Tech Desk
Aug 13, 2024
An undated image of Google. — iStock
Alphabet-owned Google has purportedly replaced its extension support on Google Chrome, which is an unexpected bad news for some of the best ad blockers.
According to a recent report by PC World, which indicated that Google has changed its extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the latest V3. Google promised that this results no more remotely hosted code along with a host of application programming interface (APIs) and advancements to the platform.
However, it is bad news for one of the most popular ad blockers on the market, uBlock Origin.
uBlock Origin, which claimed to have over 30 million users on Google Chrome alone, still works at the time of writing. However, the app is set to be automatically disabled by upcoming Chrome updates soon.
Google would let users to enable the feature for a time, but that option would be ultimately removed, leading users to find either a new browser or a new ad blocker.
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All is not lost for fans of uBlock, as the company have launched the lite version of uBlock Origin. This version is compliant with Manifest V3 but comes with some trade-offs. For instance, while it does utilise the same core ad-blocking features, it doesn't provide dynamic filters for blocking scriptlet injection. uBlock Origin Lite is also less capable fighting anti-ad-blocking systems.
According to a recent GitHub post, uBlock developer Raymond Hill has no plans to change the original Web Store page with the new version, "I consider uBO Lite to be too different from uBO to be an automatic replacement. You would have to explicitly find a replacement to uBO according to what you expect from a content blocker. uBO Lite may or may not fulfill your expectations.”
Google has been checking different ways to counter ad blockers. For instance, a recent upgrade was indicted of deliberately impacting ad blockers functioning on YouTube. This recently followed YouTube's latest way for thwarting ad blockers.
