from Hacker News

uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

by non- on 3/10/25, 5:30 PM with 987 comments

  • by bearjaws on 3/10/25, 5:41 PM

    Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit...

    I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story about improving privacy, a joke coming from Google. Then the excuse was "well it improves performance", which they could easily do by marking extensions as low performance.

    If Google wanted to improve this they have an entire search engine where they could re-rank sites based on privacy and performance.

    It was never about improving peoples web experience.

  • by freedomben on 3/10/25, 5:48 PM

    I hope Mozilla realizes (and still cares) that they have a huge opportunity here to be the power-browser where you can get awesome extensions, unlike the locked-down and hobbled Chromium ecosystem. I suspect they do realize this because they've been really leaning into extensions recently, but over the years I've worried that Mozilla's committment to Firefox isn't as serious as I would like.

    Regardless, I'd love to see this give FF a big bounce in the stats. Something to reinforce that there are people out here that really want manifest v2, badly enough to switch!

  • by crazygringo on 3/10/25, 6:09 PM

    Fortunately, at least so far, uBlock Origin Lite works perfectly fine on Chrome.

    I know people have made a lot of arguments as to why it might not be as good in theory, or why things might change in the future. But so far, ever since I was forced to switch, I have seen exactly zero difference. Lists are updated often enough that I haven't seen anything get through. Adblocking works on YouTube. If anything, pages seem to load even a little faster. I've had no complaints.

  • by phito on 3/10/25, 5:56 PM

    I hear so many people IRL complaining about this. I tell them to switch to firefox, that the adblockers still work there, and they still won't switch to it because they are "used to chrome". I really feel like google won this battle. People will through a lot of abuse just to maintain their habits.

  • by freedomben on 3/10/25, 5:50 PM

    I blacklisted Chrome in dnf (the Fedora system update manager) once we hit near the last version to allow manifest v2, but apparently it wasn't enough. They reached in to my system and deactivated/deleted my manifest v2 extensions anyway regardless, even though my version still "supports" them. I'm quite displeased to say the least. Ultimately it's probably for the best though as now my "slow fade" plan has to be accelerated. Time to rip the bandaid off.

  • by haswell on 3/10/25, 6:10 PM

    After 10+ years as a primary browser, I've been 100% off of Chrome for about 1.5 years now as part of a broader effort to de-Google my life, and things have been going well.

    It's interesting to notice how much my internal feelings have shifted over the years. There have been a few rare occasions where I had to use a Chromium-based browser, and I felt the same "ick" I used to feel when forced to use Internet Explorer for some reason.

    Come to the Firefox (and variant) side. The water is warm.

  • by caseyy on 3/10/25, 6:13 PM

    The new uBlock Origin Lite is compatible with Manifest v3 and has the featured flag on the Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...

  • by dgacmu on 3/10/25, 5:54 PM

    I've been running firefox on my laptop for the last year, with Chrome on my desktop, as a way to head-to-head them. For folks contemplating the switch, it hasn't been bad at all. Some better, some worse, but overall I rarely notice major differences except for a very small handful of sites that won't work with FF.

    And I still have all of my uBlock origin happiness. :)

  • by perihelions on 3/10/25, 5:43 PM

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43262531 ("uBlock Origin forcefully disabled by Chrome", 5 days ago, 204 comments)

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43099417 ("uBlock Origin Has Been Disabled", 19 days ago, 40 comments)

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43299886 ("The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome", 2 days ago, 663 comments)

  • by grimblee on 3/10/25, 8:33 PM

    Just stop using chrome, fight the monopoly, don't be a sheep. It's inconvenient ? Convenience is a trap, stop giving away your freedom and agency for convenience.

  • by jmuguy on 3/10/25, 6:03 PM

    Related if anyone is switching over. I like to run Firefox Developer Edition[0] as my "work" browser, with work related bookmarks, etc. and then regular Firefox for nonwork. This makes it really easy to keep the two separate. I know there's a lot of ways to segment within the same browser but this works well for me.

    [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

  • by Stagnant on 3/10/25, 5:59 PM

    For now you can still bring back manifest v2 support (which re-enables ublock origin if you haven't removed it) by making registry changes. Obviously only a temporary solution, might buy you a few months.

