Ask HN: Is uBlock Origin removed from Chrome extension?
39 points by magundu 10 hours ago | 37 comments
Today I noticed uBlock origin is removed from Chrome. Can someone explain why?

What are the alternatives to uBlock?

  • duringmath 10 hours ago |
    uBlock origin lite.
    • _blk 9 hours ago |
      It's the best they can do on the new API but it's not the same product.
      • pzo 8 hours ago |
        can you share what's the limitation of Lite?
      • TiredOfLife 3 hours ago |
        It's not the same, but in my use for the past couple of weeks it's 99.99% the same
    • magundu 8 hours ago |
      Thanks. How to get back previous configuration in uBlock advance user setting?
  • bdangubic 10 hours ago |
  • peutetre 9 hours ago |
    Use Firefox and uBlock Origin. It always worked best on Firefox anyway:

    https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

  • nemomarx 9 hours ago |
    Chrome is removing some features that Origin depends on now. There's Ublock lite or moving to Firefox to keep using Origin.
  • tech234a 9 hours ago |
    The removal can be bypassed until June 2025: https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1d49ud1/manif...
    • moderation 7 hours ago |
      A nasty and likely intentional side effect of using these workarounds is that your browser becomes "managed" and it blocks the ability to configure DNS for example. Deal breaker for me
      • tech234a 6 hours ago |
        You can configure DNS while managed by applying an additional policy, but the browser would still be "managed".
  • _blk 9 hours ago |
    The move to the API seems motivated more by keeping the ad profitability model up than being about technical/security reasons. While I'm glad we're not in the IE4 vs. web standards days anymore, with Edge now also being on Chromium-base, there's too many interests in that one hot spot. How did the old saying go? Power corrupts, absolute power ...
    • HKH2 7 hours ago |
      Corruption exists because people refuse to do inconvenient things.
  • chris_wot 9 hours ago |
    Stop using Chrome if possible. Use Firefox.
  • solardev 9 hours ago |
    If the DoJ manages to make Google sell Chrome before the new administration, will that stop this disaster?
    • gpm 9 hours ago |
      Probably.

      There's no good technical reason why ublock and similar addons are being un-supported, merely Google's whims. If a non-advertising company buys it they won't have any reason to go through with this.

      I can only imagine that there will be a whole new can of worms though, trying to maintain a technically complex project with no revenue stream, likely loss of a lot of the core developers, and chaotic management.

      It might well recover and turn into a fine project. In the meantime though, firefox seems like the best bet whether chrome is removed from Google or not.

      • 3eb7988a1663 7 hours ago |
        I realize something as complex as a browser can never be done, but would it be so bad if new feature development slowed to a crawl? I suppose I only want a faster horse, but few of the cutting edge developments of Chrome seem like they have much to offer me.
        • gpm 6 hours ago |
          New feature development? No. Security fixes slowing to a crawl though, that would be a disaster.

          There's such a huge user base around chrome that I feel pretty confident it will land in a position where that isn't a problem - eventually. The transition could be rough though, right now I imagine it's quite heavily tied to google infrastructure and engineers.

      • shiroiushi 7 hours ago |
        Why exactly would a non-advertising company buy Chrome? Unless they're an OS company and want to use the browser to force everyone to buy their OS?
        • gpm 6 hours ago |
          OS companies (particularly microsoft, who maintains a chrome fork already) seem like a good bet.

          There are other browser companies (brave, opera, etc) who might be interested, though it would be quite a gamble for them to buy chrome in my opinion.

          There's a lot of software based on top of chrome (via electron), which means a lot of money that cares about what happens to it, which could easily influence things.

          • shiroiushi 6 hours ago |
            >OS companies (particularly microsoft, who maintains a chrome fork already) seem like a good bet.

            Great, so we go right back to the days of IE6. No thanks.

            >There are other browser companies (brave, opera, etc) who might be interested

            These companies are viable because they get to outsource the bulk of the browser development and maintenance to Google for free. I don't think they can afford to buy and run the whole browser.

            >There's a lot of software based on top of chrome (via electron)

            This is honestly the best scenario I can see of all the discussion I've read about this, and I'm surprised I haven't seen it brought up before. Still, from what I read on Wikipedia, Electron was spun off from Github (owned by MS now) and is run by a foundation with a bunch of tech company members, so going from this to a whole for-profit company for something that is basically just an open-source wrapper over Chrome's engine seems unlikely.

    • dartharva 8 hours ago |
      Probably not. I'd reckon even the other corporate donors and contributors to Chromium apart from Google will be in favor of Manifest V3 and killing content blockers.
    • kadoban 7 hours ago |
      Doubtful, but possible. But, there's no way that will be finished before the new administration.
  • gnat 9 hours ago |
    Anyone have a recipe for running pihole on one’s laptop and proxying traffic through it? One you’ve used and can endorse pls. I too can Google. :)
    • quickslowdown 6 hours ago |
      I don't think that's a good idea, it should be a separate, ideally hardwired device (or VM on a host with an Ethernet connection).

      But I wonder if you could run the PiHole (or Technitium, or AdGuard Home, etc) in a container with Podman or Compose, and set your DNS to 127.0.0.1? I feel like that would create some kind of feedback loop.

  • thekevan 9 hours ago |
    While some here don't seem to like it, instead of replacing uBlock O, I suggest replacing Chrome with Brave.
  • Funes- 9 hours ago |
    I just use brave now. Comes with decent ad blocking out of the box.
    • modzu 8 hours ago |
      brave can use the same filters too
  • endgame 9 hours ago |
    The technical reason was that uBlock Origin uses the "Manifest V2" extension interface. The new "Manifest V3" standard ever-so-coincidentally doesn't provide the tools necessary for thorough ad-blockers like UBO.

    You should switch to a browser that maintains support for good ad-blockers.

    • MR4D 8 hours ago |
      And this is why I agree with the government that Google has to sell off Chrome.

      This behavior just pisses me off. “Don’t do evil”, my ass.

      • wodenokoto 7 hours ago |
        In their defense it’s a long time ago they officially conceded on not being evil.
      • unsnap_biceps 7 hours ago |
        They removed "Don't be evil" sometime in 2018

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

      • shiroiushi 7 hours ago |
        And who do you think is going to buy it? And why wouldn't they do the same?
  • ChrisArchitect 8 hours ago |
  • TiredOfLife 3 hours ago |
    As nobody has linked to it jet https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/... That is the v3 manifest version of uBlock origin by the same author.

    In my couple week usage it's the same in blocking as uBlock Origin.

    • tyingq an hour ago |
      It is the hobbled version of uBlock origin, missing features.

      It may do about the same for general ad blocking now. But, advertisers are now aware there's much less potential to drive people to heuristic-capable ad blockers because that now requires more than "install this plugin".

      So now, they can be more aggressive about going around ad blockers.

  • kkfx an hour ago |
    AFAIK there are no Chrome uBlock alternatives, while there is a Chrome alternative with uBlock, Firefox. Beside that, you can set

        "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" = 3;
    as see https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/ apparently till June 2025 to keep Manifest v2 extensions like uBlock fully working, I've rebuilt my NixOS with Chromium this morning and uBlock was there so it's not removed at least if you have the aforementioned option set.