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Extensions that use Manifest V3, including uBlock Origin, will soon stop working on Microsoft Edge. Recent updates February 26, 2025 at 6:35 AM ET: While Microsoft will end support for Manifest V2 at some point, which will block uBlock Origin, it appears that cutoff date has not occurred yet. The latest version of Microsoft Edge Canary does not support uBlock Origin, but that change has not made its way to the stable version of Edge yet. The specific text in the prompt also suggests the change may have appeared in Edge Canary on accident. This article has been updated to reflect the most recent and accurate information. The days of uBlock Origin are numbered, at least on Chromium browsers. Earlier this week, reports emerged that uBlock Origin stopped working on Google Chrome. Now, it seems uBlock Origin could soon be disabled in Microsoft Edge. Windows Report ran into a prompt within Edge that states "2 extensions were turned off." Among those extensions was uBlock Origin. Edge recommends removing the disabled extensions since they're no longer supported. The most recent version of Microsoft Edge Canary states that uBlock Origin is no longer supported. According to Leo Varela, who tracks changes in Edge, the cutoff may have been unexpected. "Google has started disabling unsupported extensions in Chrome Stable (it's been news in several media) and I think this change came to Edge Canary unexpectedly, it's not the first time that some changes made in the Stable version of Chrome come to Edge Canary unexpectedly," said Varela on X. We knew that Edge would end support for certain extensions at some point, but the company's document on the situation lists "TBD" in the timeline. Even if Edge supports uBlock Origin at the moment, that will change in the future. Why is uBlock Origin being removed? Considering that a large portion of Google's revenue comes from advertising, you may have assumed the cutoff for uBlock Origin is some targeted attack. While I suppose it's impossible to decipher the tech giant's motives, the end of uBlock Origin support is related to security and performance. Years ago, Google introduced Manifest V3, a new version of its extension platform. Extensions built on that platform are more secure, more private, and perform better. Unfortunately, they also cannot fully use a specific API that is essential for uBlock Origin to function. The WebRequest API that allows content blockers to block ads and other content before it loads is limited in Manifest V3. With the limits in place on WebRequest V3, uBlock Origin's picker cannot work. The picker allows you to block specific elements. For example, you can choose to block a pop-up video or a prompt that uBlock Origin does not view as an ad by default. Which browsers support uBlock Origin? Both the desktop and mobile versions of Mozilla Firefox still support uBlock Origin. (Image credit: Future) Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are in the process of ending support for Manifest V2. That means uBlock Origin either has already stopped working or will stop working in the near future. The process is gradual, so you may have a bit of time to find a suitable alternative. Firefox will continue to support uBlock Origin. Mozilla explained in a blog post that it will maintain blocking WebRequest API support within Firefox. That means that even after the migration to Manifest V3, uBlock Origin will continue to work in Firefox. uBlock Origin alternatives While uBlock Origin is an excellent content blocker, it is far from the only content blocker. If you want to stick with the same developers, you can switch to uBlock Origin Lite. That extension lacks the finer controls of the original uBlock Origin, but it still works well. Most importantly, it works within browsers that have ended support for Manifest V2. You can also switch to a different ad blocker. In their AdGuard review, our colleagues at TechRadar gave that program a 4.5 out of 5. AdGuard also supports blocking cookies, mobile banners, popups, social widgets, and other non-ad content that you may not want to see. One thing that sticks out about AdGuard for Windows is that it works in apps as well as in browsers. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of January): 487 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

If you use the uBlock Origin extension in Google Chrome or Edge, you should probably start looking for alternative browsers or extensions—either way. A few days ago, users noticed that Google had begun disabling uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions as part of the migration to Manifest V3. Now, Microsoft Edge appears to be following suit. The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt). At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans. Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store, which recently received a big update. In August 2024, when Google started flagging uBlock Origin as unsupported, the extension's maker stepped in and recommended users switch to uBlock Origin Lite, a Manifest V3-based extension, and accept some of its limitations. Another option is to switch to Firefox. Mozilla recently announced its plans to keep Manifest V2 extensions working, including uBlock Origin, based on Mozilla Manifesto, which claims that "individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it." Now, users can either switch to a browser that still supports MV2 extensions or move to MV3-based ad blockers. Of course, not all MV2 extensions have "more modern" versions, so for many, switching to Firefox or another browser with MV2 support will be the only option to keep old extensions working. