1y ago

uBlock Origin developer recommends switching to Firefox as Chrome flags the extension

github.com About Google Chrome's "This extension may soon no longer be supported"

This is the community-maintained issue tracker for uBlock Origin - uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues

~~https://www.neowin.net/news/ublock-origin-developer-recommends-switching-to-ublock-lite-as-chrome-flags-the-extension/~~

EDIT: Apologies. Updated with a link to what gorhill REALLY said:

Manifest v2 uBO will not be automatically replaced by Manifest v3 uBOL[ight]. uBOL is too different from uBO for it to silently replace uBO -- you will have to explicitly make a choice as to which extension should replace uBO according to your own prerogatives.
Ultimately whether uBOL is an acceptable alternative to uBO is up to you, it's not a choice that will be made for you.
Will development of uBO continue? Yes, there are other browsers which are not deprecating Manifest v2, e.g. Firefox.

262 comments

Comment from gorhill (the developer of uBO and uBOL):
I didn't recommend to switch to uBO Lite, the article made that up. I merely pointed out Google Chrome currently presents uBO Lite as an alternative (along with 3 other content blockers), explained what uBO Lite is, and concluded that it may or may not be considered an acceptable alternative, it's for each person to decide.
https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1ejhpu5/comment/lgdmthd/
- "uBlock Origin developer slams NeoWin, backpedals on recommendation!" —NeoWin editors, probably.
  
  Sounds about right for any news outlet. "Slams" is so overused, and usually nowhere near an accurate euphamism.

They should recommend switching to Firefox instead. It's clear that Google cannot be allowed to have a monopoly on browsers.
- The title is misleading, or false.
  https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox
  This document explains why uBO works best in Firefox.
  
  The title is misleading, or false.
- Even better is FF mobile (on Android) supports full list of addons, including uBlock Origin.
  The using the web without uBlock Origin is cancer.
  
  Though not container tabs (yet)?
  
  How do you account for all other apps? My personal preference is using VPN along with DNS filtering to cut shit out system-wide.
  I’m on iOS but the number of telemetry, tracking and ad domains requested by apps outside the browser is alarming (many of them owned by Google).
- They should I've been using mull on mobile and Librewolf on Windows 10 since the first time Google announced these Anti Adblock intensions. Must be a few years now.
  I did mess with Thorium a little when it claimed to be the fastest browser on earth but yeah apart from that I've been using hardened Firefox forks

I only use Firefox and have for the past few years. Yesterday I tried to schedule an appointment to get my oil changed at the dealer but was unable because the process on the site just flat-out breaks on Firefox. This is not a complaint about Firefox, but the fact that Chrome is so popular that some websites only work with Chrome. I don't have a Chromium-based browser installed (besides Edge, which I've never opened intentionally) and I despise being on the phone (which is why I was trying to schedule online in the first place), so I just didn't make the appointment. I'll go somewhere else to get my oil changed. Sorry for the rant but it was extremely frustrating.
- Chrome is so popular that some websites only work with Chrome.
  It's the Internet Explorer problem all over again, but this time from an even more invasive company.
  The more people choosing non-Chomium browsers, the better. Keeping them popular enough that most sites have to support them is the only way to preserve what little agency people still have on the mainstream web.
- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-mask
  This addon will work if it's not letting you
  
  Not necessarily. The problem is often that chrome JavaScript implementation can be ever so slightly different from FFs. Or just that the web devs wrote fragile code that is barely working on chrome and doesn't work on other browsers, where they failed to test.
  
  I'll check it out. Thanks!
- Man, you never worked for a large corporation that that had internal web based apps that only work on Internet Explorer and refused to update it.
  
