But this only applies to the Google browser.
The author of the popular ad blocker uBlock Origin, Raymond Hill, warned users about upcoming changes that could affect the work of the add-on. The fact is that Google plans to disable support for the second version of the manifesto in Chrome by the end of the year – a set of rules and resources available for add-ons. uBlock Origin does not yet support the new, third version of the manifesto.
As a result, already in Chrome 127, a warning appears on the add-ons page that uBlock Origin will soon stop working, and users are advised to look for an alternative.
What’s the problem with the new manifest? The third version of the Chrome manifest changed the approach to content filtering. Instead of the full-fledged webRequest API, developers were offered to use a lightweight version — declarativeNetRequest. It allows you to set only static blocking rules that are processed by the browser itself.
This greatly limits the capabilities of blockers, and many of the features of uBlock Origin cannot be implemented using the new API. Hill released a lightweight version of the add-on, uBlock Origin Lite (uBOL), which uses declarativeNetRequest. However, it is much inferior in its capabilities to the original. In particular, it does not have:
Support for cosmetic filters to replace elements on a page. Filters to redirect requests. CSP header filters. Filters to remove request parameters. Dynamic content and URL filters. HTTP header filters. Tools to disable scripts, fonts, and large multimedia elements on individual sites.
Since the functionality of uBlock Origin and uBlock Origin Lite is very different, the developer does not plan to automatically migrate users to the new version. He recommends deciding for yourself whether the capabilities of uBlock Origin Lite are enough, or whether it is worth looking for another blocker.
It’s good to see that development of the original uBlock Origin will continue, as Firefox and a number of other browsers still support the full webRequest API.