    Powershell commands to set them:

    1. New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome" -Force

    2. New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome" -Name "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" -Value 2 -PropertyType DWORD -Force

  • by sotix on 3/10/25, 10:28 PM

    This is the death of the hacker. We have allowed new heights of power and unchecked control decide they know better than us. We are no longer allowed or trusted to make choices in our best interests. Many practice apologetics for why this is necessary, pointing to Apple and Mozilla, as if that doesn’t make this change any less devastating. It was a great run.

    The silver lining is it can be the birth of a new generation of hackers. This generation’s version of the printer inspiring those who refuse to accept the hostile hand they’ve been dealt. Tech doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to accept these changes. Rebel! Start hacking away. Don’t join these companies. Found new ones that prioritize valuing users first forever. It’s a difficult task. But all difficult tasks we’ve solved were.

  • by vezycash on 3/10/25, 6:41 PM

    Major DOJ Antitrust Cases

    1. United States v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (1911)

       - Duration: 7 years (1904–1911)  

   - Outcome: Standard Oil was ruled an illegal monopoly and broken up into 34 companies.
    2. United States v. Microsoft Corp. (1998)

       - Duration: 4 years (1998–2002) 
 
   - Outcome: Initially ordered to split, but after appeals, Microsoft avoided a breakup and instead agreed to business restrictions.
    3. United States v. AT&T (Bell System) (1982)

       - Duration: 8 years (1974–1982)  

   - Outcome: AT&T agreed to a settlement, leading to the 1984 breakup into seven "Baby Bells" to increase competition.

  • by imroot on 3/10/25, 6:12 PM

    I've eliminated Chrome from my personal systems when uBO stopped working. Blocking v2 manifests also broke a few extensions that were being developed for my day job: they've spent the last few weeks working on Firefox extensions and are almost at the point where they're getting ready to wipe Chrome from our corporate machines.

  • by chpatrick on 3/10/25, 5:56 PM

    This made me go back to Firefox after 15 years of using Chrome personally.

  • by Funes- on 3/10/25, 10:39 PM

    Just use Brave if you can't be bothered to use some extremely ethical alternative that's harder to set up. It blocks everything out of the box. Now, if you do worry about supporting more ethical browsers, try qutebrowser (with some greasemonkey scripts added in).

  • by submeta on 3/10/25, 6:07 PM

    Abandoned Chrome years ago. Am using Firefox and never looked back. Same with other Google products: Replaced Gmail with Fastmail, Google Docs with Office365 (yeah, I know, Microsoft).

  • by ltbarcly3 on 3/10/25, 6:13 PM

    I switched to firefox a few months ago because of this. However, I just switched back last week. Overall firefox is a better browser. The ability to screenshot in the browser is so useful and I used it 10x per day, not having it in chrome is a real pain.

    But.. nobody tests on it anymore I think. Lots of popular sites are very slow and laggy with it, including sites I need for work. I don't think this is because of inferior technology, I think I just think nobody spends the time to make sure things work well on firefox. I could split-brain and use chrome for github and some other stuff but that is such a pain when clicking links.

    The other issue is I think firefox support will only get worse. Their market share is back to where it was in IE6 days and dropping.

  • by bhrlady on 3/10/25, 8:39 PM

    There are only two business models on the web: either you pay for your browser, or someone else does. This is why Orion is entirely user-funded, and can continue serving users by prioritizing privacy, control, and features like powerful, built-in ad-blocking. Not third party deals, ads, or any other incentive to corrupt the user experience and overall quality.

    (Disclosure, I work for Kagi, creator of the Orion browser.)

  • by bryanhogan on 3/10/25, 7:59 PM

    I have moved to Firefox since the announcements that Chrome won't allow must have extensions such as uBlock. That Firefox allows extensions both on desktop and mobile is great.

    But there are some things that I miss from Chrome, especially for web development. In Chrome it is possible to adjust the CSS of grid and flex containers within the developer window, which can be helpful. Firefox and Firefox Developer Edition don't have this. Firefox also seems to sometimes have problems with reloading a page when it is changed during development, whereas in Chrome this always was instant. Then there are some small feature and UI differences, like the reading-mode on Firefox is nice, but the UI of Chrome feels just a bit nicer.

  • by lousken on 3/10/25, 6:59 PM

    This was to be expected, however I am curious if Vivaldi, Brave and others will make their own webstore which will have plugins like ublock origin, and how long till Mozilla follows suit.

