Google Chrome disables popular ad blocker | Mashable.

Google Chrome disables popular ad blocker

The ad-blocker crackdown begins.
By Matthews Martins on 
Google Chrome is cracking down on ad blockers. Credit: Photo by Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images

Comments

  1. Please stop using Chrome. They do not get to tell you how to use the internet.

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  2. It's downright awful there sheer amount of dangerous ads is sufficient to justify adblocks , there is work around 40$ and a raspberry pie or just use oprahGX browser.

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  3. I've just started out on a quite expensive Chromebook Plus!! I take it,these ad blocks & the other,apps announced,will now knot be available on,the Chromebook?

    So I'll take it back too the retailer,I bought it from. And start using a Browser,that cares about,loyal long term users of their Software.

    This isn't nice what you've done. Google Chrome too long term customers,of your software. There's always other Browsers too use,I'll be doing that,and probably a lot more people,who have used Google Chrome for many years,will do the same!!

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  4. Switched to Opera a while ago because of stuff like this. Adblockers on Opera work just great, highly recommend it.

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    Replies
    1. I agree Opera has many great features. Sidebars is my favorite.

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  5. They think they're unkillable. Force people to watch ads and we will see about that.

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  6. The answer is obvious: use Firefox. Why is no one saying Firefox? Brave is great but it's also kinda bloated. Firefox was the ORIGINAL antithesis to IE, it is run by a nonprofit tried and true foundation that has done incalculable good in the open source space. It used to be the dominant alternative browser before Chrome came around, why is it so hard for people to return to it?

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  7. I'll use Firefox for my adblock needs

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  8. Brave appears to be the new chrome

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  9. Not just uBO, but all extensions that have't been updated to Manifest v3. This ain't new news, the v3 migration was announced in 2018.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah but it's impossible to update extensions to v3 without removing significant amounts of functionality

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    2. Sorry I meant to say "some extensions"

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  10. what a world, and i find myself constantly looking back to how things used to be. thank you mashable for this article.

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  11. still working fine in mozilla and in Brave

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  12. I stopped using Chrome a long time ago. I use OperaGX or Microsoft Edge.

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    Replies
    1. I'm in the USA and I just use whatever ad blocker came on my computer. It works oretty good.

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  13. F* Google, All Hail Firefox!

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  14. Yeah I’ve noticed them doing it. Chrome will be gone in an instant when my ad blockers completely stop working. They’re out of their mind if they think anyone needs their browser

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  15. Interrupting my YouTube video with some stupid ad is a guarantee that I will never buy that product.

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  16. Who cares, we using brave browser zero ads forever.

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  17. Can someone tell me which ad blockers I should get and on which browser?

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    Replies
    1. uBlock Origin is almost everyone’s go-to. Pretty much every popular browser is susceptible to getting their adblockers shut down in the future as well except for Firefox as it does not run on Chrome’s source code.

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  18. What a monopoly has wrought let no man cast asunder.

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  19. I watch youtube without ads with firefox and pretty much any adblocker.. In fact, I've been using firefox for much longer than a decade now

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  20. Long life to Brave!

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  21. Chrome going bad, time to move on

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  22. Oper Gx all the way 💪🏼

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  23. Dear Chrome, welcome to the Browser Graveyard. Would you prefer to be buried next to Explorer or next to Netscape?😁

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  24. It's time to encrypt🧐😉

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  25. That’s why we have brave browser

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  26. Just use BRAVE! 👍👍👍

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  27. Keep shooting on you own foot google....

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  28. Ads are intrusive, annoying & distracting. I will block them as often as I can!!

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  29. Did the switch this week, not looked back - not only is it faster but since a chromium browser works identically (at first glance) but clearly far more advanced.
    Even little things like cookie popups don't appear since the whole tracking & analytics are taken care of.
    If you've not tried Brave yet, do it.
    Also have Firefox etc, but now sync'd with Brave on my phone etc.

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  30. This is a losing battle for Google, always has been with ads.

    The more google and the like fight against ad blockers, the more those devs will push back. Heck, with the onset of AI, I wouldn't be surprised if ad block devs start making use of LLM logic to detect things like server injected ads.

