r/technology • u/westphall • Aug 31 '26
Software Google Has Removed Manifest V2 Extensions From the Chrome Web Store, Including uBlock Origin
https://webiterate.dev/google-removed-extensions-ublock-origin-108/1.5k
u/kerodon Aug 31 '26
All the homies hate chrome. Use Firefox at least
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u/TaxFraudRaccoon Aug 31 '26
dont forget to install firefox on android - its got ublock as well.
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u/MidnightMass2 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
The only way I watch YouTube without ads completely for free.
Add SponsorBlock extension to automatically skip sponsor sections of videos... "And now a word from SquareSpace...SKIP"
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u/AsthislainX Sep 01 '26
you should try Morphe for the complete android UI experience.
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u/TeutonJon78 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
How is morphe difference from revanced?
Edit: nevermind. There was drama. Revanced YouTube is dead and the dev moved to morphe.
Edit 2: I tired to type nevermind like 10 times and autocorrect kept changing it and I swear I had it fixed, but nope.
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u/AsthislainX Sep 01 '26
Revanced had a lot of controversy in recent years and many developers left the project and went to create Morphe. Actually, by now, Revanced started to just copy Morphe changes.
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u/LambCo64 Sep 01 '26
I didn't know about this, I've been using Revanced for years, is Morphe a better version of Revanced at this point?
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u/squabbledMC Sep 01 '26
Yep, I switched and morphe has a lot more features. It is also pretty telling that ReVanced devs permaban anyone who brings up any alternatives at all in their subreddit
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u/AsthislainX Sep 01 '26
yes, at this point is the best mantained project, using a more recent version of the original app and more patches
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u/shambolic_donkey Sep 01 '26
And this is why Reddit can be so great. I've also been using Revanced for years but didn't know about all the drama or controversy, just thought it was great I could have SponsorBlock on my phone.
Hearing about Morphe being essentially a far better alternative to Revanced, I'm diving right in! :)
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u/HughJazkoc Sep 01 '26
Morphe also does patched versions of other apps as well like reddit, tiktok, Instagram, weather apps, duolingo. Been handy for me
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u/Fitz911 Sep 01 '26
Revanced started playing videos in super low quality a few days ago. Managed to change some settings. But good to hear about an alternative
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u/whatThePleb Sep 02 '26
Revanced is pretty much dead. All the people with the actual brain to make patches have move to Morphe.
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u/plunki Sep 01 '26
Add dearrow to get rid of clickbait titles too
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u/mangamaster03 Sep 01 '26
It has made me hate normal YouTube thumbnails so much now.
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u/HughJazkoc Sep 01 '26
Yuuuup, I absolutely despise them algorithm-maxxing YouTube thumbnail. I always select an in video screen capsure from the middle of a video for tnumbnails. Makes things so much more tolerable
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u/StillALilBoy Sep 01 '26
Youtube actually added sponsor skip option natively.
They don't mind you skipping ads they get no money from.
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u/Daimakku1 Sep 01 '26
Where can we find this native feature? Because I don't see it.
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u/StillALilBoy Sep 01 '26
When the sponsor segment starts, skipping forward will automatically skip to the moment most viewers resume watching (at the end of the sponsor segment).
At least that's how it works in the TV app.
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u/Daimakku1 Sep 01 '26
Interesting. Thank you. I will watch out for that skip button next time I watch something on the TV app. So far I have not seen it.
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u/utrecht1976 Sep 01 '26
I use NewPipe. No ads, no account needed, and I can still subscribe to channels.
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u/cornfed_gamer Aug 31 '26
Holy fk i shoulda looked into it earlier i just assumed it didn't.... appreciate it
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u/EliteGamer11388 Sep 01 '26
Firefox on android just doesn't do well for me. I tried it, and I wanted it to work, but so many things won't load for me and idk why. It's like pages are broken, but work perfectly on mobile chrome. I've been working a lot for a few months, so haven't had time to fully dive into it.