  I worked somewhere like that back in the 2008-2010 time frame. Thankfully, there was a extension, I believe the name was "IETab", that would spawn a new tab in Trident (IE's browser engine). So you could set certain sites to launch in one of those tabs and everything else would use standard Firefox. None of the people I supported were any the wiser. They just thought everything worked in Firefox.
  Granted it was only that seamless because Windows already had that rendering engine built in. There are some extensions that do something similar with Chrome, but because of more modern security standards and whatnot you have to install extension helper applications which is gross.
- Are you sure that it was Firefox itself? I find the few times something like that has come up, it was because of extensions (like adblocl, actually).
  Delta's website started blocking me due to using Dark Reader, apparently something about detecting that the contents of the page were being altered. And another site worked fine when I disabled unlock; I assume because it was blocking loading some .js that was actually being used for something other than just ads.
  
  As far as I can tell. After disabling all extensions it still didn't work.

This has been a long time in the making...hopefully Firefox will see a market share increase. Google is doing this right as they get slapped by an antitrust ruling ironically lol. If you haven't already just go ahead and switch, if you like Lemmy you'll probably like Firefox as well.
Side note: I try not to be negative here, but this would be a great time for Mozilla to get their act together as an organization. Love Firefox and the idea, but Mozilla has been pissing off the FOSS space for a while now with their decisions. If they've improved in recent years, disregard this.
- The tricky part is that Google isn’t wrong about Manifest v3 increasing security for some people. Just allowing any extension to access the full URLs from a webpage is honestly pretty sketchy for most things that aren’t adblockers. Think about Beth in accounting who has 27 bloatware toolbar extensions installed on her home PC, which are happily collecting her full browser history and sending it off to gods know where. Manifest v3 is targeted at increasing security for those users, by making it more difficult for extensions to track you.
  The issue is that it also makes ad blocking virtually impossible, because the blocker is forced to just trust that the browser is being truthful about what is and isn’t on the page. And when the browser (developed by one of the largest advertisers in the world) has a vested financial interest in displaying ads, there’s very little trust that the browser will actually be honest.
  The issue is that there’s not some sort of “yes, I really want this extension to have full access” legacy workaround built in. Yes, it would inevitably be abused by those scummy extensions, which would just nag idiot users to allow them full access. And the idiot users, being idiots, would just do it without understanding the risks. Even if Chrome threw up all kinds of big red “hey make sure this extension actually needs full access and isn’t just tracking your shit” warning flags, there are still plenty of users who would happily give bloatware full access without reading any of the warnings. But it would also allow ad blockers to continue to function.
  
  The single biggest security improvement you could make for Beth in accounting would be to install UBO. Where do you think she gets all those shitty toolbar extensions? That's right, from ads.
  This is targeted at destroying adblockers because Google is, first and foremost, an ad serving company. That's their business model. It incidentally improves security for certain users in certain edge cases, because they need some kind of figleaf of legitimacy.
  
  If it was about security then they should simply block Manifest v2 extensions from their store or at least start doing some actual verification of the extensions they host. Taking away freedom claiming it to be for security is almost always a lie.
- Can you share some examples of things that pisses off the FOSS space? Mostly just curious to understand more
  
  Here's the most recent example:
  Firefox’s new data collection feature sparks user backlash: here’s how to disable it
  The browser that promises “no shady privacy notices or advertiser backdoors” on its storefront has suddenly added an experimental feature to beam user interactions to advertisers and enables it by default. Many are not happy.

On the same day Google was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act...
- Too bad nothing will come from that.
- I’m going to call foul play on Judge Mehta’s ruling. They are a direct competitor.
- What happened?
  
  They lost what may end up being the biggest antitrust case in decades. And it's not weak sauce like the ruling that may get overturned regarding the Play Store monopoly (which is kinda weak since Android manufacturers can and do include other app stores on their phones).
  It had to do with their anti-competitive behavior regarding Online Search. Specifically stuff like paying Apple and other manufacturers to make Google the default or even exclusive search engine, then using that not only to capture the market, but to charge more for ads than the competition they sabotage.
  As a bonus, it'll probably hurt reddit too, since it almost certainly makes their recent deal with Google illegal.
  It'll be appealed, but it's a pretty big ruling. Between the US Courts, EU legislature, and what looks poised to be a flop for Gemini/Bard, Google is on its way to having a real shit year.