    Instead of all this push back against ad blockers, their time would be better spent finding ways to make ads less annoying/intrusive.

    Personally I'm still open to the idea of bit miner javaacripts if they're tuned properly. Completely unintrusive if done right.

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  31. Google isn't trust worthy, their made business model is data harvesting and selling ads, but everyone seems to want to use it anyway, including Chrome.

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  32. Vivaldi won't either, and it doesn't have crypto bro nonsense in it.

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    Replies
    1. Don't expect Vivaldi to be supporting MV2 past next summer. They've made no commitments past that--and neither has Brave, that I've seen.

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  33. The future is either Firefox or Brave if you still want chromium browser.

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    Replies
    1. I mean there's still a chance Edge might retain support, if enterprise clients request it.

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    2. Vivaldi is my go to, so if that doesn't change I'm good when on PC which it rare now.

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  34. I’ve always found Brave’s built-in adblocker more than good enough.

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  35. I remember when ads were not so intrusive and tucked away nicely on the side somewhere or between some paragraphs of the article without taking up half the screen. Now, they're huge and are placed between every few lines to the point where you think the article is finished, only to find more text below.

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  36. I think Brave is owned by questionable sources

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    1. Can you please provide some sources for this? "I think" or "I feel" is not sufficient I'm afraid default_smile.png saying something like this should always be backed up by the reason.

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    2. He's probably slightly embarrassed to, since the "questionable" part relates to politics and not anything that would affect an end user of a web browser. Specifically, Brave Software was founded by Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and one of the co-founders of Mozilla, who was forced out of the latter organization over the "revelation" that he once donated money in support of an anti-gay marriage bill in California.

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    3. Thank you for providing this background information!

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  37. Too bad it occasionally comes with its own built-in malware.

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    Replies
    1. Any time anyone posts something like this (about anything) without proof I just call it fearmongering. Is that what you're doing? Is Google paying you?

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  38. I hope tons of people dump Chrome as a result, but I'm not holding my breath because so many clueless people just use Chrome because it's there in front of them, because Google made sure it's there in the front by throwing money at it and bundling it with everything.

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  39. I would not mind that much if ads on youtube would not be worse than on TV. It's crazy it's now a 1 minute ad every 5 minutes. If you want to fast forward a new ad. If you don't stop video before it ends a new ad. If you want to replay a section you just watched a new ad. Misclick on a video new ad. It's pretty clear they want people to sub to premium by making the experience worse than TV.

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  40. This is a battle Google can't win, all they are doing is pushing users away from Chrome.

    So even thought I don't use ad-blockers, some sites are so aggressive with their ads that it's very tempting to use them, even Google themselves with ads being longer and fewer options to skip after 5 seconds on YouTube are tempting me to use an ad-blocker, and if Google becomes more aggressive on that, I likely will use an ad-blocker and a lot of others likely will as well.

    The point I'm getting at, there would be little to no reason to want to use ad-blockers if these companies actually behaved themselves and stopped being so greedy, it's their greed that's pushing more of us to want to block ads.

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  41. I decided to settle with Firefox and AdGuard as a fallback in case Mozilla adopts Google's foolish ideas. AdGuard Family is 76% off right now. The cool part about AdGuard is that it can use userscripts and all my custom uBlock filters.

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  42. I run brave with ublock along with Adguard.

    I wouldn't mind STATIC ads, but between video ads that start automatically, blinking ads, pop ups, pop unders...is it any wonder people use adblockers?

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  43. Fuck you go*gle. Censorious, despotic technocrats. Sent from my Firefox browser

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  44. Then there needs to be an appropriate response. Google took uBlock Origin off Chrome? Switch to another browser like Firefox, etc, take Chrome off your computer and phone (or at least relegate it to a non-primary alternative browser) and set your main non-Chrome browser's search engine to something that is not Google, like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, etc.

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    Replies
    1. So oooo many people started using edge because of things like adblockers. Let's do it again, this time, to literally any other browser.

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    2. Edge actually feel fast and response now...

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    3. Edge is just chrome with some enhancements. As far as I've heard, it's actually faster than chrome is (better on RAM). That being said, it is still chromium

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    4. I used uBlock on Firefox on my browsers and NewPipe on my phone and voila... Ad-free

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    5. could you elaborate on what newpipe is/does? i have heard the name before, but i still have no idea.

