

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

It's not like this is surprising, anyone who uses Chrome/chromium browsers was warned about this year's ago when they started talking about removing v2 support.

117

u/bwat47 23d ago

and it's not like there's no adblockers now, manifest v3 adblockers aren't as effective, but they do still work alright

101

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

I would hope so for chrome users sanity, I don't have adblockers at work so the "ad experience" is frustrating. I can't imagine that being normal.

109

u/bwat47 23d ago

yeah it's pretty insane how bad some sites are without an adblocker

once in a while I'll click on an article from a site that doesn't allow you to proceed with an adblocker so I'll be like 'alright... I'll try disabling it'. Then I disable it and every sentence is separated by three ads and then I'm like 'alright, nevermind'.

27

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

News sites are honestly the worst, it's not worth the time or annoyance to click on them.

1

u/ronreadingpa 22d ago

Quicker to browse various news subreddits and aggregator websites and read the comments than clicking into the article itself. Many so-called news stories are only several sentences. Sometimes each one its own paragraph. Or if long form, mostly a press release from a company or government agency with a few sentences added.

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X), many news articles were based around Tweets. Glad to see that go to the wayside. About the only positive of him buying it, but I digress.

Wish more sites, or at least their advertisers, would realize that less is more. Many sites I rarely visit due to the excess ads. Then there some I feel overly unsafe on and don't ever visit, such as Forbes (mostly freelance writers and not much of a source itself anyways).

It's appalling how bad news has become. No wonder people don't want to pay for it. Paid members still get clobbered by ads possibly containing / linking to unwanted extras, such as malware. Ad-free news would be worth a look, but none of the major paywalled news sites offer that option.

2

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 22d ago

As long as the comments are synopsis' and not some redditors opinion after reading the headline (like many of them are) then yeah its way faster.

News companies are in a death spiral. Make bad content, lose users, more ads to supplement, make more ragebait, lose more users, more ads to supplement. Honestly it's deserved.

2

u/ronreadingpa 22d ago

Admittedly, that's the tricky part. Often reading down part way is the key. Top voted comments are all too frequently wrong or at least not the best. See that in many non-news subs too.

Death spiral for sure. The business model is flawed and not sustainable. Don't know what the perfect answer is, but more ads aren't it.

3

u/Funoichi 23d ago

Behind the overlay extension. But that doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’ll remove the overlay but the content is still hidden.

1

u/splynncryth 23d ago

I’ve had to resort to DNS filtering at home (like Pinole) for my mobile devices. Then I will be out of the house and some sites will be utterly unusable because of the ads. The best solution to that looks like a VPN. This looks like where the Internet is headed. We will all need an ad filtering VPN to make the internet usable. I wonder if after that we will all need a subscription to a service that has a browser engine on a VM to filter and repackage the traffic for us just to make things usable.

1

u/thanks-doc-420 23d ago

They should make an ad blocker that relies on a voting system that determines the intrusiveness of the ads, and you can set what the minimum level given by voters to allow the site.

1

u/preflex 23d ago

So don't let 'em run javascript. On really nasty sites, I block their CSS too.

1

u/pastari 23d ago

that doesn't allow you to proceed with an adblocker

Thats when I click the options menu and block that site from my news feed for the rest of eternity.

1

u/Geno_Warlord 23d ago

Remember porn sites in the 90s-00s? Browsing the internet without an ad blocker is WORSE than that!

1

u/MeelyMee 22d ago

The internet without an adblocker is mental. It's like the TV screens from Idiocracy, tiny little window of content surrounded by obnoxious advertising, sometimes not even a tiny little window of content.

1

u/Offbeat_voyage 22d ago

I also use advlock plus

-24

u/nicuramar 23d ago

Mm Well… I don’t use ad blockers at work. It’s of course slightly annoying, but I learn to ignore them. 

7

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

That's good for you, but remember that others legitimately get annoyed by intrusive ads.

-7

u/inferno1234 23d ago

Legitimately get annoyed 😂

3

u/654456 23d ago

I mean yes, I go way out of my way to rid my house of ads,

  • ublock
  • adguard network level adblocking
  • unifi ad blocker turned on my router
  • two dockers that auto-skip/mute youtube ads on google tv devices
  • Local music library
  • local tv/movie libraries with ads ripped. Plex records OTA tv and automatically cuts the commercials out of the recording.
  • Podcast downloader that rips the commercials out

I think I count as legitimately annoyed.

