uBlock Origin is no longer available in the Chrome store

laughs in Firefox

Cries in only Chrome and Edge at work 😢
- Tell your IT.
- Download Firefox portable
- Download a Firefox based browser from the Microsoft store?
- https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
- I would have run already.
- If you had uBlock origin already, you may have gotten a message through Chrome that it was no longer supported, so it's been disabled, and gives you the option to remove it. I noticed you don't have to remove it, and it can be re-enabled. However, I need someone smarter with adblockers than I to say if this is actually helpful and not hazardous.
- Edge extension store still has it I think. Use it until Edge removes it as well. Then tell the IT to use Firefox highlighting the importance of adblocking.
I just downloaded the Kagi Orion browser and I can install extensions from both Chrome and Firefox web stores!
- Nice!
Is there any firefox based browser on android where I can have easy gestures for the arrow buttons? All the firefox versions I can find require me to do this in two clicks which for the way I browse is a pain in the arse. Can I fix this somehow?
- You mean swiping left up go back? Works fine for me in regular FF on Android...
- Unknown, i can use gestures on my phone which work in Firefox. Maybe it's is a phone problem.
- I haven't tried it, but Iceraven has a lot of extensions available compared to Firefox. Maybe there is one to do exactly what you need?

Been a loooong time
- But my time is finally near...
Yeah, I switched to Firefox when this whole Manifest V3 thing was announced, I only still have Chrome installed because it's better for PDFs than Firefox and once in a great while i run into a site that doesn't work right on Firefox.
- better for PDFs
  Sumatra!
- I actually really like Firefox for reading pdf's, how is it in chrome? I've never actually tried chrome for that because I was still using okular back when I still had chrome installed on anything.
Or in my app drawer
- or in ~/.local/share/applications

Google is not an IT company. It’s an advertising company. Surprised Pikachu, it blocks ad blockers.

It's been an ad company for a long time, though, and blocking ad blockers is new.
- Because they are at the end of their growth phase and have entered their squeeze until dead phase.
- Yes, but enshittification doesn't happen all at once. And this is a textbook example of the actual meaning of enshittification.
- Yeah it’s always been an ad company. And you are correct, blocking apps is new, welcome to the last stage in the ad-blocking arms race. Glad I degoogled my digital life a decade ago.

- some some youtubers that had setup like that, it was so cringey. its from idiocracy
uBO is not just an ad blocker, its almost a firewall against malware and a tracking filter
Im old enough to remember the internet before ads, and with ads became a thing and you had to make sure to keep your speakers low/off all the time less some screaming loud ad popped up somewhere to burst your eardrums at 2am.
There were so many obnoxious, visual cancer ads.
Then they became actual digital cancer by being injection points for viruses and malware, and thus adblockers became a necessity.
And they remain a necessity to this day, for the same reason as they were 20+ years ago.
and yet the ad servers want to blame the end user for adblocking.
not their absolute refusal to moderate or police any of the content they deliver.
- and yet the ad servers want to blame the end user for adblocking. not their absolute refusal to moderate or police any of the content they deliver.
  This is the American way. You try to shit blame elsewhere so noone puts the onus on you to improve so you can keep a larger portion of the profit. "Fuck you I got mine" should be printed on our money lol
- CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON!!!
Instead we get an almost unusable internet where ads take up more and more real estate.
Its even worse than just hurting usability. Lots of ad networks are not policing their advertising customers and malicious payloads have been injected from ads. So allowing ads is a security risk because of the lack of security at the various ad networks.
I was about to comment something similar but you said it before I did. Sometimes I'll mistakenly open YouTube with Chrome and then I realize I messed up because I have to sit through three, sometimes one-minute long ads just to watch a twenty second video. I'll typically just nope out and switch to Firefox. The worst thing is they're unskippable and I swear for some of them the ad actually pauses if you switch to another tab or browser. I'm getting ads even on super old videos so I'm pretty sure it isn't all to do with the channels themselves monetizing their videos.
- 3 one minute long adds are better than those 2 hour long prageru racist propaganda videos trying to masquerade as "Educational" content
I went to help out a friend, a few years ago, he runs vanilla Edge, I can't believe anyone actually uses the internet like that.
I'd be okay with sites showing me unintrusive non targeted ads, but since it's all or nothing I choose nothing.

But ublock origin lite is by the same dev.. Not as many features but it conforms to the new rules and is still much better than not having a blocker if you use chrome or edge.

