For the past few years, Google has been working on implementing Manifest V3 in its Chrome browser. This change is anticipated to significantly impact ad blockers, which means that a sizable portion of Chrome's end-users may also be affected. Manifest V3 is Google's biggest revamp to the extensions platform, which is notable from the fact that Manifest V2 was launched back in 2012. With the rollout of V3 now on the horizon, the firm has started automatically disabling extensions which don't align with its latest platform version.

But first, what is Manifest V3?

Manifest V3 is Google's latest and upcoming update to its extension platform. It replaces some less restrictive APIs with new APIs that have relatively strict permissions models for better security and privacy. For example, the current webRequest API being used by uBlock Origin enables visibility over the consumer's entire web traffic, so it is now being replaced by the more restrictive declarativeNetRequest API, which is obviously a breaking change for the aforementioned extension. Although Google plans to get rid of all extensions which use Manifest V2 in Chrome by June 2025, others like Vivaldi, Brave, and Mozilla have offered to support the platform for a bit longer.

The end of the line for uBlock Origin

As noted by Raymond Hill, who is the developer of the free uBlock Origin ad blocker, Google has already started automatically disabling his extension in Chrome as it is "no longer supported", and is also recommending users to uninstall the extension. That said, it is important to keep in mind that Hill has already launched uBlock Origin Lite in order to comply with Manifest V3. The developer has cautioned that this version is less effective compared to the original since it has limited filtering capabilities, but in our testing, XDA's Lead Technical Editor Adam Conway found it to be quite decent.

In a move to downplay the impact of this change, a Google spokesperson informed The Verge that 93% of all actively maintained extensions in the Chrome Web Store comply with Manifest V3, and that users of affected extensions should make use of supported alternatives. However, it remains to be seen how the consumer market will respond to this change once it begins to roll out generally.