  • by benkaiser on 3/10/25, 9:37 PM

    As a developer, the one feature I really love in Chrome is PWAs. But Firefox abandoned PWA support years ago, and seems to have no appetite for adding PWAs back[1]. Maybe I'll just have to split my usage across PWAs in Chrome (since I trust those apps/websites anyway) and Firefox for general browsing.

    [1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/bring-back-pwa-progress...

  • by k0stas on 3/10/25, 5:56 PM

    There is still a DOM hack to allow installation by re-enabling the "Add to Chrome" button on the linked page. See "Download and install uBlock Origin in Chrome" on this page: https://www.neowin.net/guides/google-turned-off-ublock-in-ch...

    After the install, Chrome will disable the extension on the next restart but it can be re-enabled .. for now.

  • by pton_xd on 3/10/25, 6:04 PM

    Thanks for keeping me safe, Google! You know better than me what software I should be running on my computer.

  • by eYrKEC2 on 3/10/25, 6:10 PM

    Brave, fork of Chrome. https://brave.com/

    Ignore the crypto; enjoy the integrated ad-blocking.

    Most seamless ad-blocking I've ever experienced.

  • by blankx32 on 3/10/25, 5:41 PM

    Goodbye Chrome, good night

  • by egurns on 3/10/25, 6:26 PM

    At the time of writing this comment, 53 minutes after OP, I am able to install- and use- uBlock Origin from the Chrome Web Store. What am I missing?

  • by whitepoplar on 3/10/25, 5:41 PM

    uBlock Origin Lite is still available, thankfully.

  • by kenanfyi on 3/10/25, 7:41 PM

    As a person who switched constantly between browsers (except Chrome, never used it after 2015) in the past 10+ years, I can confirm that realigning the habits are not that difficult. Learn to use the web, not the tool to browse it.

    So, switch to something which has privacy respecting attitude or at least tries to have it and ditch everything who does not. It is not just the browser itself, but also the services and tools that you use to do your job: browsing. After some time, you will realize how horrible browsing the web with Chrome was in this respect and how easy it is to just browse the web without a bloated piece of advertising machine.

  • by dogzandcatz on 3/11/25, 2:36 AM

    Idea/Question/Possibility

    If uBlock Origin uses filters, would it not be possible to build a program that acts as a "proxy" for Linux/macOS/Windows, etc., that uses the same or similarly crafted filters to do something akin to what some of us did back in the Flash LSO supercookie days? I was a Linux user then and I recall creating a symlink from .macromedia and .adobe to /dev/null. The cookies were written to their folders but went into the event horizon of /dev/null and I never had to worry about them, but the websites worked like a charm.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but would it not be possible to use filters similar, or even different than uBlocks, to "symlink" the addresses to /dev/null or other bit bucket like NULL on other OSes? I write automation code, so I don't have the chops to develop such a program/project, but I can see it in my head "how it might work". Thoughts, ideas, criticisms welcome.

    I've also taken to using Violent Monkey and scripts to block quite a bit of nonsense on the web. Violent Monkey and the iFrame blockers work well with YouTube. I suppose it's also a matter of time before things like Violent Monkey are removed as well. There has to be a way to proxy the traffic through a filter list and /dev/null the offending objects.

  • by est on 3/22/25, 2:52 PM

    We should have third-party .dll injection plugins.

    Microsoft missed a lot by not keeping ManifestV2 in Edge.

  • by darkhorse222 on 3/10/25, 5:50 PM

    I've been using Firefox for years now after being an avid chrome user and I do not miss it at all.

  • by chrisweekly on 3/10/25, 5:50 PM

    Hoping someone can point me to a Chrome browser extension that supports custom block rules. My strange situ involves an IT-managed laptop / browser that can't access certain websites because of their embedded resources (eg fonts) hosted on 3rd-party domains; firewall rules block the embedded content, breaking the (allowed) main site I'm trying to visit. uBlock Origin was perfect: I'd craft custom rules to disallow problematic embedded resources, problem solved.

  • by Jalad on 3/10/25, 5:37 PM

    The last Chrome update also disabled it for me because it's a manifest v2 extension. I use firefox on my personal computers, but might need to switch on my work PCs as well

  • by ge96 on 3/10/25, 5:50 PM

    Is it actually gone? I thought they just put that warning.

    I just re-enabled the one already installed on my devices.

