Use Chrome and Ublock Origin?

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You may have seen the news about Chrome not supporting uBlock Origin in the future. As this post indicates, “Starting with Google Chrome 127, there wi
[See the full post at: Use Chrome and Ublock Origin?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Elly, KWGuy, WSchetfreeman, jburk07, BobbyB, lmacri, Cybertooth, Myst

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I use uBlock Origin on Firefox all the time and I love it. I did away with using Chrome for years but especially now due to the fact that Chrome doesn’t support ad related software and refuses to be better at security unlike Firefox which is open sourced and I believe has more safety and security than most browsers, minus maybe the Brave browser. It’s Brave and Firefox the only two browsers I trust and use. I only use Chrome if have to with websites that appear to be broken on the Firefox or Brave browsers.

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I do use it and will be impacted. Firefox seems to be the alternative for me now.

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BobbyB

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Maybe Brave might be an option for you? In it I’ve been using Presearch, Blockzilla, Fluff-Busting Purity, and a paid VPN. Firefox wants to install updates to its updates too many times for my tastes.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

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Fred, BobbyB

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Have you tried Firefox-ESR already? Not many “updates” and stable.

I am using the browser Slimjet regularly, this is highly configurable, to me a it is bit better than Brave

* _ ... _ *

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Appears that Chrome is also phasing out Logitech Smooth Scrolling extension that comes with Logitech mice.

HTH, Dana:))

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Elly

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I have just started using uBlock Origin Lite (the Mv3-compatible baby sibling of uBO, also available from the Chrome Web Store) on Google Chrome and, so far at least, I can report that all is well.  It’s early days, though.

It is certainly much ‘lite-er’ with many, many fewer configuration options and filter lists – which is either good or bad, depending on your level of expertise.  Most importantly for me, it still contains an ‘exclusion list’ for sites that the user wishes to support such as, ahem, Ask Woody…

One techie question for someone out there: does the change to Manifest v3 apply to the Chrome web browser or to the Chromium web engine (and thus, presumably, all Chromium-based browsers)?

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lmacri

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It applies to the Chromium web engine so all Chromium-based browsers (Edge, Opera, etc.) will be affected; except maybe Brave (see post# 2692973 in the EFF vs Google Chrome Manifest V3 thread)

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WSchetfreeman, Deo, SauceMan64, jburk07, Mr. Austin

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Thank you, n0ads – very helpful.

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Several of the Chromium-based browser vendors have stated that they will modify the Chromium code to accept Manifest V2.

That won’t matter, though, if the makers of those addons stop developing them because they can no longer appear in the place most people (including those using most Chromium browsers) get their addons: the Chrome Store, of course. These addon devs would then have to maintain a “full” version of their product for the various Chromium-based browsers that add back in Manifest V2, which will have to be distributed by means other than the Chrome Store, and also the limited version which will work with Chrome proper and can be in the Chrome Store.

Makers of  Chromium-based browsers have a solution for that, though… simply add support for Firefox addons to their browsers. There are already extensions that allow you to do this, so it would be relatively trivial to add that bit in to the browser itself, and that would allow users to use the Firefox versions of things like uBlock.

It is, though, possible that Google will continue to develop Chromium in such a way that reverting the removal of Manifest V2 will become more and more difficult with each new release, requiring much greater changes each time. Eventually, the workload could get to be too much for the small dev teams who make each of the Chromium browsers (other than Edge) to handle. That would also affect browser developers who add Firefox (which supports Manifest V2) support.

Something similar was the reason Waterfox Classic eventually faltered after promising to keep supporting the powerful native XUL “classic” addons after Mozilla decided to abandon them in favor of the less powerful Webextensions, which are just Chrome addons with some minor tweaks. As the Firefox trunk code continued to evolve away from the point where Waterfox Classic branched from Firefox (v. 56), it meant an ever-increasing amount of work to modify each release of Waterfox Classic to have the classic addon support added back in.

