What you need to know
- Google is finally removing support for Manifest V2, ending support for many older Chrome extensions.
- Popular ad blockers like uBlock Origin may stop working once Chrome completes the transition completely.
- Newer blockers supported by Manifest V3, such as uBlock Origin Lite, will still work in Chrome.
- Chromium-based browsers like Edge and Opera could also be affected by the shutdown of Manifest V2.
A future Google Chrome update could mark the end of some of the most popular ad blockers currently available.
Since 2019, Google has been working towards a new browser extension framework called Manifest V3. The transition suffered several delays along the way, but the official deprecation of Manifest V2 extensions began in 2024. Now, it looks like Google is finally nearing the end of that transition, and it could have major consequences for popular ad blocking extensions.
How he saw it cyber newsGoogle has been phasing out support for Manifest V2 in Chrome for a while. However, the company now appears ready to complete the transition with the next versions of Chrome, supposedly version 150 or 151, where support for Manifest V2 will be removed entirely.
Once that happens, extensions created in Manifest V2 will no longer work in Chrome. This includes several older and extremely popular ad blockers, most notably uBlock Origin.
The biggest problem is that Manifest V3 limits some of the advanced filtering techniques that older ad blockers rely on. In Manifest V2, extensions could perform more dynamic filtering and run more freely in the background. Manifest V3 introduces a much stricter framework that significantly changes the way extensions interact with web traffic.
That doesn’t mean ad blockers are going away completely. Extensions created specifically for Manifest V3, such as uBlock Origin Lite and similar alternatives, will still work. But many older ad blockers will stop working once Chrome completely removes support for Manifest V2.
The change could also affect other Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Opera, although individual browser vendors may choose to handle Manifest V2 support differently.
Chrome version 150 is expected to arrive later this month and could remove much of the remaining functionality of Manifest V2. Any remaining support is expected to disappear completely with Chrome 151, which will likely arrive shortly after.
Android Central’s opinion
As someone who works in publishing, I’d be lying if I said this doesn’t seem like a positive change. Ultimately, ads pay for the content we consume. That said, I also completely understand why users turned to ad blockers in the first place and how annoying they might find this change.