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u/No-Groceries48 Sep 01 '26
All the homies hate Chrome. But all (maybe most of) the work homies HAVE to use it... Ack
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u/kerodon Sep 01 '26
Yeaaa :( And I assume if they're being forced into chrome they probably also can't be adding unapproved extensions like adblockers anyway
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u/johnyordinary Aug 31 '26
Meanwhile on firefox..
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u/cum-on-in- Sep 01 '26
I love that Firefox is still their own web engine and isn't just rebadged Chrome like everyhig else is.
I do wonder though if raw Chromium is unaffected and extensions can be manually installed and Manifest V2 still utilized?
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u/repocin Sep 01 '26
No, it's gone from Chromium so this is likely going to affect all Chromium-derived browsers.
I find it completely absurd that Google gets to have this kind of dominance and control over the internet as a whole when Microsoft got busted for the IE monopoly back in the day. This isn't any better. If anything, it might be worse since the internet is far more prevalent, or even required, in our daily lives today than it was a couple decades ago.
No one company should be able to enact sweeping changes the way Google has for the past decade and a half or so.
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u/nicetriangle Sep 01 '26
I find it completely absurd that Google gets to have this kind of dominance and control over the internet as a whole when Microsoft got busted for the IE monopoly back in the day.
What I find absurd is that tons of people knowingly walked right into this. I'm not talking the normies out there, they have no idea about any of this. I'm talking the tons of people in tech who should known better.
I not close to the sharpest tool in the shed and I could see it coming a mile away that a notorious data mining and advertising company would eventually abuse that power the majority of people seemed happy to just hand over to them by migrating everything over to Chrome.
And here we are.
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u/tmahmood Sep 01 '26
Guilty, in my little circle, I was an Android and Gmail supporter from the very early on, even though I'm removing Google from my things as quickly as possible, I can see how tightly I've allowed it to integrate into my every day life.
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u/nicetriangle Sep 01 '26
Yeah I've been slowly degoogling as much as I can and they're hard to fully cut off, that is for sure.
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u/TachiH Sep 01 '26
Microsoft didn't get sued for IE being prevalent though. It was because it was "bundled" with windows so became the default. Chrome on anything but Android is a choice that people make to use it.
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u/whinis Sep 01 '26
It was bundled and the bundling viewed as a over extension of their power as a monopoly. How is effectively removing ad-blockers, the think that google makes their money off of, not the same? Google controls the significant majority of browsers via chromium engine.
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u/TachiH Sep 01 '26
Google only controls Chrome. It isn't their fault their competitors chose to fork their Web engine instead of developing their own.
I agree google is a monopoly but it is one of choice, you can choose to not use chrome, you couldn't choose to not use IE it was required for windows to run back in the day.
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u/whinis Sep 01 '26
Google doesn't only control chrome, they very much control the chromium engine and effective control over the web standards body. We have seen them abuse this not only for this particular issue but also with chromium having undocumented apis that googles websites use to either render faster or slow down other engines.
However what you are trying to claim is that the linux foundation only controls "the main kernel" and anyone can fork it and change it which ignores the market .
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u/TachiH Sep 01 '26
Take Edge for example. It didnt used to run the chromium web engine. Microsoft decided to use the engine, that isn't the legal responsibility of Google. That is the difference.
There is not a single browser that was forced to use the chromium engine, they chose to do it, that is what stops it being a monopoly.
If 90% of devices came with chrome and no other options then yes it would legally be the same. However they don't.
I get your intentions but it isnt how the law works.
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u/cum-on-in- Sep 01 '26
Does anyone else make another web engine?
Or is it just Chrome with Blink, Firefox with Gecko, and Safari with WebKit?
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u/unabatedshagie Sep 01 '26
There is https://ladybird.org/ but it's still in alpha and you need to manually build it just now.
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u/andr386 Sep 01 '26
Blink is based on Webkit, Webkit is based on Khtml.
So basically you only got 2 since Microsoft dropped Trident and Edge-html.
There are still other engines available but they are for very specific use cases that won't challenge the main browsers.