It got to the point where it was not feasible anymore, and the last release of Waterfox Classic came at the end of 2022, five years after Mozilla officially phased out the full power addons.

Now, on the positive side, Manifest V2 and V3 addons are much more alike than Webextensions and classic addons are, so the work to retrofit the Manifest V2 support back in will be a much smaller task than adding back classic addon support. It may not be feasible for Google to sufficiently sabotage the code to prevent the easy re-addition of Manifest V2 support.

 

 

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Cybertooth, Alex5723

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I won’t be impacted because I don’t use the Chrome browser. I use Firefox with the UBlock Origins add-on. It perfectly blocks ads that my ISP provider puts in my email inbox. I hope FF will continue to support it.

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SauceMan64, Charlie, Cybertooth

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I only very rarely use Chrome. I use Firefox. I have long used uBlock Origin, But on my phone, I use dns.adguard.com (I am not a member)(android: Settings/Network and Internet/Private DNS )(Pixel 7 on 14) . I thought I had put that on my router but just checked and it was google, so changed it back to adguard. Maybe I was having response probs a while back. adguard works fine now.

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Cybertooth

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My primary browsers are Firefox and Brave, both using uBlock Origin and other privacy/safety enhancing extensions. Imagine that, what a coincidence.

I wonder if anyone is considering forking Chromium over this.

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I have avoided as much “googlization” as possible, blocking Google wherever I can. Even though I try to enforce my persona non grata policy, I see ever increasing incorporation of Google’s tentacles all over the web: google analytics, recaptcha, googleapis, etc., making it ever more difficult to get things done on the internet sans Google. Resistance may be futile but I do what I can to support alternatives – on principle.

I understand that websites want to provide features, gather analytics, track their users and so forth. I dislike that Google seems to be the increasingly default technology to use. Increasingly moving to a technological monoculture..  From “Do No Evil” to “Your Webs are Ours”. They have too much power and control over the evolution of the internet and how it works.

For years I have used Firefox, uBlock Origin, NoScript and other techniques to de-google and will continue to do so. When sites that I rely on force Google technology (snooping, profiling, ads) on me, I temporarily allow the minimum to get what I need then purge the browser, cookies, local storage, etc., of most traces. If a site isn’t critical for my needs, I consider whether I really need to go there anymore.

Brave is the only Chromium based browser on my machine. I seldom use it, but if it fails to support uBlock Origin, I’ll consider purging it as well.

‘Curmudgeonly Steve’, out.. 🙄

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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gwt10, Still Anonymous, SauceMan64, jburk07, GeeBeeDee, Cybertooth

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Susan Bradley wrote:

ou may have seen the news about Chrome not supporting uBlock Origin

It’s more than uBlock Origin. I rarely use chrome, but this screenshot is the message I get in the Chrome browser when clicking on “manage extensions”.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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The same thing applies to the Microsoft Purview Extension, which is going to be quite a problem for corporate users, as this is part of the DLP policies in our office. When that stops working in Chrome and Edge, it’s a problem.

At home I use Firefox, but at work, we use Chrome and Edge.

No matter where you go, there you are.

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I have had good results with Librewolf lately. Have begun using it for banking and brokerage. I use Brave for other things where security is somewhat less of a concern.

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Magnus wrote:

I have just started using uBlock Origin Lite (the Mv3-compatible baby sibling of uBO, also available from the Chrome Web Store) on Google Chrome and, so far at least, I can report that all is well….

I use uBlock Origin with my default Firefox browser. I haven’t decided what to do with MS Edge, but when the time comes I will likely switch to uBlock Origin Lite or AdBlock Plus.

From uBlock Origin lead developer Raymond Hill’s About Google Chrome’s “This extension may soon no longer be supported” in the uBO wiki :

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.

However the focus on reliability and efficiency in a Manifest v3 environment meant having to sacrifice many features beyond those not possible within a Manifest v3 framework.