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    6. Its an YouTube app for android for ad-free play and other benefits. https://newpipe.net/

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  45. Really, Google? Taking uBlock Origin off the Chrome web store feels like a huge overreach. It's like they want to force us to watch ads while claiming it's for 'security' or some vague reason. uBlock has been one of the best tools for keeping browsing safe and clutter-free for years, and now they pull this stunt? What's next—disabling every extension that doesn't fit into their profit machine?

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    Replies
    1. It's for security alright...securing that the dough ray me money money money keeps rolling into their greedy little pockets.

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    2. Adblockers make your search safer too, by blocking all the hazardous clutter along the rest, it's such a bs justification

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  46. Linux and Firefox. I'm done with greedy corps.

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  47. Switched to firefox a month ago knowing they'd do this, didn't think it would happen so quickly.
    Fuck google

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    Replies
    1. Try Floorp. Its a firefox fork and i am using it as my main browser for over a month. I love it.

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    2. What are the benefits? I am using the official one because I am lazy and it syncs my passwords with the desktop, I want to avoid needing a separate password manager.

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  48. Firefox is the future!

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  49. Saw it coming and switched to Firefox few years afo

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  50. That's not true, or at least not for everyone. The extension page in the Chrome Store works fine for me.

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    Replies
    1. Would you mind sharing your country? The rollout may be geographically staggered.

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    2. Sure, I'm from Hungary.

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    3. I guess that's it, here in Mexico it still works

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  51. It should be noted that Brave has said this a few months ago:

    "For as long as we’re able (and assuming the cooperation of the extension authors), Brave will continue to support some privacy-relevant MV2 extensions—specifically AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix"

    source: https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/

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  52. People are still using chrome? /s

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  53. Plus all those electron apps, which are basically chrome browsers with a bow tie and a new coat of paint!

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  54. so kind of Google to make people use Firefox with uBlock

    also it takes like half a minute at most to import every bookmark and saved stuff from Chrome to Firefox

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  55. I heard about this

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  56. Idk who anyone is surprised this is Google's main revenue source.

    Hot take incoming but try to hear me out:

    I'm gonna keep blocking ads, not telling anyone to do otherwise but these complaints every week are seriously getting tiring. The more noise you make the harder Google will fight, and the more people will use ad blockers.

    Do you guys not realize YouTube/ Google is being funded by people who don't block ads? So let them live their life funding YouTube while we block ads in silence.

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  57. Google's inevitable doom is near!!!
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2024/10/10/android-chrome--play-store-for-sale-32-pages-of-google-doom-raises-security-concern/

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  58. uBlock Origin still works for me in Chrome.. Im in Sweden.

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  59. It doesn't seem to be targeted at ublock origen in particular because other extensions seem to be affected to (eg my strava extensions)?

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    Replies
    1. Google is doing this specifically to neuter or kill ad-blocking extensions so as to protect its advertising business. It considers all other impacted extensions to be collateral damage. It has an official narrative around this whole thing about improving overall browser security but of course it's bullshit.

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  60. what happens if you have a dev build of ublock origin?

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    Replies
    1. It's still based on Manifest v2, so it either already got disabled or will get disabled soon unless you extend the deadline to June 2025 by using the first bullet point.

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    2. so far its working, but ill do the extension just in case. thank you

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    3. If I were you, I'd uninstall it and install AdGuard instead. It's going to get disabled eventually even if you extend the deadline.

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  61. What if I use Brave Browser instead?

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    Replies
    1. Brave has pledged to maintain Manifest v2 and therefore uBlock Origin support beyond the June 2025 hard deadline. Note that Brave also has its own native, extension-independent ad blocker. Also note that the technical feasibility of supporting Manifest v2 within the Chromium codebase over the long term is questionable, so this pledge may not amount to much.

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  62. Using Thorium for over a year now. Wouldn't go back to Chrome. It will be Firefox or Brave

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    Replies
    1. Thorium has pledged to continue supporting Manifest v2 and therefore uBlock Origin (Manifest v2) beyond the June 2025 hard deadline, There's no need to switch assuming that they honor that pledge.

