Google Chrome is now encouraging uBlock Origin users who have updated to the latest version to switch to other ad blockers before Manifest v2 extensions are disabled.
As uBlock Origin lead developer and maintainer Raymond Hill explained on Friday, this is the result of Google deprecating support for the Manifest v2 (MV2) extensions platform in favor of Manifest v3 (MV3).
“uBO is a Manifest v2 extension, hence the warning in your Google Chrome browser. There is no Manifest v3 version of uBO, hence the browser will suggest alternative extensions as a replacement for uBO,” Hill explained.
“uBO Lite (uBOL) is a pared-down version of uBO with a best effort at converting filter lists used by uBO into a Manifest v3-compliant approach, with a focus on reliability and efficiency as has been the case with uBO since first published in June 2014.”
Google Chrome users are also warned to remove or replace the uBlock Origin ad blocker with similar extensions.
A “Find alternative” link also sends them to this Chrome Web Store page, which advises them to switch to uBO Lite, Adblock Plus, Stands AdBlocker, or Ghostery.
I’d like to degoogle. Hearing a year or so ago that they were going to dismantle ad blockers was a good motivator for me to at least switch to Firefox.
I wish degoogling were simple. I mean it’s mostly fine on PC, pretty much impossible on flagship Samsung phones though and on Google phones you have some important missing features (like not being able to use the tap-to-pay with a custom OS).
Also for both PC and phones, the Google IME for Japanese is just far better than any other Japanese IME. The other ones are far more clunky. There are alternatives, namely Mozc on PC, but they’re just not even close in quality. I don’t know any good alternatives on Android – I hope florisboard will be able to reach that point some time after it gets a dictionary/suggestions feature in a month or two (which I’m excited to start contributing to) but we’ll have to see.
I imagine it’s a similar story for Chinese and Korean.