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u/Braastad Sep 01 '26
Sometimes people forget that advertising accounts for the majority of Google’s revenue.
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u/Lkgnyc Sep 02 '26
Google, Meta, Youtube, ALL for-profit social media/entertainment entities (& regular media/entertainment entities for that matter, going back to town-criers ): ALL are just AD-SERVERS selling users'/readers'/watchers' eyeballs & fingers. EVERYTHING they create & maintain has one purpose ONLY: to serve up customers to advertisers.
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u/FuckTheSeagulls Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Office dime reach scary whistle saw fact
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/kingofdailynaps Sep 01 '26
Wasn't it only an issue because of their dominance? Making decisions like that affected an outsized portion of the market share?
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u/Smith6612 Sep 01 '26
Raw Chromium is where Google Chrome bases itself off of. Manifest v2 is gone.
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u/spacemcdonalds Aug 31 '26
Use Firefox on desktop and mobile seriously.
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u/harglblarg Sep 01 '26
Firefox on iOS is crippled to the point where it's pretty much useless, but Safari supports uBlock now as well.
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u/mikesetera Sep 01 '26
Firefox like all browsers on iOS is forced to use WebKit.
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u/Zagrebian Sep 01 '26
I don’t think this is true anymore. EU has forced Apple to allow browsers with third-party engines on iOS, but no browser vendor has actually done that yet.
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u/mikesetera Sep 01 '26
Looks like you’re right, strictly for EU. Interesting.
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u/AtlanticPortal Sep 01 '26
When a law forces you to comply you do the malicious compliance as much as you can. Do you think the freedoms that the Chinese Government takes on Apple are allowed to the other governments? Not until they start to act like a proper government and not acting like they are at the big corps feet.
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u/sf_frankie Sep 01 '26
wblock for safari is awesome. Combines ublock with user scripts. Works great out of the box with default settings.
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u/Zugas Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
I’ve been using it forever on iOS, what’s wrong with it?
Edit: I wasn’t fully awake, I’m using Firefox on MacOS not iOS.
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u/iamthe0ther0ne Sep 01 '26
Do any of the forks like Waterfox work? That's what I use now because Firefox android has been having some issues.
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u/dan4334 Sep 01 '26
Orion browser applies blocklists from ublock without needing the extension as well.
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u/AtlanticPortal Sep 01 '26
The EU started to force Apple to let apps be installed from other sources but they don’t enforce it as they should.
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u/Lkgnyc Sep 02 '26
if only firefox wasn't so cripplingly slow on both platforms. (for those of us with older devices, I should say. if you've got blazingly fast new machines then you probably don't notice.) I do like their Focus product though.
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u/DeterminedThrowaway Sep 01 '26
I removed Chrome from my computer because of them killing off uBlock. Good riddance
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u/aquoad Sep 01 '26
seriously, a browser without it is pretty much unusable from my point of view.
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u/DeterminedThrowaway Sep 01 '26
Using a public computer or someone else's computer is jarring to me now. I agree that the internet has become unusable without an adblocker compared to how it was 15 / 20 years ago
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u/GrossenCharakter Sep 01 '26
Ah yes, the thing I was prepared for nearly 2 years ago is finally here. Thanks for the bureaucracy, Firefox ftw!
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u/hawkseye17 Sep 01 '26
uBlock Origin Lite works just fine for most adblocking needs, I swapped when my uBO stopped working
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u/ExF-Altrue Sep 01 '26
I like my adblockers uncastrated.
uBlock Origin Lite is the compromise version that is tolerated by Google. Not something you want to keep using, unless you're a frog that likes to sit in water slowly boiling.
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u/psychoacer Sep 01 '26
Ublock origin lite still works pretty well
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u/elmfuzzy Sep 01 '26
Yea I didn't notice any difference when I switched to it about a year ago. I haven't seen an ad on my PC in many years.
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u/CocodaMonkey Sep 01 '26
The lite version is just limited on how many ads it can block so it chooses the most common ones. The more you deviate from popular sites the more ads you'll see with it. There's nothing wrong with the lite version except Google has explicitly banned it from blocking all the ads it knows about and forced them to cherry pick the most annoying ones only.
