Chrome 150 kills the last workaround for full uBlock Origin on June 30
Chrome 150 lands on June 30, 2026, and with it goes the last technical escape hatch for running the full version of uBlock Origin. Google is removing the `ExtensionManifestV2Disabled` flag — the one remaining toggle that let users force Manifest V2 extensions to keep running. A month later, Chrome 151 scrubs all remaining MV2 infrastructure from the codebase entirely. For roughly 40 million people using uBlock Origin on Chrome, that's the end of the road.
What's actually changing
The shift is from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3 — Google's new rulebook for how browser extensions are allowed to work. Under MV2, ad blockers like uBlock Origin had direct access to network requests and could intercept and cancel them in real time, pulling from filter lists that ran to 300,000 rules or more. MV3 hands that control back to the browser: extensions can only submit declarative rules and ask Chrome to act on them. The rule cap sits at 30,000 — a tenth of what EasyList alone requires (75,000 rules), let alone EasyPrivacy (45,000) and regional lists on top.
Google's official case for MV3 is security and performance: MV2 created attack surface and made two parallel extension architectures painful for developers to maintain. That argument isn't wrong. But the practical effect is that Chrome — the browser with roughly 65% global market share — becomes a significantly less effective privacy tool.
The alternatives
Google points users to uBlock Origin Lite, an MV3-compatible version of the same extension. It holds a 4.7-star rating in the Chrome Web Store, but it drops dynamic filtering, cosmetic filtering, and anti-adblock bypass — the features that made the original worth installing. A 2026 PoPETs study found 59% of ad-blocker users rely on them for malware prevention and 54% for privacy; MV3's limitations leave both concerns only partially addressed.
The two clean exits are Firefox and Brave. Mozilla has committed to indefinite MV2 support, meaning the full uBlock Origin runs without compromise. Brave's built-in Shields blocker operates at the engine level and bypasses MV3 entirely. Both browsers have well under 5% market share, so switching is a real decision — but for users who depend on aggressive blocking, it's the only one that doesn't involve settling.
The ripple effect
Edge and Opera are both built on Chromium, so once Google strips MV2 from the shared codebase, maintaining independent support becomes technically expensive. Expect them to follow Chrome's lead within months. Samsung Max, a separate traffic-compression and privacy tool with tens of millions of users, is also being discontinued around the same time — a reminder that the broader ecosystem of user-controlled filtering tools is contracting, not expanding.
The FTC has scrutinized Google's dominance in ad tech. Chrome's MV3 transition removes user-level control at the browser layer at the same moment Google is expanding AI Overviews, which already redirects traffic away from publishers. Whether that's strategic timing or coincidence, the effect on the open web is the same.