What the uBlock dev actually said:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/wiki/About-Google-Chrome's-%22This-extension-may-soon-no-longer-be-supported%22
Manifest v2 uBO will not be automatically replaced by Manifest v3 uBOL[ight]. uBOL is too different from uBO for it to silently replace uBO -- you will have to explicitly make a choice as to which extension should replace uBO according to your own prerogatives.
Ultimately whether uBOL is an acceptable alternative to uBO is up to you, it's not a choice that will be made for you.
Will development of uBO continue? Yes, there are other browsers which are not deprecating Manifest v2, e.g. Firefox.

I recommend switching to another browser like Firefox or Librewolf.
- I love Librewolf currently but I worry it's going to stray too much from what it originally was like Waterfox and others ended up doing, and then end up randomly breaking compatibility with certain plugins or introducing other issues.
  Right now, Librewolf is the best way to experience Firefox. Will that still be the case in 5, 10, 15 years? That remains to be seen. I hope it's still the best way to experience Firefox years from now. Having to change browsers every so often does suck tbh.
  
  Those are jumping to Librewolf from Firefox, keep the following things in mind
  It's a privacy first, usability second browser
  It's not a browser for your grandparents. You have you take some steps to give it the same functionality as Firefox
  Good news is it removes a lot of Mozilla cruft
  Browser fingerprinting, which allows websites to recognize an individual user, is disabled on this browser. This feature greatly enhances privacy.
  But it means it will 'slightly' break some websites. Nothing very serious but certain QoL features will be missing at first. Eg. When downloading a software, it can't determine which OS you are using.
  You can enable browser fingerprinting and get those QoL features back.
  Hope you have a good experience on Librewolf. I've been using it for the past 1 year and it's fine.
  
  Meh.
  Librewolf already breaks loads of websites with it's fingerprinting resistance - just get used to turning it off.
  In any case, you already need a chromium fork handy for all the sites that just plain don't support firefox any more. I've run in to weird issues in firefox that don't arise in chromium several times in the last month. This is going to get much worse.
  As for changing browsers. I don't care very much. I don't use many browser features like bookmarks or passwords.
- Using firedragon for desktop (Linux) and between iceraven and mull for mobile
- hello, i have chosen to value your opinion above my own based on very shaky reasoning i will not be sharing
  I abandoned chrome for being too RAM-hungry when im playing games w the browser open
  i abandoned Internet Explorer for being too slow
  and i abandoned firefox for being too bloated and sluggish, but that was like 2010 and things change
  im currently using Opera but why do you choose firefox over its contemporaries?
  
  Because it’s not based on chromium(blink web engine), there are two other well supported web engines which browsers can be based on, WebKit (Apple), and Gecko (Mozilla).
  At the end of the day, if it’s built on Blink, it’s liable to have Google break things they don’t like on the back end. Including ad blockers.
  Opera used to be built on it’s own web engine (presto) but since 2013 it’s been built on Blink.
  
  Firefox is open source and Opera is still based on Chromium (the engine for Chrome, same as Edge and a number of other browsers).
  For practical use, Firefox seems plenty fast on my devices including mobile.

- What are the main differences, for someone considering going from Firefox to Librewolf?
  
  Librewolf is hardened out of the box whereas with Firefox, you have to harden it yourslf
  
  You should also consider arkenfox user.js
  
  Librewolf is to Firefox what Chromium is to Chrome, essentially. Removed many bloated Mozilla anti-features, has sensible (but not paranoid) privacy and security defaults and ships with uBlock origin pre-installed. You can archive all of that with Firefox, but Librewolf makes things easy for you.
- I’ve been eyeing up librewolf, having made the switch to Firefox on all machines a while back.
  If I’m using DDG for search, uBlock Origin, bitwarden, strict tracking protection, disabled data collection and ad measurements, and then have https-only in all windows and max protection dns over https, will I see any practical difference?
  In this case I do prefer functionality over 100% perfect privacy and anti-advertising. I’m fortunate to be able to run Linux on my work machine (I use mint, btw) and so I use the browser versions of M365 including Teams video conferencing.

