Google is making way for Manifest V3, the Chrome extension specification that could change the way ad blockers work. The company says it will begin phasing out the old system on the Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels starting on June 3rd.
If you’re on any of these channels, you may see a warning message on your extension management page that says Google will soon end support for extensions running on Manifest V2. The extensions will still work, but Google says it will disable them on your browser in the “coming months” before removing the ability to use them completely. The stable version of Chrome will eventually get these changes, with a full rollout set for the beginning of 2025.
What’s a manifest?
A manifest tells the browser all sorts of information about an extension, from its name and version number to which permissions it’ll use and what versions of a browser it’ll run on. New versions of the Manifest file format change which features extensions have access to. For example, Manifest V3 in Chrome no longer allows a developer to load code from a remote server.
Google’s long-delayed transition to Manifest V3 has faced pushback over concerns it could limit the effectiveness of ad blockers. However, Google has since attempted to address developers’ main concerns by adding support for user scripts and increasing the number of rulesets for the declarativeNetRequest API used by ad blocking extensions. According to Google, Manifest V3 will help improve the security of extensions, as it removes support for remotely hosted code.
Google says 85 percent of “actively maintained” extensions in the Chrome Web Store have already created Manifest V3 versions, including some of the most popular ad blockers, like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock, and AdGuard.
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