    Once it's legit gone gone though yeah I'm going to Firefox or use Edge for web dev stuff

    Edit: I will say I am a hypocrite though I am trying to build a following by posting on YouTube... I don't control the ads on there, maybe you do when you are monetizable but yeah sucks I feel bad for the viewers. At the same time... I'll spend weeks/months on a project and no one cares so idk.

  • by baxuz on 3/11/25, 8:54 AM

    I've been a happy user of Adguard for over 5 years, on all my devices, so I am luckily unaffected by this.

    So far it seems to be the only general solution that can inject cosmetic filters into network requests while blocking on a request (not dns-only) level.

    https://adguard.com/en/blog/mv2-extensions-no-longer-alterna...

  • by almd on 3/11/25, 12:45 PM

    My dumb theory is that they’re trying to break up the “monopoly” allegations. But, I’m not sure what the stats are for how many people use ad block blockers like ublock, and are willing to migrate to a different browser because of its loss. On top of that, like others say there are still ad blockers available.

    Terrible sample size: I moved to FF as soon as I couldn’t use a cookie cleaner for web dev work, and ublock origin.

  • by MinimalAction on 3/11/25, 3:37 AM

    I have been using Brave and that has in-built adblocker, I suppose. I have not faced any huge problem yet, and the browsing has been super smooth.

  • by vlod on 3/10/25, 6:21 PM

    Invitation to come join the Firefox side. We have cookies!

  • by dbg31415 on 3/10/25, 6:34 PM

    uBlock Origin still works in Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

    And you can, I believe, still just modify your hosts table to block out ads in Chrome. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

    Or your router's DNS using something like NextDNS. https://nextdns.io/

    Ads suck. Support content where you can, but even when you pay they still serve ads / tracking scripts. So fuck 'em. Block all the ads.

  • by kemono_tigris on 3/10/25, 5:59 PM

    Since Chrome discontinued support for Manifest V2 extensions, I’ve switched to Mullvad Browser for browsing ad-heavy websites. It comes with uBlock Origin pre-installed, is open source, and is developed by a reputable company.

  • by stevetron on 3/10/25, 5:53 PM

    The source code is available for Chrome. Suppose one downloads the source code, and then re-enables the Manifest v2? A bit of work, particularly when you have to do other things that probably allow it to co-exist with Manifest v3, and Manifest v4 when it comes. And prevent updates from taking it all out again. While working on it, flip the compiler's command-line switch that allows the executable to run on Windows 7.

    How long after the announced Windows 10 end of life will it be before all the software companies say 'Windows 11 is the minimum' like was seen with Windows 7?

  • by portaouflop on 3/10/25, 6:06 PM

    https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/releases

    uBlockOrigin “Lite” is a good(?) replacement afaict

  • by BuckRogers on 3/10/25, 6:48 PM

    I moved to Adguard years ago when I found that uBlock Origin Lite doesn't support custom filter lists. If Adguard can support that on MV3 then uBlock Origin is artificially gimping uBOL on Edge/Chrome.

  • by Animats on 3/10/25, 6:33 PM

    Surprising to see that happen just as Google is entering an antitrust breakup.

  • by Havoc on 3/10/25, 6:01 PM

    The banner at the top is really selling it

    >Switch to Chrome to install extensions and themes

  • by dredmorbius on 3/10/25, 8:43 PM

    An interesting day on which to impose this restriction, given:

    "DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next"

    <https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-...>

    HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43323485>

  • by sorenKaram on 3/10/25, 7:36 PM

    This happened to me so I just switched over to Adblock Plus. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/adblock-plus-free-a...

    AddBlock is still available. I was wondering if there is some issue with the extension itself that it got flagged? Maybe an update to the codebase would make the extension installe-able again?

  • by firebot on 3/10/25, 10:06 PM

    works fine here, though it says it "may soon no longer be supported"

    Edge store doesn't even mention that, in fact it's featured.

    I switched to edge canary on my phone because the dev options allow you to install extensions by id/crx, which I've used to get ublock origin, though it crashes sometimes, and doesn't work when you reload the whole browser, until you refresh the page or manually reactivate the extension....

  • by nine_zeros on 3/10/25, 7:55 PM

    Use Brave browser - both on phones and laptops. The ad-free experience will change your perspective on what internet looks like. You won't miss Google.