Missing critical features:
Filter lists only update with the extension, you cannot update them dynamically
No making your own filters and thus no element picker for blocking annoyances on a webpage (a feature so good apple literally baked it into safari)
No support for external lists (which means if you back up your own filters into a list you cannot easily reimport)
No changing behavior on a per site basis
A number of other features as well that are more strictly power user features but still really handy like dynamic filtering and strict blocking domains.
If you have the option stop using chrome and edge, they are some of the worst options you could choose. Even outside of adblock and manifest v3 chrome is horrendous for data harvesting bullshit and edge isn’t great. If you don’t have the option because of an overzealous it dept or whatever and are forced to use it ubo lite is your best option probably and my heart goes out to you
- I'm a bit confused as an Adblock Plus user, why did the ublock dev drop those features? ABP uses manifest v3 too and it still has all of those. So it's clearly not about them being impossible.
Or just use Firefox
- My work uses a web-based interface that's very annoying to use on Firefox. I'm unfortunately tied to Chrome in the meantime, so uBlock lite is a lifesaver.
- Firefox was stubborn enough not to support H.265 till JUST recently and only on windows.. Doesn't work with my 4k security cameras as well as Chrome or Safari based browsers.

Chrome is no longer available on my computer.

Never has been 🔫 (at least for a couple of years)
I only use chrome for my work stuff, and that's because I work with g-suite a lot.
Chrome fucking sucks
I wish I could say the same. Web dev. 🫡 But at least I'm using Chromium, if that's even slightly better.

This is probably the single thing that got me to switch to Firefox. Privacy whatever, I don’t care about my data or the morality of my tech company or whatever, but mess with my adblocker and goodbye.

Can I have your bank account username and password?
- No
I’m mostly in the same boat. If you really want to know my kink-search-history, I really DGAF. The morality is nice to think about but it’s all about your personal morals in a lot of cases.
firefox is going through thier own enshittifcation down the line, they changed ther policy about data recently
- As I understand it that has more to do with covering their ass. They haven’t changed their practices.
- I’ll care when Firefox loses ManifestV2 support.
- They changed the wording of their policy for legal reasons. They haven't actually changed what they do. They already updated the text of the policy to clarify.
- I read about this too, and it worries me. Google has donated over a billion dollars to Mozilla over the years. That alone doesn't scare me so much as it's a blatant propaganda tool to deflect the antitrust sentiment that plagues them and will probably some day do its work of breaking them apart.
  Fortunately, there are numerous open source forks. I am currently using Librewolf, a fork of firefox focused on privacy and anti-tracking, and it has worked without a hitch. A couple of my extensions have required fiddling with to get right but it's part of life if you care about these things.

Use firefox

And if you don't like Firefox, use one of the Firefox forks. Some of them are very Chrome-like.
- Which ones do you mean?
- They’re too strict, unless you have one that’s usable by default?
or even better, use librewolf.
- I'm not really sure it's better tbh

the what store now

I take this as a sign that it genuinely still works to block ads and hasn’t sold out and become malware like those others that used to be popular.

It was removed because Google did away with manifest v2 for browser extensions, and uBlock Origin worked almost entirely from a feature provided in manifest v2. So it was removed because it can no longer work on chromium devices, unless the browser manually adds back in support for it. Firefox has chosen to continue to support manifest v2, so the original uBlock origin is still available. uBlock lite is still available in the chrome store, and uses the new manifest v3. It is more limited in it's capability, but should be able to get the most obtrusive stuff. The lite version is definitely not nearly as powerful as the original.
On a side note, it seems to me like the link still works for now. Idk how much longer that will last.

I am from Germany and it is just sad how many people use these apps from shit companies without thinking, when suitable alternatives exist everywhere. Just use Firefox, it will work for 99,9% without any flaw. I would love to ditch WhatsApp, but could only convinge a few people to change to Signal. It is as easy as downloading a new app to prevent supporting Meta, but that's too much effort for many :-(

it will work for 99,9% without any flaw
Unfortunately not anymore.
And it doesn't help, that Mozilla is also slowly turning towards enshittification... (since they fired all servo devs...)
- I've been using Firefox mobile since they enabled extensions on it a little over a year ago on my Pixel 9 and haven't had any performance issues with it. My only complaint is that it doesn't handle form auto fills, or opening links associated with apps as well as chrome, but I think that's because of chrome's inherent ties into the OS. I prefer Opera on desktop for the UI and features.
Actually as much as I’d love to use Firefox all the time, there are many times it won’t work properly at all. This isn’t entirely Mozilla’s fault, but it is the case.

