Google Is Cracking Down on Ad Blockers, But Here's How You Can Fight Back
Google has gotten a bad reputation as of late for being a bit overzealous when it comes to fighting ad blockers. Most recently, it’s been spotted automatically turning off popular ad blocking extension uBlock Origin for some Google Chrome users. To a degree, that makes sense—Google makes its money off ads. But with malicious ads and data trackers all over the internet these days, users have legitimate reasons to want to block them. The uBlock Origin controversy is just one facet of a debate that goes back years, and it’s not isolated: your favorite ad blocker will likely be affected next. Here are the best ways to keep blocking ads now that Google is cracking down on ad blockers.
Why is Chrome turning off ad blockers?
Google first made its intentions for ad blockers clear back in 2019, when it discussed how the extensions would be affected by Chrome’s update to the Manifest V3 extensions platform, set to go into full effect next year. There are a lot of technical details here, but suffice it to say that ad blocker developers weren’t happy. Google says that Manifest V3 is supposed to make Chrome extensions more secure, and that it is “not preventing the development of ad blockers or stopping users from blocking ads.” However, the update cuts off access to the Web Request API that many ad blockers, not just uBlock Origin, rely on to flat out block traffic to and from malicious pages. Web Request can be used for good or ill, but without it, there’s potential for weaker extensions and permissions nightmares as strict as needing users to allow ad blockers on a per-site basis, which could go beyond being annoying to actually introducing more security issues.
CEO of ad blocking company Ghostery, Jean-Paul Schmetz, explained the problem with extensions that use a per-site permission structure to PCWorld: "The goal was to improve privacy, but that never actually happened. Because effective extensions compliant with Manifest V3 will need to request access to every single website…users could become complacent with these requests, and make themselves more vulnerable to rogue actions.”
Ghostery director of engineering and product Krzysztof Modraf agreed, also commenting on how tools that manage to avoid a per-site permissions structure could still be weakened. "Extensions will lose important tools and permissions that have previously allowed them to quickly react to new threats directly from the user device,” he explains. Google is not flat out stopping developers from making ad blockers, but they now face more restrictions than before.
So, ad blockers that don’t use Manifest V2 could get generally worse (the developers of AdBlock Plus go into how the changes limit the extension's filter list capabilities here), while malicious websites could take advantage of pop-up overload in Manifest V3 to get users to agree to security vulnerabilities.
Regardless, Google is going forward with the changes, and has begun the process of phasing out extensions that use Manifest V2 files from the Chrome Web Store—uBlock Origin won’t be the only one. Soon, older versions of Adblock Plus or AdGuard will stop working, and users will need to use the tweaked Manifest V3 versions of these extensions or not have access to ad blocking on Chrome at all.
How can I keep blocking ads during the Google crackdown?
Google’s new rules will likely affect almost all Chromium browsers, including Chrome and Microsoft Edge (a support page from Microsoft shows that Edge is also losing access to the Web Request API). While that sounds bleak, you still have a couple of options to keep blocking ads like you always have.
Just turn your ad blocker back on
For now, there’s an easy but temporary solution to get uBlock Origin or other Manifest V2 ad blockers working again: just turn them back on.
According to Google’s Chromium blog, while the company is currently in the process of automatically disabling all Manifest V2 extensions, which is what your current ad blocker probably is, it will temporarily allow users to manually turn them back on “for a short time.” This toggle will go away “over time,” but given that not everyone is even getting their extensions disabled yet—it seems to be happening in waves, and my uBlock Origin works fine at the moment—you should still see it for now.
If Chrome tells you that it’s turned off your ad blocker, follow these steps to re-enable it.
Open a Chrome window
Click on the three vertical dots menu in the top-right corner next to your profile picture
From the drop-down menu, mouse over Extensions and click Manage Extensions
Find the card for your ad blocker and toggle it back on
Unfortunately, Google hasn’t been clear about when this option will go away, but for now, it will let you keep browsing without ads, business as usual.
Use an updated version of your favorite ad blocker
When Lifehacker reached out to Google for comment on this story, we were told “over 93% of actively maintained extensions in the Chrome Web Store are running Manifest V3, and the top content filtering extensions all have Manifest V3 versions available—with options for users of AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, and AdGuard.”
This is true, although because of the differences between Manifest V3 and V2, the V3 versions for these ad blockers might not be suitable replacements for you. It’s really a case-by-case basis.
With that, you should be well prepared to keep using your favorite ad blockers even after Chrome disables them, all without needing to swap to a potentially weaker, Manifest V3 version. I wish it were as easy as just giving you a list of viable ad blockers to install if your favorite stops working, but unfortunately, Google’s rules will affect all ad blockers soon enough. That’s why it’s important to take the necessary steps to keep a hold of them ahead of time.