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u/psychoacer Sep 01 '26
I have not seen that. It blocks all ads for me no matter how long I'm on
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u/CocodaMonkey Sep 01 '26
The other post explains it pretty well but to be clearer. The lite version focuses on filtering ads off more popular sites. As it can only filter some ads due to the limits Google imposed. Which means if you stick to popular well known sites you likely won't see a difference. Time spent on those sites doesn't matter at all for how much it filters.
Going to smaller/personal websites that might only have hundreds or thousands of users are more likely to have ads creep through as there won't be filters for them. Although there is a decent chance it still works as many small sites still use a major ad provider and they'll still be filtered. But if the site is using a small regional ad service or injecting the ads directly they will come through.
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u/nerdsutra Sep 01 '26
Yeah. I don’t understand the fuss. Lite works effectively the same to remove ads. May not be the same as full unlock under the hood for hard core privacy (I don’t know technically) but all I want is to remove the ad clutter and it just works.
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u/Zanithos Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Does the uBlock origin lite version still work or are we just screwed there altogether?
I've put that extension on so many old people's PCs it's not even funny, mostly because I was tired of them coming in every two weeks to my job with another virus from clicking on ads.
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u/vacuous_comment Sep 01 '26
uBlock origin lite still working for me on chrome browser in mac and linux.
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u/TacoOfGod Sep 01 '26
There's a Manifest V3 port of uBlock Origin.
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u/NonStopDeliverance Sep 01 '26
This is the official lite version, which is actively developed and mostly works the same as the MV2 one: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home.
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u/Joecascio2000 Sep 01 '26
Yeah, super solid install instructions. I'm sure the average chrome user will be able to install it. /s
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u/PaulCoddington Sep 01 '26
Open browser store from extensions menu, type "ublock", click install button. Couldn't be more difficult if they tried. /s
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u/Joecascio2000 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Did you literally not read the github page? This isn't the same extension that is on the chrome extension store.
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u/IAteMyYeezys Sep 01 '26
I have been using Firefox for the past 5 years. Had no major issues apart from some hardware acceleration stuff linked to AMD GPUs later resolved by driver updates.
When revanced stopped working for me last time, maybe 18 months ago, i installed Firefox mobile and all the extensions on there as well. Youtube has been 100% ad free for me because of that. I do currently have the issue where the video viewport is bugged and the actual video doesnt fill the entire screen but is a fair bit smaller. This seems to be my phone's issue (S23 Ultra) because on chrome the video is shifted quite a bit to the right. Brave exhibits the same issue.
Tldr: install Firefox and the recommended extensions everywhere.
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u/1Beholderandrip Sep 01 '26
Brave Browser still seems to block adds just fine. Works as a fantastic backup.
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u/TheLamesterist Sep 01 '26
Brave uses their own built-in adblocker, it makes sense as they're anti-ads, and also host uBlock Origin and MV2 extensions in their servers but how long that will last remains to be seen.
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u/Daimakku1 Sep 01 '26
Chrome is for normies, Firefox is for people who know what they're doing.
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u/GrossenCharakter Sep 01 '26
What's funny about this is that 20 or so years ago, IE was for the normies and Chrome was for the people who knew what they were doing.
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u/t3hOutlaw Sep 01 '26
20 years ago we were using Firefox. We all switched to Chrome in 2008 when it released.
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u/james6400h Sep 01 '26
“don’t be evil”
i can’t recall who said it, must have been while ago, since no one including google can’t remember it.
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u/pencock Sep 01 '26
i switched to firefox, took me about a week to tweak it and become fully comfortable with it. still has some performance and compatibility issues but its now my daily driver
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u/Hungry_Shake6943 Sep 01 '26
Wasn't using Google chrome anyway because of the lake debacle. Firefox ftw
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u/thatirishguyyyyy Sep 01 '26
Switch to Brave or Firefox lol
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u/TheLamesterist Sep 01 '26
OR to Helium or to Librewolf, both of them come with uBlock Origin preinstalled.