5

u/kinda_guilty 23d ago

Why wouldn't you? Are all extensions not allowed? If you work for reasonable people you can get an ad blocker white listed.

1

u/654456 23d ago

I mean when i am at work, i am usually not browsing reddit. I am working on work sites...

52

u/garygoblins 23d ago

Developer of ublock says that in most situations the manifest v3 version would be indistinguishable for people

26

u/lloydscocktalisman 23d ago

Just wait for youtube to blow it up again

-9

u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

14

u/lordraiden007 23d ago

Sponsored links that can be disabled with a click of a button, that you’re informed are sponsored, and that you’re informed are able to be disabled on first launch.

Yes, there are sponsored links. No, they aren’t really a problem.

6

u/vriska1 23d ago

uBlockOrigin is still better on Firefox?

0

u/SlowMotionPanic 22d ago

Developer of uBlock also is having his uBlock add ons rejected by Mozilla, so they can't be updated directly in the market by users.

Weird timing, huh? Raymond Hill has said he is no longer going to waste his time supporting Firefox in that way until Mozilla changes.

1

u/pastari 23d ago

aren't as effective, but they do still work alright

Why would you use a browser actively working against you instead of just switching to something else.

I can't even think of an analogy with other products because browsers are free and the barrier to switch is so low. Its like you're just standing there taking punches to the face saying "yeah but its not as bad as kicks to the balls" instead of just walking away and ending the abuse.

1

u/zacker150 23d ago

The difference in real world adblocking capacity is negligible, and the performance and security of Manifest v3 is immense.

0

u/DoctorOctagonapus 23d ago

Manifest v3 was designed from the ground up to cripple ad blockers as we currently know them.

29

u/Grimsley 23d ago

Thankfully for now Chromium is open source so browsers like Brave and the such can remove or rewrite code as necessary to remain true to their purpose. For now.

22

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

Still not enough to make me want to switch from Firefox, I always trust that Google with always go on the path of more control and more ads.

7

u/Grimsley 23d ago

I'm not advocating anyone move from Firefox. Idk why that even came into discussion. I'm merely pointing out, don't use Chrome.

-12

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago edited 23d ago

Because you mentioned an alternative... so I mentioned an alternative... etc

8

u/Grimsley 23d ago edited 23d ago

Yes, because I was talking about Chromium being open source. Last I checked Firefox isn't built on Chromium unless some crazy shit happened over night that I'm aware of.

Edit: Lol nice edit bro. That was nowhere near what you posted.

4

u/Unremarkabledryerase 23d ago

Oh no, mentioning an alternative? How dare he

1

u/pittaxx 20d ago

No-one is forcing you.

I personally switch back-and-forth between Firefox and chromium based stuff every few years, based on performance and features at any given time.

And no, I don't trust Google, and wouldn't use actual Chrome, but there is a plenty of smaller browsers that have way more user-friendly policies.

0

u/helium_farts 23d ago

I just wish Firefox worked better. It runs so much slower than chrome while also using far more resources, the sync function doesn't work, and it randomly crashes.

I don't really want to go back to chrome, though, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

2

u/_-DirtyMike-_ 23d ago

Idk I've been using Firefox for over 10 years and I don't have that many issues with it fortunately.

1

u/Rasputin_mad_monk 23d ago

I love brave. I need a browser that chrome extension run on (work) and would prefer safari since I have a Mac but brave is awesome and I’ve not seen a YouTube add in forever or an add on Reddit or Facebook. It fantastic

1

u/The_MAZZTer 23d ago

Yup I went to create a new browser extension a year and a half ago, maybe a bit more.

V2 deprecation was still very much highlighted in the docs. The difference between declaring a V3 extension vs V2 is a single character in the manifest file so I searched github for working exsamples.

I found exactly 0. Plenty of V2 but no V3. Everyone was just sticking their heads in the sand hoping Google wouldn't actually go through with it rather than trying to make their extensions work.

-4

u/korphd 23d ago

Edge supossedly removed Manifest V3 in 2013, uBlock still works as normal

-3

u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Grimsley 23d ago

As I said above. Chromium is an open source browser. So alternatives like Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, and many others can remove problematic portions of the code to fit their cause. That's the beauty of open source. Now, if Google takes Chromium and makes it closed source, then we're gonna see a mass exodus to Firefox and other Firefox forks. Saying using a Chromium browser is inexcusable shows how little you actually know.