I swapped to Chrome years ago because YouTube stopped working right on Firefox.

I've started the process of swapping back to Firefox after 10 years with Chrome over this.

never had a problem with firefox and youtube
- I know what he's talking about- there was some javascript spec or something that google proposed, and nobody else bought in, so it never actually became part of javascript's standard.
  But google implemented it into chrome's javascript engine anyway, and then used it for youtube. There was some fallback code if the new functions weren't available, but, because of a 'mistake' they didn't work and basically made playback ass for a while until the open source community basically debugged and fixed the issue FOR google, and then spent a few weeks cramming it down google's throat that it needed fixed.
- It probably didn't have anything to do with Firefox itself. It's likely related to something I messed up in FF or it was something to do with the ancient laptop I had at the time being a junk heap, but I tried Chrome and noticed that the trouble didn't exist there. So I started using Chrome.
  I kept using it because of all the google integration, which was really handy when I was using the google business suite to run my own small business. I shut that down two years ago now, so there's nothing really keeping me on Chrome any more.
  I swapped back to FF a few days ago and YouTube works fine now. So I'm back on the FF train and giving Google the finger the whole way over banning the adblockers that I liked.
- The only problem I've had is that you can't view HDR content in YouTube on Firefox.
  That's not a big part of YouTube (yet), so it is largely unnoticeable.
There were a few extensions you could run in firefox that told youtube that it was totally for reals being accessed by a chrome browser.
- Boy, that would have been good to know back in 2015, I feel like I let Google hoodwink me into using Chrome for all that time.
If they break youtube in alternative browsers or force ads I'll finally be able to ditch youtube for good.
Ironically YouTube seems to work better for me in firefox, although the issue in chrome may be caused by browser extensions
- That's good to hear. I'm looking forward to trying it out on FF again.
What problems with YouTube did you have?
- Something was going wrong with video playback. Unfortunately, this was about 10 years ago so I don't remember many specifics about what the problem was.

There's a way to save your already-installed extension, in "Manage Extensions..." Enable dev mode, then Pack Extension.

However the browser will probably just refuse to run it soon.

Vivaldi, for what it's worth, seems to still run uBlock Origin just fine. I am afraid to uninstall it now to test if it'll re-install properly.

My version: 7.1.3570.39 (Stable channel) (64-bit)

Might be time to finally move to Firefox though, if Vivaldi doesn't keep Manifest V2 support.

Vivaldi isn't even fully open-source anyway, so it's worth leaving regardless.
- I wish Vivaldi wasn't Chromium-based, because I think it's the slickest browser out there.
  But it's chromium, so it's time to move on to Firefox regardless.
  Ladybird development can't happen fast enough.

Everyone should ditch chrome

And that is why I went to Firefox once Google announced this bullshit.

Swapping is pretty painless. It even brings over all your passwords and stuff these days. Best get to swapping before Google disable that as well. They'd just love to keep you hostage.

Use a third party password manager, don’t rely on browser default ones
- Some suggestions:
  Bitwarden (US based but with EU hosting, free tier, open source)
  proton-pass (Swiss based with free tier)
  Keepass (open source system, free “self-hosted” through cloud saves)
  1pass (Us based, paid tiers only)
  Lastpass (US based, free tier. Lots of breaches in the past so I can’t recommend)

They hate us

It is 100000% a reason to split Chrome and the ad sales part of Google into different companies.
It won't solve the problem but the pressures end up being orders of magnitude different.
- Frankly they should probably split off the ad side from everything else.

Glad I don't use chrome anymore. Though unfortunately everyone else I know still does.

I switched to Firefox many years ago, after their announcement I switched to Waterfox and I'm very happy with it.