  • by enigma101 on 3/11/25, 2:51 PM

    There are other browsers you know Brave and such? It really saves you money from all the blocked ads traffic and is not a backdoor/spyware

  • by throw7 on 3/10/25, 8:29 PM

    The only chrome browser I'm using is on a cheap chromebook I bought.

    It looks like I could turn on the linux vm and run firefox, but it "only" has a 16GB ssd of which like 12GB is "system space" (ridiculous) and I only have 1GB left which isn't enough to enable the linux dev environment.

    I could look into seeing if I can get native linux on the hardware, but it's probably not worth the time and trouble for it.

  • by h14h on 3/11/25, 1:25 AM

    Is there anything preventing the creation of an independent marketplace for chromium extensions?

    I haven't used Chrome itself in years, but have had a hard time giving up Chromium-based browsers due to the rendering performance. It's always felt weird that the only way of getting extensions on these browsers was via the Chrome Web Store.

    If there are viable alternatives I've not heard of, I hope folks let me know.

  • by tech234a on 3/10/25, 7:19 PM

    This removal can be bypassed until June (edit: or possibly even August) by changing some flags or setting enterprise policies: https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1itw1bz/end_o...

  • by codedokode on 3/10/25, 9:10 PM

    Note that Google Chrome contains features that allow sharing your interests with advertisers and "measuring" ads performance. It looks more and more as ad browsing client rather than a web browser: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/13355898

  • by xyzabc098123 on 3/12/25, 4:18 AM

    Im genuinely curious, with all these bashing going around. How is it the fault of ads vendors when website/webapp publishers are the ones that put ads on them?

    Like one day Wikipedia inserts ads on their pages to keep the lights on. We bash Google for blocking uBlock?

    I feel like I'm missing out on something. Please help me understand.

  • by hintymad on 3/10/25, 6:18 PM

    Will uBlock Origin Lite[1] a good alternative to uBlock Origin? It is one of the alternatives recommended by the uBlock Origin tea.

    [1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...

  • by doright on 3/11/25, 3:25 AM

    I'd like to know some statistics from before and after this event. Change in browser share if such a thing is recordable (unsure if ungoogled-chromium has a different user agent), received download counts of different uBlock versions (Origin and Lite), difference in Google's revenue as a result of wiping uBlock Origin.

  • by gloosx on 3/10/25, 6:29 PM

    I've been personally enjoying Ghostery extension for the past year, block all ads, youtube, any HTML5 player, banners, popups – really clean and tidy browsing experience.

    It didn't even catch any hype regarding this manifest support issue uBlock origin has, and it keeps silently working good without any interruptions, I wonder why is that?

  • by rohanashik on 3/15/25, 5:17 PM

    If there is a uBlock origin VPN that blocks ad traffic from PC level it will be a good solution. No need to rely on browser plugin. Also it can work on mobile and iPads.

  • by vemv on 3/10/25, 6:26 PM

    What's the best next choice if I don't want to move away from a Chrome-like experience?

    (Old habits die hard)

    There's https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium - is it a sound choice nowadays?

  • by rmoriz on 3/10/25, 6:33 PM

    Switched to Firefox a year ago, no regrets. Only flashing devices via webserial (Meshtastic etc) is missing for me.

  • by aerhardt on 3/10/25, 7:58 PM

    I have it installed on Arc and it still works, I guess that's expected but it will degrade soon? I love Arc but I'd better not see an ad or that will be reason to jump ship. I pay for quite a few web services I like (eg, Youtube) but I'd drop a bollock if I saw a display ad on the open web.

  • by JimmaDaRustla on 3/10/25, 7:28 PM

    How long until other chromium browsers follow suit? I'm currently using Edge.

    I also wonder when someone one will "hack" chromium to run whatever extensions they want - I could build my own extension, or build uBlock Origin from the source (if available) and execute the extension regardless of the store.

  • by darepublic on 3/11/25, 3:11 AM

    Chrome has been randomly turning off my ublock origin and I've had to manually turn it back on. Don't you take away my adblock or you'll get the boot! I am willing to escalate this indefinitely, to the point of just not going on to any part of the internet with ads.

  • by nilslindemann on 3/10/25, 8:17 PM

    For the moment I can still see the "Add to Chrome"-Button on that page in Ungoogled Chromium :)

  • by sunaookami on 3/11/25, 6:27 AM

    At least uBO can be replaced with AdGuard or uBO Lite but there are a LOT of extensions (over half of mine!) that are still not compatible with MV3. "Imagus Mod" for example or script managers like Violentmonkey. Which is why I switched to Firefox last summer.

