If you use an adblocker, you need to read this!

A fundamental shift that concerns adblockers will happen in the next twelve months. You may have heard about Google ending support for the old ruleset for extensions in favor of a new one. Google, citing security, privacy, and performance for the change, has been heavily criticized for it.

One of the main objections is that content blockers will lose effectiveness once the change goes live. While Google did make adjustments to the new ruleset, it never addressed the main point of criticism that developers of adblockers had.

In short: while adblockers continue to remain available for Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, they won't be the most effective tools anymore.

It is possible that some users won't notice a difference to before. If you do not use advanced options and keep most settings set to the defaults, you may be fine. This is however not the case for users who use advanced options.

In fact, the only browser that retains full content blocking capabilities for extensions is Firefox (and any Firefox fork also).

All Chromium-based browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, or Vivaldi, won't support best in class adblockers anymore. An extension like uBlock Origin, which is the adblocker that is regarded to be the cream of the crop, will be superior on Firefox going forward.

Many developers of Chromium-based browsers are not too happy about the change. Vivaldi, for instance, released a statement this week regarding the change. The team appears to be genuinely displeased by Google's decision and plans to keep on supporting the old ruleset for as long as possible.

The makers of Brave Browser also said that they will continue to support extensions that use the old ruleset.

Come mid-2025, it is very likely that all Chromium-based browser developers are forced to end support though. While it is theoretically possible that some find a way to keep on supporting old extensions, it would likely require dedicating development resources for that task.

Another thing to consider is that Google will remove all old extensions from the official Chrome Web Store eventually. Since it is the main source for extensions for all Chromium-based browsers, once has to wonder how well continued support would work anyway.

This change won't affect built-in content blockers. Some of these are quite good for the majority of tasks, but they are still not as good as uBlock Origin.

Vivaldi, Brave, or Opera support internal adblockers. You may need to enable them in the browser, but you do get a level of content blocking without having to install an extension.

What you may do

Your next action depends largely on the adblocker and browser that you are using:

• If you use an adblocker extension in a Chromium-based browser, check if it supports the new ruleset (also known as Manifest V3). If it does, check if it supports all the features you need.
  • If the answer is no, you may consider switching to a browser that continues to support the extension (which is Firefox or one of its forks).
  • You may notice this automatically at one point, as Google will disable old extensions that do not support the new ruleset.
• If you use an adblocker extension in Firefox, you do not have to do anything.
• If you use a built-in adblocker in any browser, you do not have to do anything.

What about you? Are you worried about the upcoming change?

Source

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