[…] With the stable release of Chrome 127 on July 23, 2024, the full spectrum of Chrome users could see the warning. One user of the content-blocking add-on filed a GitHub Issue about the notification.
“This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions,” the Chrome Web Store (CWS) notification banner explained.
But Google is being too cautious in its language. uBlock Origin (uBO) will stop working entirely when Google Chrome drops support for Manifest v2 – which uBlock Origin and other extensions rely on to do their thing. When Manifest v2 is no longer supported by Chrome, uBlock Origin won’t work at all – that’s what Google should be telling users.
Raymond Hill, the creator and maintainer of uBO, has made it clear that he will not be trying to adapt uBO to Google’s Manifest v3 – the extension architecture that is replacing v2.
“You will have to find an alternative to uBO before Google Chrome disables it for good,” he explained in a list of FAQs for uBlock Origin Lite – a content-blocking extension that functions on the upcoming Manifest v3 system but lacks the ability to create custom filters.
uBlock Origin Lite, he explained, is “not meant as a [Manifest v3]-compliant version of uBO, it’s meant as a reliable Lite version of uBO, suitable for those who used uBO in an install-and-forget manner.”
This is a nuanced statement. He’s not saying that if you move from uBO to uBlock Origin Lite all will be well and exactly the same – just that uBlock Origin Lite works on Manifest v3, so it will continue working after the v2 purge.
This nuance is needed because Manifest v2 provided uBlock Origin and other extensions deep access to sites and pages being visited by the user. It allowed adverts and other stuff to be filtered out as desired, whereas v3 pares back that functionality.
While it’s difficult to generalize about how the experience of uBO under Manifest v2 and uBOL under Manifest v3 will differ, Hill expects uBOL “will be less effective at dealing with” websites that detect and block content blockers, and at “minimizing website breakage” when stuff is filtered out, because existing uBO filters can’t be converted to declarative rules.
[…]
Source: Chrome Web Store warns end is coming for uBlock Origin • The Register
Robin Edgar
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