I've been on Firefox since 2004, trying Waterfox right now and it seems very nice. I was surprised to see that it supports Firefox Sync, took me less than ten minutes to make it comfy. Now I'm wondering about that; perhaps I should disable Firefox Sync?
How did you choose Waterfox? Are there any resources that compare these FF forks?
- Not Waterfox, but others is listed here https://www.privacytools.io/private-browser
  Worth to be mentioned are also
  https://floorp.app/en
  but the best IMO https://zen-browser.app/
- https://alternativeto.net/software/firefox/

I really hope some team has been following the changes in Chrome/Chromium by Google to remove Manifest v2, and has been keeping a patchset that will undo the damage? Time to make a hard fork and get some funding to try to keep it going?

i expect at least the 'big' 'non megacorp' chromium based ones like vivaldi, opera, brave to keep mv2 as long as it is possible.
but i can totally see google doing some serious mangling of the codebase to make patching-in mv2 difficult.
- There's the futile hope I suppose that antitrust cases going on against Alphabet might force Google to divest Chrome from its advertising arm, so that there's no pressure to make this whole thing worse. Hah, in my dreams.

Didn't consider chrome before and still wont

Yeah, I heard someone say a week or so ago that they straight disabled it in the browser, and now only the gimped version that works with Manifest V3 works now. Thankfully I switched to Firefox when all this Manifest V3 stuff was announced. As far as I know it's the only browser out there that isn't based on Chromium (which Google also controls, so browsers like Brave will likely be affected by this soon as well, unless a bunch of those smaller browsers get together and fork Chromium and maintain it themselves, which I'm not very hopeful about) and so doesn't have to worry about these shenanigans.

Safari had its own web engine, WebKit, which chromium’s web engine, blink, is actually a fork of.
Opera Used to have it’s own web engine, presto, but they rebased to blink in 2013.
But yah, your options these days for the basis of your browser are basically WebKit(Apple), Gecko(Mozilla) and Blink(Google).
Brave and Vivaldi are chromium based but have adblocking built in rather than relying on an extension. So while they will eventually be impacted on extension support, the built in adblocking (which is quite robust) won't be affected.
- But then you're indirectly giving the enemy (Google) power by increasing their browser market share, which in turn lets them dictate the future of the web.
- I used Brave for a while and found I still needed to use ublock to cover some things, especially stuff like Youtube ads.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/ddkjiahejlhfcafbddmgiahcphecmpfh

Doesn't cover 100% of what uBO did, but it still works just as good IMO with DNS based ad-blocking on top.

Surprised so few people are aware of this. It seems equivalent to me when you give it the same permissions Ublock Origin had.
- Agreed. I haven't even found anything that it doesn't block that UbOrigin did.
Thanks!!

Webserial is only reason I see to install Chrome. For everything else Firefox works great.

shows up but it is not selectable
- same here in firefox. uhh

May you can install Linux on your Chromebook Have a look at
https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/
https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium
https://postmarketos.org/

Chrome? I've heard of that once.

Not surprising, Google is an ad company at this point.

It never was anything else

i was able to load it in a (not chrome) chromium-based browser without issue, just the notice across the addon's page.

the 'lite' version is also on there, seems to work 'ok'. adguard and a few others are also there--they must all be mv3, as only the full ubo has the warning notice on its page of those i checked.

all the mv3 ones run the risk of having updates rejected or delayed by google, especially if they contain code or filter updates (filters must be packed with the addon in mv3) to combat changes google makes to their own sites. firefox or a trusted customized build or maintained fork is the way to go now.

That’s fine. Google can go fuck themselves

🎵So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.🎵

I stayed away from Chrome alternatives, as it had the best Canvas/HTML5 performance (Which oddly enough, was quite important for most of my browsing needs). However, this news means I will have to switch. Installed Firefox for my primary browsing needs, and a few Chromium-based ones to try out for specifically the aforementioned use case.

I noticed they recently marked it deprecated or unsupported (i forget the wording) and tried to get me to remove it. I think it was even disabled automatically. I kinda saw this coming.

Many chromium browser have built-in adblockers and some of them are on-par with uBO. These are not extensions, so Google can't really do anything about them. Not worried in the slightest.

Correct me if I'm wrong but extensions can still be installed manually correct?

Manifest v2 extensions won't work, the API it needs will be gone soon
- Also since 2015, Google has made it VERY hard to install extensions without the web store. This extends to most chrome derivatives as well.
  There are workarounds if you use ungoogled-chromium (Method 2 should work with normal chrome as well).
The functionality to run those extensions has been removed, so manual install won't work.

Have never used Chrome. Firefox is very good. I had 5-6 years when I preferred Opera, but since 2014, I've been using Firefox exclusively.

looks like you dropped opera about the same time it rebased to blink (chromium) from their own web engine, presto.