  • by byearthithatius on 3/10/25, 6:30 PM

    This is why I run Firefox and will continue to do so. Google Chrome sucks I only have to to test stuff.

  • by catigula on 3/10/25, 7:04 PM

    We have to put some of this on Firefox for failing to remain competitive in the engineering arena.

    If it's too expensive to develop a viable alternative to chromium, just say that.

    The Firefox that has been trundling along for years is really just an excuse to keep the chromium monopoly afloat.

  • by m4r1k on 3/10/25, 8:54 PM

    Today marks my last day as a Chrome user. And fellas I encourage y’all to switch away from Chrome

  • by Beermotor on 3/11/25, 7:48 PM

    Coincidentally Google Chrome is no longer available on a single computing device I own.

  • by lifeisgood99 on 3/10/25, 5:42 PM

    Chrome is no longer available on my machine. It hasn't been for some years now but still.

  • by johnisgood on 3/10/25, 7:00 PM

  • by ivewonyoung on 3/10/25, 5:45 PM

    Does this mean it won't be able to get updates to extension code(not block lists) anymore?

    I am getting high CPU usage with uBO since yesterday but I do have a lot of tabs so I was wondering if thats a bug that will get fixed.

  • by baud147258 on 3/11/25, 12:19 AM

    When Google nuked the (manifest V2) extensions I had on Chrome, without letting me export their settings (custom filters for ublock origin, RSS reader feeds), I bit the bullet and switched to Firefox.

  • by sergiotapia on 3/10/25, 5:58 PM

    if you are in tech do your friends and family a favor:

    Download and setup Brave browser on their device. I haven't seen an ad in years.

    https://brave.com/

  • by exiguus on 3/10/25, 9:14 PM

    Consider discontinuing the use of Google, AWS/Amazon, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and ChatGPT if you value freedom. There are numerous excellent alternatives available.

  • by prophesi on 3/10/25, 5:55 PM

    The adblock I use[0] (based on uBlock) hasn't been available on the Chrome store nearly since day 1.

    [0] https://adnauseam.io/

  • by fortran77 on 3/10/25, 6:22 PM

    It's still working on edge, but I wonder how long that will last.

  • by wistlo on 3/10/25, 6:21 PM

    When I click the link for this story, Edge (stop laughing. Please.) pops up "uBlock Origin works on Microsoft Edge." (It's already there, Edge, but thank you).

    Edge is based on Chromium, so would that mean this breakage will eventually apply to Edge as the Manifest changes, uhm, manifest to Chromium-based products? Or is this just a Google Chrome thing?

    FWIW I keep Firefox around but I have to admit I like Edge's smooth sync of bookmarks and settings across machines and even different platforms. I switched about two years ago when Edge was clearly faster and lighter. It's no longer as lightweight and there are slowly accumulating annoyances coming mostly from some Microsoft Clippy-esque attempts to make some tasks "easier" (mostly via Copilot) but I still prefer it to Firefox. My former employer/retiree benefits site, for example, won't open at all in Firefox. I've considered other Chromium based browsers like Brave but haven't (yet) been sufficiently motivated to switch. (Give Microsoft some time, I expect they'll eshit Edge eventually).

  • by vivzkestrel on 3/10/25, 5:51 PM

    what ll it take to convert 80% of the world wide web users from chrome to firefox. can we write a super duper complicated migrator of sorts that literally installs firefox on behalf of the user, migrates all their data, migrates all extensions from chrome to firefox, even suggests alternative extensions for the ones that are not available and market the hell out of this migrator across x, bluesky, reddit etc?, One click migration from chrome to firefox, 0 tinkering

  • by deadbabe on 3/10/25, 7:23 PM

    Use Brave, it’s been many years and people have few complaints.

  • by odieldomanie on 3/10/25, 6:46 PM

    On Firefox, I use a uBlock Origin script to block Twitch ads. (Normal filters don't work on Twitch.) Is it possible to block Twitch ads with uBO-Lite as well?

  • by pcdoodle on 3/11/25, 2:20 PM

    Time to try Brave. Out of the box, it's very nice.

  • by dogzandcatz on 3/11/25, 4:25 PM

    https://mitmproxy.org/

    Either Python or PowerShell would work for the scripting.