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of January): 487 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Google Chrome's Manifest V3 framework poses a major security threat. What you need to know Google recently transitioned Google Chrome's extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to V3. The company indicated the Manifest V3 framework provides better privacy and security for users. New research shows malicious browser extensions can bypass the new framework's security measures, leaving users susceptible to phishing scams. Extensions are essential and provide an enhanced and seamless browsing experience for users. As you may know, Google transitioned Google Chrome's extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the Manifest V3 framework. The drastic change impacted many browser extensions, including uBlock Origin, potentially leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads. Google attributed the drastic change to privacy and security concerns with the Manifest V2 framework. According to Google, the Manifest V2 framework "presents security risks by allowing unreviewed code to be executed in extensions." Google touts Manifest V3 as a better and safer option since it only allows an extension to execute JavaScript as part of its package, ultimately mitigating the risk. However, new research by SquareX shows some browser extensions can still circumvent the Manifest V3 framework's security measures (via TechRadar Pro). The report further suggests that this loophole places users at risk, potentially giving bad actors access to personal and sensitive information. According to the research team's findings, malicious browser extensions can bypass the Manifest V3 framework's security, granting them unauthorized access to live video streams, including Google Meet and Zoom Web. Google faced similar issues with the Manifest V2 framework, potentially influencing the transition to V3. The malicious extensions reportedly allow bad actors to add unauthorized collaborators to private GitHub repositories. Even worse, they can be leveraged to lure unsuspecting users into phishing scams fronted as password managers. This way, the extensions access your browsing and download history, cookies, bookmarks, and more. As you may know, security solutions like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) or endpoint protection can't assess browser extensions, leaving users susceptible to security risks. However, the researchers have highlighted several solutions to mitigate these issues, including fine-tuning policies that allow admins to control extension access based on reviews, ratings, extension permissions, and update history. According to SquareX Founder & CEO Vivek Ramachandran: “Browser extensions are a blind spot for EDR/XDR, and SWGs have no way to infer their presence. This has made browser extensions a very effective and potent technique to silently be installed and monitor enterprise users, and attackers are leveraging them to monitor communication over web calls, act on the victim’s behalf to give permissions to external parties, steal cookies and other site data and so on.” SquareX claims the solution will block network requests by extensions in real time based on policies, machine learning insights, and heuristic analysis. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

For some time now, Google has been waging a two-front war as it tries to render adblockers and content blockers useless, at least on YouTube, with supposed server-side-injected ads that could potentially become very difficult, if not impossible, to block. And also, the tech giant wants to make it impossible to enable unsupported adblockers, among other extensions and add-ons, on Chrome which include the likes of the highly popular uBlock Origin. These unsupported extensions are based on Manifest V2 (MV2) API which has been succeeded by Manifest V3. The latter promises better privacy, security and performance. In case you missed it, earlier this month, we reported on a new change Google is working on in its Chrome extension manager. The company is testing the option to disable the toggle to enable unsupported browser extensions like uBlock Origin such that users will no longer be able to use them and the only option will be to look for supported MV3 alternatives. The toggle would be greyed out preventing users from using unsupported MV2 add-ons. Besides, Google had already confirmed that enabling the extension via the said toggle could only work for so long as it will eventually be "permanently disabled" since such extensions, the company feels, are not the "best" for users. As such, the process has started and Google has begun disabling uBlock Origin and other such MV2 extensions. If you want to keep using uBlock Origin till June next year, you can also try this official Windows Registry trick. Rival Brave saw the opportunity and chimed in on such a post where an X user was complaining about the development. It has reminded users that, unlike Chrome, it will continue to work with uBlock Origin and also hinted about its own built-in adblocker and tracker-blocker. If you are considering something that is non-Chromium, Mozilla's Firefox is the only notable option as it is based on Gecko and it does indeed continue to work with uBlock Origin. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

