Google is pushing forward with its plan to discontinue Manifest V2 extensions in Chrome, starting in early June 2024, which will affect ad blockers. This decision is based on community feedback and progress deemed satisfactory by Google. Users will start seeing warnings on Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels from June 3, 2024, and V2 extensions will gradually be disabled on stable Chrome releases, with recommendations for V3 alternatives.
Manifest V3 is the latest extension platform for Google Chrome, aimed at enhancing security, privacy, performance, and overall trustworthiness. It introduces changes like limiting extension access to user network requests and replacing background pages with dedicated service workers. However, these changes pose major technical challenges for extension developers, particularly for ad blockers, which may need to implement complex mechanisms to maintain effectiveness.
Popular ad blockers like uBlock Origin are adapting to Manifest V3 by creating new projects like uBO Lite. While these adaptations may work for many users, they may require additional configurations or permissions for specific sites. Additionally, rulesets will no longer be updated frequently through automatic updates, but rather with new extension releases.
Google claims that over 85% of actively maintained Chrome extensions, including popular ad blockers, have migrated to or released versions supporting Manifest V3. Despite this, developers still on Manifest V2 are highly recommended to complete the migration process.