See the official uBOL FAQ webpage for more details about how uBOL compares to uBO.

The Google Chrome Store is currently recommending four possible replacements for the full uBlock Origin at https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm/related-recommendations – uBO Lite, Adblock Plus, Stands AdBlocker, or Ghostery. I used Adblock Plus for several years before switching to uBlock Origin and found it was quite good – both extensions use similar default filter lists (e.g., EasyList, EasyPrivacy, etc.) and you can also create a custom list of whitelisted sites in Adblock Plus, but Adblock Plus isn’t quite as powerful as the full uBlock Origin, which is basically what the new uBO Lite sounds like.

Kudos to Sergiu Gatlan for mentioning Raymond Hill’s uBO wiki entry in the 02-Aug-2024 BleepingComputer article Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4651 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24060.7-1.1.24060.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.7.121-1.0.1293 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Firefox v128.0.3 * Microsoft Edge v127.0.2651.86

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SauceMan64, Cybertooth

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Steve S. wrote:

I have avoided as much “googlization” as possible, blocking Google wherever I can. Even though I try to enforce my persona non grata policy, I see ever increasing incorporation of Google’s tentacles all over the web: google analytics, recaptcha, googleapis, etc., making it ever more difficult to get things done on the internet sans Google. Resistance may be futile but I do what I can to support alternatives – on principle.

I understand that websites want to provide features, gather analytics, track their users and so forth. I dislike that Google seems to be the increasingly default technology to use. Increasingly moving to a technological monoculture..  From “Do No Evil” to “Your Webs are Ours”. They have too much power and control over the evolution of the internet and how it works.

For years I have used Firefox, uBlock Origin, NoScript and other techniques to de-google and will continue to do so. When sites that I rely on force Google technology (snooping, profiling, ads) on me, I temporarily allow the minimum to get what I need then purge the browser, cookies, local storage, etc., of most traces. If a site isn’t critical for my needs, I consider whether I really need to go there anymore.

Brave is the only Chromium based browser on my machine. I seldom use it, but if it fails to support uBlock Origin, I’ll consider purging it as well.

‘Curmudgeonly Steve’, out.. 🙄

Noscript will also no longer be supported by Google Chrome as well:

https://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?t=27168

so it’s not just happening with Ublock origin

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Steve S., Alex5723, Cybertooth

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Thanks. Another reason for me not to use Chrome. Checking my Brave extensions, at the moment NoScript and uBlock Origin are still supported.

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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Have used Ublock origin for years. I’m not interested in F/fox. Still in shock that Edge will succumb to this, being a chromium. Shame. Telemetry, telemetry, telemetry Ka-ching$!

You would think in this day & age, new safe browsers would be far into development.

Thank you Raymond Hill for your dedication through tumultuous years!

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And speaking of apps going away…

As part of the setup process for my new (and first) Win 11 computer, I downloaded a copy of WUSHOWHIDE from Older Geeks. When I launched it I was surprised to see a notice stating that “troubleshooters have been moved & this tool will be retired. <Learn More>. The “learn more” was typical MS speak beyond my comprehension.

It seems to function as normal otherwise. I have not seen this notice on my other computers running older copies of this app.

What am I missing here?? Without wushowhide the patching process will surely suffer.

Thanks!

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Deo

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KWGuy wrote:

Without wushowhide the patching process will surely suffer.

Use WUmgr

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Cybertooth, KWGuy

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Oh for flips sakes. Winshowhide was easy!  What, are we all to become our own programmers now? WUmgr isn’t the easiest to learn. Old timer. Mini rant. Whats the tine line so I can fit it in with my dizzy cancer rx? Enough Windows!

Tho mentioned by few in AW in favouring WU mgr, could AW site pls put a warning out well ahead of time that you are now favouring WUmgr? Winshowhide is still in your Blockapatch. TY! Thx to poster warnings:)

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As one old timer to another, I feel your frustration!  WUSHOWHIDE is easy; after reviewing WUmgr, it sure doesn’t look user friendly by comparison.

