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Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads (www.windowscentral.com)

submitted 4 months ago by Alsephina@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Google's campaign against ad blockers across its services just got more aggressive. According to a report by PC World, the company has made some alterations to its extension support on Google Chrome.

Google Chrome recently changed its extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the new Manifest V3 framework. The browser policy changes will impact one of the most popular adblockers (arguably), uBlock Origin.

The transition to the Manifest V3 framework means extensions like uBlock Origin can't use remotely hosted code. According to Google, it "presents security risks by allowing unreviewed code to be executed in extensions." The new policy changes will only allow an extension to execute JavaScript as part of its package.

Over 30 million Google Chrome users use uBlock Origin, but the tool will be automatically disabled soon via an update. Google will let users enable the feature via the settings for a limited period before it's completely scrapped. From this point, users will be forced to switch to another browser or choose another ad blocker.

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[-] panicnow@lemmy.world 37 points 4 months ago

You can get a pass till July 2025 by creating/setting a registry key that they made for businesses.

Paste this in a .reg file and double click it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome]
"ExtensionManifestV2Availability"=dword:00000002

[-] blackwateropeth@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago

At this rate people should just cut the cord with google. Modifying reg files is almost as annoying as moving bookmarks over. Firefox + uBlock + pihole (if you’re feeling ambitious/want to block other crap that’s non-browser related) and you’re chillin.

[-] lud@lemm.ee 10 points 4 months ago

Moving bookmarks takes about 10 seconds to do.

[-] blackwateropeth@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Yea that’s why say, just as annoying. Which I guess for the PC illiterate registry edits are more dangerous?

I personally moved off google about 2 years ago (started using start page as well) and haven’t looked back.

[-] lud@lemm.ee -4 points 4 months ago

I have no idea what you are talking about but whatever.

[-] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 35 points 4 months ago

you could instead just download firefox, which isnt perfect either but still a huge improvement over any chromium browser

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024

697 points (99.3% liked)

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