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Google Just Removed uBlock Origin from the Chrome Store Today!

· 2 min read
Alex Radocea

uBlock Origin is the best browser-based content blocker available on the web today. And it's user supported, free to use. Sadly today Google just pulled the plug on it by enforcing their new v3 manifest.

Users need to migrate or employ dns based content and ad blocking, which SPR can provide.

A Temporary Workaround ...​

uBlock is tracking the situation on Github. Inside a user provides the following workaround for Chrome Users until June:

Disable:

chrome://flags/#extension-manifest-v2-deprecation-warning
chrome://flags/#extension-manifest-v2-deprecation-disabled
chrome://flags/#extension-manifest-v2-deprecation-unsupported

Enable:

chrome://flags/#allow-legacy-mv2-extensions

uBlock Origin Lite​

Raymond Hill has developed a v3 compatible solution. It's available on Chrome today at uBlock Origin Lite.

Unfortunately, dynamic content blocking is crippled. Under the guise of "performance", they've moved to a static, declarative model that limits the capabilities of browser extensions for this purpose. Most users would probably agree that all the performance needed is recovered by blocking wasteful content from loading. The uBlock Origin Lite FAQ covers the details.

Migrating to Other Browsers​

Firefox and Brave support uBlock. To use with Brave you should first disable the built in ad Blocker

DNS Based Content Blocking & Ad Blocking​

SPR supports builtin content blocking with domain level controls. Rules can be applied by globally, by device, or by tag, along with dynamic, temporary exceptions. And no software install is needed on the end points. We have a feature overview comparing various dns based ad blocking solutions.