I keep hoping that this was a mistake and/or I’ve missed something.  But my above quote appears each time I launch WUSH.  BUT, I emphasize, it does not appear when launching from other PC’s using older versions of the app.  In MS tradition, the linked article provided me nothing useful.

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Follow-up to my previous reply.  Sadly, this is not me having a senior moment re: WUSHOWHIDE.  Below from a MS forum.  Again, no timeframe.

TA

Tanvi

Hi Jaburmester,
I am Tanvi, and I would be happy to assist you today!
You’re right. The Show or Hide Windows Updates tool has been retired or significantly altered in recent versions of Windows, including Windows 11.I hope this information will help. Please let me know if you have any other queries.
Good day

Moderator Edit: to remove HTML. Pleasu use the “Text” tab in the Entry Box or the Menu option to “Paste as Text” when you copy/paste from another source.

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Cybertooth

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Malwarebytes Browser Guard is also on the list as soon to be unsupported.

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KWGuy wrote:

altered in recent versions of Windows, including Windows 11

WUSHOWHIDE is a portable stand-alone tool. What has it to do with Windows 11 ?

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Apologies, Alex5723, I’m not sure I understand your question (or am technically competent to answer it!)  🙂

The following is a verbatim quote I receive every time I launch a recently downloaded version of wushowhide on my new (and only) Win 11 PC.

“troubleshooters have been moved & this tool will be retired. <Learn More>”

Additionally, this is a quote from a MS forum moderator in response to a question re wushowhide.  I believe it was dated Aug 1, 2024:

“The Show or Hide Windows Updates tool has been retired or significantly altered in recent versions of Windows, including Windows 11.”

Although portable, it is my understanding that wushowhide is a MS product/troubleshooter tool published by MS (at least that’s what the app says) to specifically work in conjunction with the MS Win 10/11 windows update process.  Hence, the relationship with Win 11.  I’m certainly no techie, so I defer to your opinion.  Please correct me if I’m wrong…I’m old but still trainable.

Sorry for any confusion.

 

 

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whshowhide still works on Win11. I have used it every month through July (no Aug updates yet). It will be deprecated sometime in the future, but not yet.

If you have a problem, there is a link to download a working copy in AKB2000016 Section 1, and in Susan’s https://blockapatch.com/.

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gwt10, Fred, KWGuy

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According to this one (https://www.neowin.net/news/ublock-origin-developer-recommends-switching-to-ublock-lite-as-chrome-flags-the-extension/) what’s going on is a structural change that’s happening, where Google is changing the structuring of how extensions interact with the browser, moving from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3.  I would expect this to be implemented in Chromium (not just Chrome itself), which would mean that other Chromium-based browsers, including Brave, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, UnGoogledChromium, and pretty much anything else will be affected in a similar fashion.

And even if we’re only currently discussing uBlock Origin, I think it’s likely to be the canary in the coal mine, where other extensions that rely on things that are specific to Manifest V2 that won’t be available in Manifest V3 will stop working, as well.  NoScript is mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, but I think there will be some number of other extensions, as well.

This situation is similar to where Firefox was several years ago, when they moved to Quantum at version 55.  They completely redid their extensions API, shifting from the traditional XUL to WebExtensions.  Firefox 55 and 56 were transitional, where they were supporting both APIs, but when Firefox 57 was released, all XUL extensions were dead.  Some extensions were recoded, but some simply died, most often because the older extensions relied on things in XUL that WebExtensions doesn’t support.

I think it likely that we’ll be seeing similar experiences in this case.

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Cybertooth

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uBlock Origin is hands-down the best ad blocker I’ve ever come across. It does such a superb job, and I wish I’d found it years ago. I have it installed in both Opera and Firefox, and use Microsoft Edge, where I don’t have a blocker installed, for those rare sites like pluto.tv that work better without one, and whose ads I can live with. It’s nice to know that it will at least continue working in Firefox.