  • by AJRF on 3/10/25, 5:58 PM

    I am coming from a place of ignorance, but could uBlock have worked on Manifest v3?

    It seems like it would have worked, but the danger was over time Google report less and less information to the extension, but as it is today, the extension would have worked the same on v3 as v2?

    As I say - I am ignorant sorry, its hard to search for an answer to this specific question

    Edit: Sorry the answer is here: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...

  • by ZetsuBouKyo on 3/11/25, 6:41 AM

    The US Department of Justice has a proposal that Google sell off Chrome to prevent a monopoly. This might be a great approach to solve the problem.

  • by NoahZuniga on 3/10/25, 6:23 PM

    It's been like this for quite a while already

  • by djtriptych on 3/11/25, 12:30 AM

    Yup they finally got me to switch to Firefox

  • by system2 on 3/10/25, 6:10 PM

    If I owned Mozilla I'd be blasting commercials full-force about this until all my marketing budget runs out.

  • by 5etho on 3/10/25, 10:19 PM

    how about vivaldi? original developers from Opera? I totally forgot about it in last 5 years, ayone using it?

  • by Am4TIfIsER0ppos on 3/10/25, 7:20 PM

    How long do you reckon before firefox/mozilla follow suit? Weeks? Months? Years? A year is my guess.

  • by vachina on 3/11/25, 1:50 AM

    And that is precisely the moment I migrated to Firefox, together with my entire family.

    Chrome is dead. Long live Firefox.

  • by atum47 on 3/10/25, 7:44 PM

    On kinda related news: Firefox don't allow you to set the default homepage. What's up with that?

  • by hit8run on 3/11/25, 2:39 AM

    How fitting: I am also no longer available for Chrome.

    Safari on the Mac and Firefox on Linux and Windows it is for me.

  • by leke on 3/10/25, 9:46 PM

    How is it still running on Brave then?

  • by busymom0 on 3/10/25, 6:11 PM

    It's funny how on Safari, the webstore link shows a message:

    > Switch to Chrome to install extensions and themes

  • by Cub3 on 3/11/25, 2:10 AM

    Why not swap to dns blocking with NextDNS or something similar? Take it out of the browsers hands?

  • by southernplaces7 on 3/12/25, 4:59 AM

    Odd this. I have ublock on my chrome browser right now and it's running fine.

  • by LoveMortuus on 3/12/25, 5:13 AM

    Meanwhile Microsoft Edge ships with an Ad Blocker both on desktop and on mobile!

  • by bigbuppo on 3/10/25, 7:27 PM

    Monopolists gonna use every anti-competitive tactic in the book to protect their racket.

  • by rayiner on 3/11/25, 4:03 AM

    What happened to web standards? Why are we all slaves to Google and Chrome anyway?

  • by dartharva on 3/10/25, 6:08 PM

    Curiously, it is still working in Chrome on my laptop (running Linux Mint) right now.

  • by rednafi on 3/10/25, 6:22 PM

    Firefox sucks and doesn’t work for me. Maybe I will give Brave with ublock a try.

  • by aeblyve on 3/10/25, 6:04 PM

    If you do not interfere in politics, eventually politics will interfere with you.

  • by charliea0 on 3/10/25, 5:59 PM

    Is there any justification for this beyond increasing Google's ad revenue?

  • by pete1302 on 3/10/25, 7:40 PM

    I was here, I saw the crime

  • by m4rtink on 3/10/25, 7:37 PM

    So they really want to get broken up due to shady advertising deals. :-)

  • by bsdice on 3/11/25, 2:45 AM

    The future and maximum freedom lies in open source, where a team of dedicated users or developers actively de-enshittifies products.

    If you are on Arch Linux, try ungoogled-chromium:

    https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ungoogled-chromium or precompiled https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ungoogled-chromium-bin possibly with https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store and possibly using a .config/chromium-flags.conf like this:

    --extension-mime-request-handling=always-prompt-for-install --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL --wm-window-animations-disabled --animation-duration-scale=0

    Timely updates, team defending manifest V2, no user data stealing or background scanning b/s, browser as it should be. Got a 10 year old machine with Intel iGPU and even video acceleration in the browser works.

  • by anjel on 3/10/25, 8:06 PM

    Just curious, has google solved the ads-as-malware-vector of infection?