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  63. Vivaldi Has also said they'd give support beyond June 2025 for Manifest v2 as well along with improving their inbuilt adblocker, and ublock works too.

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    Replies
    1. I'll need a citation.

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    2. I read the article again, sadly I was wrong it says they "may extend support" but they "expect to drop it by 2025". Sad.

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    3. Good job looking out for improvements to the post, anyway. Let me know if you come across any other relevant information.

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  64. We need to send Google a strong message that we're not longer going to tolerate their crap and simply stop using their search engine, their browser and their websites especially screwtube.

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  65. I got off Chrome some years ago, it’s a privacy nightmare. No reason to use it when there are non-Chromium alternatives available, imo.

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  66. I switched to Firefox in both mobile and desktop and I'm not planning in come back to Chrome anytime soon.

    Fuck Google.

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  67. I am using Safari and Brave only for youtube. Stop using Chrome.

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  68. I'm switching back to Firefox

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  69. I'm a Firefox user. Hopefully, Firefox will stay as Firefox.

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    Replies
    1. Firefox was originally called Phoenix. But it turned out that the name couldn't be used because there was a trademark conflict. So they renamed it to Firebird. But it turned out that there was a trademark conflict with that name, too. So finally they said fuck it and found the most obscure animal that nobody would ever use for a trademark and that's how we got Firefox.

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    2. You just invoke some of my memories, which are very blurry. I heard these names but never put it together, as you explained. Thank you.

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    3. You're welcome. This all happened in the early 2000s. It's ancient history.

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  70. Finally, after oscilating around Chromium browsers for so long, i settled on Firefox. And now i finally feel contempt about my browsing around the web. Good feeling.

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  71. Well, guess I'm switching to Firefox or Floorp once Edge drops it too.

    In the mean time, I'll learn to set up a pi-hole.

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  72. Good to know. Brave + Thorium combo going forward!

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  73. So that's why my ad blockers aren't working on Google anymore. Fuck them. Anyway, how does opera gx compare nowadays? Or should I settle for brave? My laptop is low end and struggles with high RAM browsers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. If your laptop is low-end, none of the mainstream browsers are realistic choices for you. Instead, consider:

      -K-Meleon

      -Supermium

      -Pale Moon

      -Basilisk

      -SeaMonkey

      -Midori

      -Falkon

      -Otter Browser

      -Qutebrowser

      Delete
  74. HELL YEAH MAN MY SCHOOL USES UBLOCK ORIGIN AS THE MAIN SITE BLOCKER!!!!

    (lightspeed and goguardian [yes our outdated ahh school still uses that] are second)

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  75. Still working with Edge

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    Replies
    1. Rollout may be geographically staggered and/or slightly later for some Chromium forks, but except for a handful of exceptions, be assured that Manifest v2 and uBlock Origin are going away soon for your browser.

      The exceptions are Brave, Thorium, and Supermium. These browsers have pledged to maintain Manifest v2 and therefore uBlock Origin support beyond the June 2025 hard deadline. Note that Brave also has its own native, extension-independent ad blocker. Also note that the technical feasibility of supporting Manifest v2 within the Chromium codebase over the long term is questionable, so these pledges may not amount to much.

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    2. I can confirm that Edge has not uninstalled the plugin, at least not yet.

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    3. Including Brave?

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    4. Brave has pledged to maintain Manifest v2 and therefore uBlock Origin support beyond the June 2025 hard deadline. Note that Brave also has its own native, extension-independent ad blocker. Also note that the technical feasibility of supporting Manifest v2 within the Chromium codebase over the long term is questionable, so this pledge may not amount to much.

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    5. Yes, it is based on Chromium.

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  76. Apparently you should avoid Thorium, someone once said the dev injected CP image in the code, I'm not sure entirely exactly what.

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like bullshit. That would become much bigger news if it were true.

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    2. It was furry according to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/18izmt4/clarifying_thorium_browser_controversy/

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    3. Furry content is arguably even worse than CP but it's not illegal.

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  77. Another reason to switch to Opera www.opera.com

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  78. Use Firefox, Opera or Brave.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Adblock Plus seems also to be kicked out of Chrome (Macbook Air) though uBlock works.

    ReplyDelete

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