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How to extend uBlock Origin support in Chrome by one year

…While Google turns off support for home users immediately, it is giving Enterprise customers an option to extend support by one year. Good news is that you can also utilize this to extend support..

The policy in question is called ExtensionManifestV2Availability. It defines support for classic extensions in Chrome.

Windows users can set it in the following way:

Activate the Start button.

Type regedit.exe.

Load the Registry Editor.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome.
Note: some of the keys may not exist. In this case, right-click on the previous key, e.g. SOFTWARE and select New > Key. Name it accordingly to create the path.

Right-click on Chrome and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.

Name it ExtensionManifestV2Availability.

Double-click on the new Dword and set its value to 2.

Restart the PC…

* To create the new \Google\Chrome reg entry under policies run :

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome

After creating the key

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TechTango, Cybertooth

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FYI…

The same policy can be applied to Edge using HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge

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gwt10, TechTango, Alex5723

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n0ads wrote:

The same policy can be applied to Edge

..And any Chromium based browser.

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recently from Neowin – Official Windows Registry hack extends uBlock Origin support on Google Chrome, Edge

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Just an FYI that I launched my MS Edge browser today (which I rarely use – Firefox is my default browser) just to patch Edge to the latest v127.0.2651.105 and saw the warning below that my Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension was disabled. I discovered that this extension had been automatically upgraded from v2.6.27 (Manifest v2) to v3.0.7 (Manifest v3) as announced in the 12-Aug-2024 post Manifest v3 is Live on Chrome in the Malwarebytes forum.

I accepted the permissions and Malwarebytes Browser Guard v3.0.7 is working again in MS Edge (but with a drastically reduced number of rules) along with my uBlock Origin v1.59.0 (which is still the “regular” Manifest v2 version).
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4780 * Firefox v129.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24070.5-1.1.24070.3 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.8.123-1.0.5007 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

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gwt10, Fred, Cybertooth

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I have not used Google Chrome aside from a few forced work uses in probably a decade or more now. I use Firefox and recommend Firefox. I still have the v1.04 installer for Firefox from 2024-08-13 (Firefox Setup 1.0.4.exe)

Sadly I think there are too many Chromium users on the Dev team at Mozilla now as one can see Firefox looks and works more and more like the Chromium browser each month.

Personally I think this is just the power of Alphabet(Google,YouTube) using their monopoly power to force all content blockers out of business.

Wait until manifest v4 comes out. Does anyone think any blockers are going to work at that point?

 

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windbg, Cybertooth

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Wait until manifest v4 comes out. Does anyone think any blockers are going to work at that point?

If that happens, I suspect there will be a spike in user interest in Firefox, the hosts file, hardware firewalls, and router-based blocking. Without question, though, browser-based blocking is easier to implement. So if FF ever goes extinct, then with that option gone, too many less-technically oriented users will feel they have little choice but to submit to Lord Google’s demands.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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packeterrors wrote:

Wait until manifest v4 comes out. Does anyone think any blockers are going to work at that point?

There are no ad blockers for Android on Google Play.
You can download ad blockers from 3rd party app stores and then you need hoops to install.

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Extensions download via/through Firefox
works great 🤓

* _ ... _ *

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windbg

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recently saw this on the BleepingComputer site

Google Chrome disables uBlock Origin for some in Manifest v3 rollout

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uBlock Origin on my brother’s Windows 10 Chrome has been removed.
I have installed uBlock Lite.

There is a hack that blocks removal for 1 year :

https://www.ghacks.net/2024/08/15/google-is-killing-ublock-origin-in-chrome-but-this-trick-lets-you-keep-it-for-another-year/

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Alex5723 wrote:

There is a hack that blocks removal for 1 year :

Only three months now.

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Alex5723

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