I just got firefox yesterday, cause I noticed youtube started baking unskippable ads into their site.
- If any site doesn't work you can try this official addon Chrome Mask. If it works with it on you can report it Mozilla.
  Edit: a bit of context:
  
  I"m going to try that extension to see if it helps with a couple of websites. So thanks for the recommendation!
  
  Thanks for sharing the extension! I just got some passkeys and they just weren't working on several websites for Firefox (looking at you Azure) but that solved the issue immediately!
- I've been using LibreWolf on Desktop and Mull on Android. Basically more securely configured versions of Firefox with the proprietary telemetry and some other stuff removed. Takes some tweaking to get certain websites to work that need more access than they should or use Certificate Authorities that don't have working OSCP servers.

So many kids with assigned school Chromebooks are going to get fucked over by this. You can apparently install Firefox on a Chromebook via the Google Play Store, but that was disabled on my daughter's Chromebook. I don't want her exposed to constant advertising while she's doing her schoolwork. It's bad enough that she's exposed to it the rest of the time just being in America.
- I think this is something most people rarely talk about but it strikes home to many of us. As a parent, I have a responsibility to defend my children against this persistent cognitive manipulation and experimentation. Just as I would not want a random stranger at the corner have exclusive attention of my kid and sell them insurance or grammarly or mesothelioma, I would also never want them to have that unfiltered access to my kids online. One can then say AdBlocks are a parental obligation.
  
  there has to be collective voices and collective action taken. do parents unions exist?
- It’s normal for system admins to not let their users install non-whitelist software
  You should PTA to switch from Chrome to Firefox
  
  I think it's very unlikely that they would pay for the IT department to install Firefox on every Chromebook. You're talking 14,000 students in this county and only the kindergartners don't get Chromebooks.
- How about a DNS-based ad-blocking service? NextDNS is pretty good and not expensive. You should check if you can set custom DNS servers on that Chromebook, though.
  
  DNS over https bypasses much of that, right? till you find and block those DNS servers
  
  I have Yunohost installed on my local network and they have DNS adblocking apps that you can install.
  You can also very easily install apps like Owncloud to have your own version of Google Drive.

memories of Internet Explorer doing the same thing intensifies
- They did? Never used that garbage. Switched from Netscape Navigator to Opera to Firefox.
  I used chrome on mobile since in the old days, Firefox mobile was unusable, but that's been years ago.
  Now for the 3 websites that stubbornly refuse to open in FF I use Edge on desktop, and kiwi on mobile.

The 'block element' picker is the big one that can not be implemented in the lite version.
Also included block lists can't update unless the extension itself updates.
If you're not stuck on chrome due to workplace policy or something, now is the time to switch to Firefox
- Do you know if the lite version still blocks YouTube ads?
- AdGuard browser extension is on manifest v3 and they have elements picker feature

The best action ublock origions devs can take is drop support for chromium based browsers and retract ublock lite from the chrome webstore.
I was hopefull for something more than just a wiki page on github. adding a banner to chrome's add-on menu is way more powerful and far more reaching than what they did
- i crave decisiveness like that. it would make me so happy if that sort of behavior became the norm.
  too many corpos getting away with murder because they are more convenient than their competitors or because switching is too hard

Understatement, I know, but I find this so annoying, and it certainly feels malicious.
I was just commenting the other day how ridiculous it is that google search results literally serve up malware to people via paid ads. My neighbor was running into issues where her computer kept getting "infected" and a full screen scam would take control, blaring out a loud message that her computer was infected with a virus, that it was infecting microsoft's servers, and she had to call them now to fix it.
After investigating, I found out that these types of scams are stored as blobs on Microsoft's cloud service, but the links are spread via ads in google search. When I tried searching for the exact search terms my neighbor was using on my own devices and my own network, I found out that google was serving me the exact same ads, aka sponsored links. They look like legitimate results for things that people search for, like showing what appears to be a link to Amazon when searching for a product, even the links will say "www.amazon.com".
Obviously I told my neighbor not to use Chrome and suggested some browser alternatives. I installed uBlock on all the browsers (including chrome) just to be safe. Then I showed her how to tell when things are ads, even when they are deceiving, and to never click on ads or sponsored links under any circumstances.
But it's definitely infuriating that they are serving up malware in their ads, don't respond to reports in a timely manner, are getting people caught in scams that they allow to advertise on their network but then somehow object to people managing those risks by blocking ads from untrustworthy sources, like google.