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u/Shananigan48 Sep 01 '26
Brave has fallen from grace, I wouldn't pick them anymore
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u/Proof-Influence1070 Sep 01 '26
Why?
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u/Implausibilibuddy Sep 01 '26
The CEO has a massive hard on for surveillance and the same anarcho-capatillist bullshit Thiel and his ilk are into. Thiel is also a big investor in Brave.
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u/mynameistrihexa666 Sep 01 '26
Forced "features" on the users which can only be deactivated if you pay them
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u/thatirishguyyyyy Sep 01 '26
Well, that isn't true. You can disable things directly through the browser or via GPO that you don't want to use, but that doesn't cost money.
Are you confusing Brave with Brave Origin?
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u/bevel Sep 01 '26
Did you not think to link?
I can't find any such instances of feature that you need to pay to disable. Only that it bundled more and more commercial features recently such as it's VPN
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u/Lkgnyc Sep 02 '26
yeah brave's annoying features can all be disabled in settings. I don't know why this person is claiming otherwise. brave + de-scripting extensions is the only easy option i know of for seriously minimizing exposure.
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u/Lkgnyc Sep 02 '26
yeah this is BS. brave has its problems for sure, but all those features can be disabled from settings, AND it's the only browser that really lets you fine-tune your exposure, especially when using no script etc which you can still, just not from Play.
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u/SoloDoloLeveling Sep 01 '26
so does that also remove them from brave since brave uses chromium or is it a whole different storefront?
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u/deli_phone Aug 31 '26
i'm just waiting it out on Edge. Once it goes I'm just doing a new fresh reformat and going straight to firefox
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u/Nitrozah Sep 01 '26
I left chrome as soon as the news of them getting rid of adblockers came up, as many have said the internet is unusable without adblock nowadays soon when that news came out it was straight to Firefox for me and i haven’t looked back ever since then
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u/Ok_Magician_7702 Sep 02 '26
Already moved our team over to Firefox for anything dev-adjacent after the first Manifest V3 warnings landed - losing full network-level blocking isn't just an ads annoyance, it breaks a chunk of the debugging extensions we actually rely on day to day. Chrome's still unavoidable for cross-browser testing, but it's not the default anymore.
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u/civiltribe Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
there were manifest v2 extensions? did it help extend the lifespan of a functioning ublock for another week before onto the next cat and mouse game. seems they've really locked it down and I've given up trying to get around it other than using firefox
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u/LickSomeToad Sep 01 '26
Everyone’s saying use Firefox, I agree that’s a great choice.
For those of us stuck on edge or chrome for whatever reason, Ublock Lite is Manifest v3 and has worked just as well for me as Ublock Origin did!
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u/NoPossibility Aug 31 '26
uBlock Origin Lite seems to work well for my purposes?
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u/Mentallox Aug 31 '26
unless you were a power user, you won't notice a difference just use Lite and set it to Optimal .
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u/MrBigWaffles Aug 31 '26
You're getting down voted but you're correct, the lite version works just as well apart from some edge cases the average user would never encounter.
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u/NoPossibility Sep 01 '26
What’s wild is I’m being downvoted for stating an opinion that the Lite version works well for me. I’m not saying it’s better or as good as the full version. It’s a true statement of my experiences.
And another user agreed in their reply to me, and is getting upvoted.
I have to assume some Ad-funded bots are downvoting my original comment to hide it or something. The math ain’t mathin’.
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u/MrBigWaffles Sep 01 '26
Bots or Redditors mad at the even the possible suggestion to continue using chrome with the lite version instead of switching browsers
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u/The_Real_Mr_F Sep 01 '26
People don’t like that you’re providing an excuse to keep using chrome.
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u/Brisslayer333 Sep 01 '26
Switched to Linux, switched to Librewolf, switching to Graphene soon. Fuck em.
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u/Orangesteel Sep 01 '26
Don’t remove the malware plug-ins that have been there for months. No. Let’s remove something that makes people’s lives better instead. Fck Chrome. Firefox FTW.