Back in September, we reported that Google will be disabling support for Manifest V2 in Canary, Dev, and Beta builds for Chrome starting January 2023. With less than a month remaining for the change, Google has announced that the transition from Manifest V2 to V3 has been postponed, again. On Friday, Simeon Vincent, who is in charge of developer relations for Chrome extensions, acknowledged the complaints from developers in a post on the Chromium extensions developer forum. He posted: "As we head towards Manifest V3 migration, we are intently monitoring comments from the developer community to help inform our timelines. We’ve heard your feedback on common challenges posed by the migration, specifically the service worker’s inability to use DOM capabilities and the current hard limit on extension service worker lifetimes. We’re mitigating the former with the Offscreen Documents API (added in Chrome 109) and are actively pursuing a solution to the latter." Vincent added that Google is committed to helping developers overcome challenges with the new Manifest V3 API, and will provide them with new functionality, bug fixes, and enough time to make the transition. As a result, the company has decided to postpone its plan to disable Manifest V2 extensions in pre-release versions of Chrome, which are used by developers, and is also reconsidering its timeline for further changes. He further added that an update on these plans will be provided in March of next year, and the goal will be to give developers enough time to update and test their extensions before disabling Manifest V2. Google has been updating the way extensions work in Chrome and its open-source Chromium foundation because the old API, called Manifest V2 (MV2), was easily abused and could negatively impact browser performance. The new API, called Manifest V3 (MV3), is supposed to be more secure and perform better, but it does not support certain capabilities that are commonly used by ad blocking, content blocking, and privacy extensions. Despite objections from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google has maintained that MV3 is necessary and that it plans to support common use cases like content blocking with the new API. However, others, including the creator of uBlock Origin Raymond Hill and the CEO of Ghostery Jean-Paul Schmetz, have argued that MV3 is indeed harmful. Developers of popular content-blocking extensions are working hard to make sure that users will have a similar experience when they switch to Manifest V3. AdGuard had also released its first experimental Manifest V3-based extension, which is significantly limited compared to the current version but shows that content blockers can still function after the switch to Manifest V3. On the other hand, privacy-focused vendors like Brave and Mozilla plan to keep some of the capabilities that Google is removing or offer alternative options. According to data from chrome-stats.com, only about 30,000 of the approximately 166,000 extensions in the Chrome Web Store have been converted from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3. This means that only about 17.84% of all extensions in the store have been migrated. Even many of Google's own extensions have not yet been converted. If Google follows through with its plans to disable Manifest V2, the vast majority of extensions may stop working. Google postpones switch to Manifest V3 again citing new features and unsquashed bugs

Mozilla plans to launch support for Manifest V3 extensions in Firefox 109, which it aims to release on January 17, 2023. The first Firefox Stable release of the year introduces support for browser extensions that make use of the capabilities that Manifest V3 provides them with. Manifest V3 won't replace support for Manifest V2 extensions in Firefox. Mozilla decided early on to do the splits by supporting both Manifest V2 and V3 in Firefox. Google, a driver behind the introduction of Manifest V3 and its largest proponent, decided early on to drop support for Manifest V2 in the Chrome browser. The company did, however, extend the deadline of the retiring of Manifest V2 support in Chrome into early 2024. Manifest V3 is a controversial release, especially regarding content blockers and privacy tools. The initial version of Manifest V3 hamstrung certain types of extensions because of limits that Google introduced. Google revised the capabilities several times since the initial release, but limitations are still in place. While these may not affect most Chrome users, some users, especially those who use custom filter lists and multiple tools, may still run into usage problems when Manifest V3 becomes the new standard. Chrome won't support Manifest V2 extensions anymore at that time, unlike Firefox. Other Chromium-based browsers will follow Google eventually. Some have content blockers of their own, which will continue to work. Mozilla highlights that its implementation of Manifest V3 differs from Chromium's implementation in two major ways: Firefox continues to support Manifest V2's web request blocking API next to Manifest V3's declarativeNetRequest API. Extension developers may use either in their extensions. Firefox will support Manifest V3's Event Pages, but will also continue to support Service Workers. Firefox's Manifest V3 compatibility will improve over the next year, according to Mozilla. Mozilla rolled out a new Unified Extensions button in Firefox Nightly already that relies on Manifest V3 and gives users greater control over the website access of extensions. You see how it looks in the screenshot at the top of the article. Closing Words Mozilla got it right at this time. Firefox continues to support Manifest V2 and will also support Manifest V3; this gives extension developers flexibility. Content blockers should continue to work in Firefox just like before, because of that. Now You: how is your browser handling Manifest V3? (thanks for the tip / the courier pigeon) January's Firefox release will support Manifest V3 extensions