It’s funny how things work out. I had a Chromebook that couldn’t have Firefox installed. I heard that Chrome would remove ubo, my Chromebook died the following month. So I got a cheap laptop instead. The problem solved itself.

Switch to vivaldi

switch to firefox (or a fork of firefox like librewolf).
vivaldi just uses chrome's web store (there's a discussion on the forums to build their own extension store but no movement yet: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/91160/vivaldi-s-own-extension-store/20)
- I didn't realize there were firefox forks, are any of them significantly better than firefox?
- Waterfox runs nicely on pc. Still a little rough on android though
Does Vivaldi not just use the Chrome store for extensions? Also, aren't they losing manifest V2 as soon as it's dropped from Chromium in a few more months?
I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. But it keeps pissing me off because I have to dig through settings to undo changes they made to browser features that are standard across both Firefox and Chrome. It's free and I'm not tryig to sound entitled but almost every single change they made to Chromium aside from the privacy stuff has me going WHYYYYYY?
The way they handle open in new tab, tlds like.internal, and ctrl+click to complete urls were the worst offenders off the top of my head.
Plus their ad blocker doesn't even come close to uBlock Lite.
I just want v8 in a hardened vanilla Firefox wrapper that doesn't go to the extremes that LibreWolf goes) :(
Any Chromium-based browser will be in the same boat sooner or later. None of them have the resources to continue to support v2 long-term, or to support their own extension stores.
At this point the only viable alternative is Firefox and its dirivatives.

Vivaldi's built in adblocker still works fine.

Yeah, I'm using Vivaldi too and getting concerned about UBO's lifespan...
I also have pfBlockerNG running in my firewall, which blocks a load too, but not looking forwards to the future...
- I removed all adblock extensions a while ago, and I am now running with the built in adblock alone. It works great for me. Also, it won't be deprecated: https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-future-proofed-with-its-built-in-functionality/

Probably not a popular choice, but my VPN comes with an ad blocker which works great.

I'm still using Nord VPN as I got an insane deal a few years ago. Now it has something called Threat Protection which blocks all ads whether on my desktop browsers or on mobile.

✨Edit to add: Yeah down vote me. Nord was a blackfriday deal from 3 years ago. Much has changed since then.

I travel full time and I'm now in the market for a new VPN provider. I don't have my own router.. I don't even have a home.

Instead of just down voting, perhaps come with some constructive ideas or suggestions, thank you! ✨

Nord VPN
lmao
- Like I said it will be unpopular, but it's about to expire anyway.
  A more helpful response would be to recommend an alternative
- Why is that lmao
You can just use a free adblocking DNS for that.
A browser adblocker is better for a few tricky ads.
GL-AX1800 router with mullvad wireguard vpn config and adguard
- I travel full time, so I don't have my own internet connection.

That was a loud ball drop from Google’s hands.

Chrome hasn't been my main browser in a while but I kept it as a backup and because Firefox doesn't support PWAs and I didn't want to mess with the extension. Turns out, the extension only takes about 3 minutes to get set up and now Chrome has been uninstalled. And on a random Tuesday, who knew?

I'm browsing via FF (fork) + Android + PWA right now. No extensions. ?
- I don't use the fork (I'm still learning what that even means). I mostly use PWAs on my desktop and my understanding is that regular FF doesn't have native support for PWAs so you have to use an extension plus a couple other things to make it work.
  It seems fine on android though, but the "app" really just opens the URL in the browser, it's not like how Chrome was. NBD though.

I'm shocked, really

I have used firefox from like 2005 to 2024. I am now using brave and I am quite happy with it. I just disabled all this useless cryptobro crap that it comes with. I tried most of the chromium based browsers and this is by far the one that better fits my needs. It has an adblocker that works well, it has a sync option that is not on google servers and supposedly they dont have that insane telemetry that chrome has. And yes an adblocker is tottally needed and will probably be allways needed. I do run a network adblocker with pihole and nextDNS. I haven't seen a single add in years and do not miss them at all. I rather ahve a half broken page than some random website trying to sell me satisfiers and blue pills.

Boycott these bastids

Recently switched to Waterfox from Firefox and loving it. Much faster than the latter and I can use all of my add ons.

Haven't used Chrome in years so they can suck it.

Are you sure? In Brave browser it's all nice and dandy.

Going to guess that’s based on your region rather than your browser