Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

malfist

Switch to firefox

mrd3v0

One Google doom over, another to go: https://keepandroidopen.org/

gardnr

I remember in 2010 when Chrome made the web so much better for everyone. All the early adopters were singing its praise and encouraging friends and family to use it. Now, I encourage people to use anything but Chrome. Firefox is really great these days.

mannanj

I know people don't like apple and safari here, but I like safari. It works good enough for me. And when an experience is off, it helps me develop my web developer hat by better understanding webkit and why safari has a different experience or frontend like behavior.

Lovesong

Few years ago when google announced their MV2 plan I moved to Firefox. I don't think in all this time I ever missed Chrome for anything in particular outside of maybe 1 or 2 websites that didn't have proper support. Switch to Firefox if you haven't already really.

jack_pp

Haven't used chrome in years, Firefox has served me well

monneyboi

I'm hoping that Mozilla Firefox can adopt a similar foundation/donation strategy as Signal has proven to work quite well. We really need independence from Google in the browser landscape if we want the open web to survive.

mlh496

I've been using the Brave browser for years. I just turned off all the crypto stuff. How does Firefox today compare with Brave today?

ValentineC

I made a conscious attempt to try to switch to Zen (built on Gecko/Firefox), but ended up switching back to Chromium-based browsers because pages just feel like they load faster with Chromium. :(

achr2

Waterfox is the best browser I have ever used. Native tree style tabs, minimalist UI, built in ad blocking, Firefox extensions.

rickette

I'm fairly happy with uBlock Origin Lite. Sure the original was better but this one does the job as well. uBlock Origin Lite is a MV3 extension, by the same author.

cuuupid

Serious question: why do people use non-OS browsers? Most devs I know are on Mac. Why not just use Safari? Works in most cases, helps you catch issues earlier on, looks beautiful and is super customizable, still supports UBlock, has vertical tabs, syncs profiles to your focus, is way more memory efficient, etc. I've daily driven Safari for ~3y after Arc got sunset and the only site that gives me issues is Hulu (but not Disney+ weirdly). Similarly drive Edge on Windows, I can't think why I'd ever reach for Chrome.

ranger_danger

ungoogled-chromium ( https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-por... ) still supports MV3/uBO and is de-Googled. However, this paper[1] suggests that uBO Lite (MV3) which is still supported in the latest Chrome/chromium browsers, works at least as well for almost all users as the original (MV2) uBO, and, in some cases even better than before... so it's really no cause for alarm IMO. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01000

Night_Thastus

I know Firefox's share of browser share has dwindled to almost nothing. I know sooner or later, well within my lifetime, it will be gone. But I will keep using it until they pry it from my hands. And if they do, I'll use forks until those break down too. I can't stand Google, or what Chrome has become. No single company should have such unilateral control over the internet and its information.

insanitybit

The reality is that Chrome users still have sufficient ad blocking so as to not be impacted by this. What will be interesting is if it stops being sufficient, at which point I think people will migrate. But until then, why would they? Most people don't really care if their extension is MV2 or MV3, they just want their youtube video to play faster.

cisc

The solution is to use Firefox. uBlock Origin always worked best in Firefox anyway: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

saejox

Google for me died when they banned my many years old gmail account out of blue. Because i used vpn to access it. It was such a big hit to my online life to lose my email like that. Their appeal system is fully automated, impossible to get a human to look at your case. This is warning to any reader of this comment, do not depend on your google account to be forever.

mindcrash

I'm pretty sure it is just a matter of time before the first (open source?) extensions marketplace for Chromium fork extensions will hit the net. A party like Helium or Brave might even already be working on it. Because while Google might not like it at all, a huge chunk of people love extensions like uBO and ease of use a little bit too much.

Havoc

Allowing Google to capture both phones (android) and browsers (chrome) was a mistake. Needs to be broken up...