Google Chrome is now encouraging uBlock Origin users who have updated to the latest version to switch to other ad blockers before Manifest v2 extensions are disabled. As uBlock Origin lead developer and maintainer Raymond Hill explained on Friday, this is the result of Google deprecating support for the Manifest v2 (MV2) extensions platform in favor of Manifest v3 (MV3). "uBO is a Manifest v2 extension, hence the warning in your Google Chrome browser. There is no Manifest v3 version of uBO, hence the browser will suggest alternative extensions as a replacement for uBO," Hill explained. "uBO Lite (uBOL) is a pared-down version of uBO with a best effort at converting filter lists used by uBO into a Manifest v3-compliant approach, with a focus on reliability and efficiency as has been the case with uBO since first published in June 2014." Google Chrome users are also warned to remove or replace the uBlock Origin ad blocker with similar extensions. A "Find alternative" link also sends them to this Chrome Web Store page, which advises them to switch to uBO Lite, Adblock Plus, Stands AdBlocker, or Ghostery. Google Chrome uBlock Origin MV3 warning (BleepingComputer) Warning showing up next to all MV3 extensions However, uBlock Origin users aren't the only ones seeing this warning banner, as it's now displayed on the chrome://extensions page for all MV2 extensions after updating to Chrome version 127. Users in the Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels have been seeing these warnings since June 3, 2024. Over the coming months, Google will disable extensions that have remained on the MV2 platform and ask users to choose an MV3 alternative. While users will still be able to re-enable their MV2 extensions temporarily, this option will eventually be removed. "This will be followed gradually in the coming months by the disabling of those extensions. Users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store, where they will be recommended Manifest V3 alternatives for their disabled extension," Google explains in the MV2 deprecation timeline. "For a short time after the extensions are disabled, users will still be able to turn their Manifest V2 extensions back on, but over time, this toggle will go away as well." The company adds that these changes will be rolled out to all users in the Chrome Stable channel over the coming months, with the goal of completing the transition to the MV3 standard by the start of 2025. Enterprise MV2 deprecation starting in June 2025 Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy, which enables them to control Manifest v2 extension availability on Linux, Mac, Windows, and ChromeOS, will be exempt from any browser changes until June 2025, when the Chrome MV2 deprecation enterprise rollout begins. Google announced the rollout of the Manifest V3 extensions platform with the release of Chrome 88 in December 2020. This new framework also introduced major technical challenges for extension developers, especially for those requiring greater control over web browser functions such as ad blockers, forcing them to create new extensions with limited capabilities (like Hill's uBlock Origin Lite). uBlock Origin's developer has also created a FAQ explaining the differences between the Manifest V2 extension and the new Lite Manifest V3 version. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of July): 3,313 news posts

Chrome is warning users that their extension makers need to update soon. Google Chrome's long, long project to implement a new browser extension platform is seemingly going to happen, for real, after six years of cautious movement. One of the first ways people are seeing this is if they use uBlock Origin, a popular ad-blocking extension, as noted by Bleeping Computer. Recently, Chrome users have seen warnings pop up that "This extension may soon no longer be supported," with links asking the user to "Remove or replace it with similar extensions" from Chrome's Web Store. You might see a similar warning on some extensions if you head to Chrome's Extensions page (chrome://extensions). What's happening is Chrome preparing to make Manifest V3 required for extensions that want to run on its platform. First announced in 2018, the last word on Manifest V3 was that V2 extensions would start being nudged out in early June on the Beta, Dev, and Canary update channels. Users will be able to manually re-enable V2 extensions "for a short time," Google has said, "but over time, this toggle will go away as well." The shift for enterprise Chrome deployments is expected to be put off until June 2025. Google has said that its new extension platform was built for "improving the security, privacy, performance, and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem." The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) disagrees most strongly with the security aspect, and Firefox-maker Mozilla, while intending to support V3 extensions for cross-browser compatibility, has no plans to cut off support for V2 extensions, signaling that it doesn't see the big improvement. Perhaps the biggest point of friction is with ad blockers. Google has said it "isn't killing ad blockers" but "making them safer," in an explanatory blog post. Google noted in November 2023 that Manifest V3 allowed for a greater number, and more dynamic updating, of content-blocking rules in extensions, specifically ad blockers. But one of the biggest changes is in disallowing "remotely hosted code," which includes the filtering lists that ad blockers keep regularly updated. Ad blockers that want to update their filtering lists, perhaps in response to pivots by platforms like Google's YouTube and ad servers, will have to do so through the Chrome Web Store's review process. Ad-blocking coders see it as an intentional gatekeeping and slowing. Google said before the initial May push toward V3 that 85 percent of actively maintained extensions in its store had Manifest V3 versions ready. Raymond Hill wrote on uBlock Origin's GitHub page Friday that there will not be a full version of uBlock Origin that works with Manifest V3, but instead a "Lite" version that is "a pared-down version of uBO with a best effort at converting filter lists used by uBO into a Manifest V3-compliant approach." Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of July): 3,313 news posts