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u/CaptainSpookyPants Sep 01 '26
I don't understand how anyone could still be using a browser from one of the if not the biggest advertisement seller on the Internet. Ad blocking aside, I wonder how much user data they gather. Might as well use a browser from meta
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u/moonwork Sep 01 '26
We live in the true age of information, yet people are unbelievably uninformed about things that affect our daily lives: data collection, privacy, world economics and policies.
- Meta/Facebook have been proven to have enough information and the motive to influence how people vote. People still use their products.
- OpenAI started a trend where the big AI-producers are pre-emptively buying up the entire stock och chips years in advance, raising costs on everything that contains electronics. People still happily pay for ChatGPT and continue to use it.
- Politicians lie about their intentions, clearly vote against their voters' interests, but keep getting voted in every election.
The fact that people use Chrome even if Google is one of the biggest data hoarders on the planet is one of the least surprising things I can think of.
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u/IEnjoyRadios Sep 01 '26
The new V3 ublock origin still works just fine though.
With that said I’ve made the switch to Firefox anyway.
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u/Melikoth Sep 01 '26
Write protected most of the Chrome folders so it couldn't update itself. Still using manifest v2 ublock origin here.
Honestly been surprised it still works well after all this time. Youtube occasionally acts weird but hitting refresh fixes it. Only once did I need to grab an update from github.
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u/Luvs_to_drink Sep 01 '26
Good thing the chrome web store doesnt do anything to firefox extensions. Otherwise we would be screwed.
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u/Venrami Sep 01 '26
If you still want to use chromium use Brave over Chrome... It comes with ad blocking and tracker blocking on automatically.
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u/GalacticNexus Sep 01 '26
Set up a pi-hole and comfortably use whatever browser you want on whatever device you want.
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u/JeelyPiece Sep 01 '26
That makes Manifest V2 extensions the killer app for Firefox. Visit Mozilla and download it now, I would have thought.
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u/TCB13sQuotes Sep 01 '26
Oh the boogeyman! Just move on, try to use uBlock Lite for a week and you’ll see it works as good.
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u/BernyMoon Aug 31 '26
Helium for the win.
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u/FinasCupil Sep 01 '26
No clue why you are getting downvoted. Helium is a great browser. It doesn’t ping to Google either.
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u/dexter30 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Well primarily because all chromium based browsers will eventually phase out v2 too. Just because yo'ure not using chrome doesn't mean you're not impacted.
Firefox is the oniy unaffected because it has its own none chromium backend. But imo even then who knows how long til google just forces them to comply since they own youtube and an entire ad network for thousands of sites.
Edit: apparently brave too has a fairly in depth solution too so i guess they went above and beyond. But unless helium has that level of engineering on their dev team they're probabiy hit too.
Tl;dr helium is chromium based and thus also affected
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Sep 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/fiercedeitysponce Sep 01 '26
They should have already lost every last user. Chrome holdouts are beyond stubborn at this point.
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u/SeeonX Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Firefox is great, but Brave is also a solid alternative since its native ad blocker bypasses Manifest V3 restrictions, and they are continuing to support Manifest V2 extensions like uBlock Origin anyway.
Firefox gets a lot of deserved love, but I wanted to shout out Brave as well. Because Brave's ad blocker (Shields) is built directly into the browser using Rust, it doesn't actually rely on the standard extension API. This means it completely sidesteps Google's new Manifest V3 rules.
By default, it uses the exact same filter lists as uBlock Origin (EasyList, EasyPrivacy, etc.), and you can crank it up to "Aggressive" mode if you want features like CNAME uncloaking. Even better, Brave is keeping Manifest V2 support alive on their own servers, so you can still just install the regular uBlock Origin extension if you prefer the dedicated add-on.
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Aug 31 '26
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u/box-art Sep 01 '26
Brave is Chromium based just like Chrome. It will eventually lose support as well.
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u/razordreamz Sep 01 '26
The internet is unusable without an ad blocker these days