  • by cratermoon on 3/10/25, 8:28 PM

    But hey! We got command and commandfor in HTML! Progress, amirite?

  • by klysm on 3/10/25, 5:49 PM

    The shareholders will be grateful! A great victory for google!

  • by tap-snap-or-nap on 3/11/25, 7:01 AM

    Without ad blockers, I will not even browse the internet.

  • by loughnane on 3/10/25, 7:41 PM

    I desperately want to pay for a browser that caters to me

  • by 01jonny01 on 3/11/25, 1:45 AM

    I use skipvids.com now. No ads and background playback

  • by xedrac on 3/11/25, 9:11 PM

    Firefox is the way. Chrome may as well be Edge.

  • by ur-whale on 3/10/25, 9:11 PM

    If are unfortunate enough to still use Chrome, please read:

    https://contrachrome.com/

  • by Deprogrammer9 on 3/10/25, 7:32 PM

    sideload it! mine is working fine still.

  • by buyucu on 3/10/25, 7:34 PM

    the internet is unusable without uBlock origin. I would never use a browser that did not support uBlock.

  • by dmead on 3/10/25, 7:07 PM

    Makes me happy I never used chrome.

  • by raajg on 3/10/25, 8:37 PM

    Time to set up Pi-Hole on my Rapsberry Pi 4

    https://pi-hole.net/

  • by zfg on 3/10/25, 7:18 PM

    uBlock Origin always worked best in Firefox anyhow:

    https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

  • by jmyeet on 3/10/25, 6:31 PM

    What's frustrating to me is how predictable all this is if you analyze the world with a materialist understanding.

    To boil it down, the most dominant philosophy, whether peole know it or not, is idealism. In idealism, people, nations, corporations, etc have some inherent quality beyond their physical make up. It's almost spiritual in that way. Even the concept of a soul is an idealist position. It's largely a circular argument that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

    So, the USA on the world stage is the good guy because we are the good guys, regardless of our actions or the consequences thereof. So an awful lot of effort is spent to label certain actors as "good" or "bad" to suit some objective. Superhero movies and a perfect example of idealism and it's no coincidence that they've had a renaissance since 9/11.

    Materialism is simply the view that the physical world is all there is. The consequence of this is that we affect the material world and it affects us. There are no inherent qualities like being "good" or "bad". Instead, those are simply labels you apply to the actions of an entity.

    My point here is that for years Google pushed this good guy narrative (ie "don't be evil") but any materialist understands that Google is a corporation so ultimately will act like any other corporation.

    Google makes money selling ads. Ad blockers affect Google's bottom line. The relentless pursuit of increasing profits means fighting ad blockers was always an inevitability. Nobody should be surprised by that.

    Now some will point to Google's control of Chrome as an antitrust issue and it probably is but that misses the point. A corporation that solely owns Chrome will ultimately act in a user-hostile way too because that's what corporations do.

    The only long-term successful model for something like Chrome is to be something like the Wikimedia Foundation. The profit motive will always ultimately destroy it otherwise. If you can even find a business model for a browser, which I have serious doubts about.

    A materialist knows all this because of how the workers relate to the means of production. A collective (which Wikimedia Foundation is, basically) is where the workers own the means of production. A corporation introduces capital owners whose interests are in direct opposition to that of the users.

  • by harrytang on 3/10/25, 6:09 PM

    It is a good ad blocker!

  • by theLegionWithin on 3/10/25, 11:26 PM

    just run a pihole. superior to a browser plugin in every way

  • by kingstoned on 3/10/25, 7:21 PM

    Meanwhile scam cookie stuffing extensions like Honey are 'featured'

  • by lofaszvanitt on 3/11/25, 11:52 PM

    DOJ, time to act.

  • by bradgessler on 3/10/25, 6:55 PM

    Stop using Chrome.

  • by ein0p on 3/10/25, 8:09 PM

    Uh, do Brave users need to sideload now? What about updates? Any official guidance from Brave on this?

  • by DeathArrow on 3/10/25, 6:29 PM

    Do no evil!

  • by stainablesteel on 3/10/25, 5:46 PM

    just another reason to break up the monopoly

  • by whatamidoingyo on 3/10/25, 6:18 PM

    [flagged]

  • by fpg69 on 3/10/25, 5:44 PM

    [flagged]

  • by hsuduebc2 on 3/10/25, 6:18 PM