Starting June 3, Google will begin the implementation of its plan to disable Chrome extensions in the Manifest V2 format. This change may affect the functionality of advertisement blockers and will first be noticed by users of the browser’s preview versions.
Deactivation Schedule
The deactivation of Chrome extensions built using the Manifest V2 format will start from June 3. Initially, beta version users, including those on Dev and Canary channels will be affected. “If users still have Manifest V2 extensions installed, some of them will start seeing a warning banner when they visit the extensions management page, — chrome://extensions — informing them that some (Manifest V2) extensions they have installed will soon no longer be supported”, Google has announced in the Chromium blog.
Phasing out Manifest V2
Following the preview versions, deactivation for stable versions of Chrome will occur “gradually in the coming months”, with the aim to “complete the transition by the beginning of next year”. Google’s goal is to stimulate the transition to newer, alternative extensions built using the Manifest V3 format. The company claims this framework is more secure and privacy-focused.
For several years, Google has been encouraging the community to move away from Manifest V2. Despite the introduction of Manifest V3 to protect users from aggressive data collection, the newer framework faces criticism due to its requirements, which may hinder the operation of ad blockers.
Ad Blocker Functionality
Google refutes the criticism stating that “over 85% of actively supported extensions in the Chrome Web Store use Manifest V3, and all the most popular content filtering extensions have available Manifest V3 versions — users can choose between AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, and AdGuard”, as mentioned in the company’s blog. It’s worth noting the release of the uBlock Origin Lite extension based on Manifest V3, however, 37 million users still use the Manifest V2 version of the extension.
Changes in Ad Blocking
The new version of the framework poses a risk of reducing the effectiveness of ad blockers. “At the moment our filter lists update automatically — often several times a day. So if you see an ad that managed to bypass the blocking filter, it’s usually removed immediately thanks to these updates. Manifest V3 made it so we can’t perform these types of updates the same way”, warns Adblock. Nevertheless, the developer has found a way around this through “differential filter list updates” and hopes users will not notice the difference.
Encouraging Transition to Manifest V3
In an attempt to further push users and developers towards Manifest V3, Google also plans to remove the “Recommended” label from Manifest V2-based extensions in the Chrome store. Manifest V2 extension developers can continue supporting their extensions until June 2025.
