What's this about?
Chrome Web Store has removed remaining Manifest V2 extensions, uBlock Origin among them. The migration has been announced, delayed and re-announced for years; this is the point where the listings actually stop existing.
What is Manifest V2 versus V3?
The manifest is the contract an extension declares with the browser: what it may do, what it may see. MV2 let an extension intercept a network request and decide, in its own code, whether to block it. MV3 replaces that with a declarative rule list submitted in advance — the browser does the blocking, from a capped number of static rules. Google's stated reason is performance and security, and both are real. The consequence is also real: an ad blocker can no longer make decisions at request time, which is precisely what the most effective blocking needs.
What's the community saying?
- The top comment is two words: "switch to Firefox." It is the entire practical answer and everybody knows it.
- The thread escalates quickly into a broader boycott list, and then into whether any of this is worth using at all.
- An unexpectedly long and sincere sub-thread on returning to pen and paper for notes — several people argue it is a more creative medium, others that organising it is the problem.
- Underneath the venting is the structural point: this is what it looks like when the platform vendor also sells the ads.