Google automatically disables uBlock Origin adblocker on Google Chrome

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On March 4, 2025, Google Chrome automatically disabled uBlock Origin, the most popular adblocker to date, for all users as part of shift to the Manifest V3 version of Chrome.

Background

µBlock, first published on June 23rd, 2014, was forked into uBlock Origin, released on Jun 23, 2018. It is a wide-spectrum content blocker that browser users may install as an extension to block unwanted content while browsing the web, including advertisements, scripts, pop-ups, malware, crypominers, trackers, remote fonts, and more. It provides many benefits for users including lowered CPU usage, lowered memory usage, lowered network bandwidth usage, improved privacy, and improved security. uBlock Origin empowers users to take control of what is loaded and run in their computer's browser, providing users with a faster, safer, and less obtrusive web browsing experience.

Introduction of Manifest V3

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In 2018, Google announced that it would begin a shift to a new version of Google Chrome extension manifest called Manifest V3, or MV3 for short, "to create stronger security, privacy, and performance guarantees." In 2020, Google released a beta version of MV3, and by early 2022, Google Chrome disallowed users to release extensions on the Chrome Web Store that were only incompatible with MV3.

Google's response

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Consumer response

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There are doubts that MV3 does much for the security, since according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "when a malicious extension sneaks through the security review process, it is usually interested in simply observing the conversation between your browser and whatever websites you visit". And to quote Firefox’s Add-On Operations Manager: "they can still do that with the current webRequest API that is not blocking".

Users can still browse the web without ads and with reduced tracking by switching to a browser which continues to support Manifest V2 and the full version of uBlock Origin, such as Mozilla Firefox or the Chromium-based Brave.