They should update the Chrome extension to tell people to download Firefox instead
- Imagine if Google's decision to do this to fight adblockers results in them losing the lead in the browser war because everyone switches to other browsers.
  
  Dreaming is one thing, but I remain skeptical. Tech people always seem to vastly overestimate how much the average population will react to tech news. Most people don't care. They should but they don't. In addition to that, use of Chrome by businesses is heavily entrenched. The IT guys probably hate it on a personal level, but it takes a lot to make business bigwigs change direction away from a "trustworthy" big company like Google.

Already switched as soon as I learned of Google’s plans. They can go screw themselves for doing this. Firefox, the land of the free and open source!

- I see librewolf in the edge
- I switched somewhere in the early 2000s, from Internet Explorer (Microsoft), and never looked back. (Using IE and now Edge as alternatives only, when I get the rare non-functional Firefox issue.) Never created an account either. I manually save and port my bookmarks!

ive gotten almost my entire friend group using either the same fork as me or the original firefox, they all used chrome before. all because google was dumb enough to overstep some peoples boundaries.
- if you don't mind, which fork are you using? I got my sister to switch to firefox too.
  
  not the original commenter but FLOORP, BABYYYY!!! let's go let's get this floorp action come on floorp is the best reign supreme for a thousand years floorp woooooo
  
  I use waterfox. They are independent again since last year and their big thing besides privacy is that they carry over a lot of stuff from Firefox that was scrapped with the proton design.

So now we need an adblock blocker blocker to unblock our adblockers
- "Yo dawg, I heard you like adblockers..."
  
  Its an old meme sir, but it checks out.

Welcome to Firefox to anyone who is switching. I use a fork for Firefox (Floorp) Becuase I like it's features.
- What does that do?
  
  Mozilla telemetry disabled (you can do this on normal firefox)
  Some themes
  Sidebar extensions
  More easily move titlebar (firefoxcss)

I switched to Firefox last year when talks of chromium manifest V3 First started popping up. I had used Firefox many years ago when Chrome was first coming out. I was blown away at how well it worked compared to old Firefox, plus how easy they made it to switch. I even changed my phone browser and my desktop browser ties in with it seamlessly. Very happy with the switch and I wish I had switched earlier.
Now, I just wish I could use it at work. Not sure how I'm going to block ads on my work browser.
- My work blocks all kinds random software, Firefox included. My workaround is using Brave browser and a service like NextDNS either as an app or as the DNS provider for my home network. It's not perfect but it's flexible enough.
  
  What's odd is that we have Firefox pre-installed on our computers, but installing uBlock causes a lot of websites to stop loading. I forget the error, but I recall doing a lot of searching and it quickly becoming more effort than it was worth at the time since I'd have to do it all over again almost every day.

I agree with them. Better switch to Firefox.

@TheImpressiveX
Maybe you should update the title, since it is factually incorrect.
- Thanks, fixed.

IIRC the Google crackdown was supposed to happen this past January so Chrome users are lucky they got some extra time to switch.

I haven't used Chrome in years now. Firefox has always been my home.

So what are the consequences of it being flagged? Does it change how it operates?
I don’t use chrome so it doesn’t directly impact me but I like being up-to-date on this stuff
Edit: actually read the article lol so this is related to compatibility with manifest v3
- "This warning isn't just for uBlock Origin users. All extensions built on MV2 will display this warning on the Chrome extensions page if users have updated to Chrome version 127. Users of Chrome's Beta, Dev, and Canary channels have been seeing these warnings since June 3, 2024.
  Although users can temporarily re-enable their MV2 extensions, Google plans to disable these extensions gradually over the next few months. Eventually, users won't be able to use MV2 extensions at all and will have to switch to MV3 alternatives suggested by the Chrome Web Store."
  https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/using-ublock-origin-google-chrome-warns-users-it-is-going-to-ban-it/ar-AA1ofsSZ

UBlock for Chrome is going away, no matter what Google says about Manifest.

the creator of ublock also said to chrome/chormium users to use the light v3 version is that right?
- The creator(s) did not give direct advise. Probably so they have the time to slowly get people to switch instead of instantly getting shut down by Google.
  But people that are going to be using the lite version will definitely get bombarded by Google/Youtube ads very soon and will make the change regardless.
  
  oh

Well I don't use Chrome, so....

I already switched to Firefox after Netscape.
- Skipped over the original Mozilla?

I know, that some day I will have to switch to Firefox. But I'm putting it off as long as I can, as I don't like that browser. I will have to instal a shit load of add-ons to get the customisability of Vivaldi, and I doubt k will get it all.
- Do you even need uBO on vivaldi, though? A friend of mine recently had an issue of sites breaking, even with all addons disabled. As we found out, vivaldi already has a built-in adblocker, which uses pretty much the same lists as uBO. In the end it turned out to be one of the easylist's borked rules...

I have a Chromebook, what do I need to do to get ubo? From my understanding, Firefox is not supported in the browser so I'd need to get Linux? How does security work with Linux?
- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/chromebook/
- Firewalled for limiting untrustworthy connections to the computer(public networks, hotels, even work).
  apparmor for protecting the kernel and controlling file access to applications. SELinux is also a good option but if you need to load kernel modules, it can take a few minutes to sign and register it. It is automated on redhat systems though.
  Other than that, do your research and don't run random scripts and install random apps.
  
  I wonder why you’re getting downvoted

Not quite on topic, but: This past week developers at my company have been slammed by the Chrome DevTools debugger freezing when you hit a breakpoint. There's been no tracked bug and no timeline from Chrome on a fix. It's been a little bit of a lesson in having just one browser engine.

I've been using uBOLite for about a year and I'm pretty happy with it. You don't have to give the extension access to the content on the page and all the filtering on the browser engine, not over JavaScript.
- I hadn't heard of this.
  The FAQ says it's not a 1 for 1 replacement. There's a lot of features which can't be ported.
  It's probably better than nothing for most people, but not as good as uBO was.
  Still, I wonder why it's not mentioned more often.

Did I miss a piece? I don't see anywhere in the original statement where firefox is actively recommended, just mentioned as an example.
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox

I don't want to let go of my poor Vivaldi it's a blast of a browser
- Oh, how I get you! I managed to switch to Firefox after a while, but it took some adapting, and still I miss some of Vivaldi's features. That sidebar is simply fantastic.

PPAPI really ruined this all NPAPI FTW

I only use chrome when checking my Gmail account. Brave is my go-to.
- Guess you get to find out if this will be effecting all of chromium or just chrome......
  
  Brave is forked from Chromium so hypothetically they could maintain V2 but they'd need their own store as they currently rely on Googles
  
  Brave has added a feature to explicitly enable MV2 apps and install uBo directly from Brave settings. You can also install uMatrix and Adguard MV2 versions also.

umatrix better
- from the umatrix chrome store reviews:
  It's great for advanced users, for the time being. The project is no longer being developed (since 2021) and the Github repository has been archived. It will probably, mostly, continue to work for years. Probably. Apparently you can get some support from uBlock github site, I have no knowledge on the details of this.
  github backs that up https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix
  From the looks of things it still works but i'm afraid to recommend something that isn't maintained to normal users.
  
  fair enough, ublock is absolutely better for regular users.
  
  It’s going to have the same problems as uBlock

I've been using Chromium because it has excellent profiles support built-in. Firefox's profile separation works via a plugin and is just awkward, unless something has improved recently.

262 comments