Microsoft Begins Turning Off uBlock Origin, Other Extensions In Edge (neowin.net) 73
Microsoft Edge is following Chrome's lead by disabling uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions in its browser. Neowin reports: The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store, which recently received a big update.
Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store, which recently received a big update.
Chrome Also (Score:2)
When I updated Chrome I started seeing adds and when I checked, Chrome had turned off uBlock Origin saying it was not supported. You just have to turn it back on in the extensions and its all ok, until the next update.
Re:Chrome Also (Score:4, Funny)
You just have to turn it back on in the extensions and its all ok, until the next update.
That's a good workaround, since modern browser makers are fairly conservative in their release cadence. ...how did we get to version 133 again?
Re:Chrome Also (Score:5, Informative)
Uninstall Chrome. Problem solved.
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And use what, honestly? Edge? Firefox? Brave?
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Firefox 4 life.
Re:Chrome Also (Score:5, Informative)
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Unfortunately, any time I try to use Brave, the website is hopelessly broken, and I don't feel like spending the time to figure out which parts I need and which I don't.
Re:Chrome Also (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck chrome, fuck ms and especially fuck google.
Use Firefox.
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you don't understand, this is all pure altruism from Google so you can browse the internet safely!
Time to go back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
When I updated Chrome...
Same thing happened to me - I regarded it as my "time to go back to Firefox" warning. The main reason I switched to Chrome years ago was that they shared all my settings between computers. I believe Firefox does that now too and Google is now strongly encouraging me to switch back so who am I to argue?
Re:Time to go back to Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox will sync your bookmarks, settings and extensions if you create an account and activate it. If you choose using a primary password it will also sync your (encrypted) passwords. The reason I returned to FF very quickly is that Chrome and Edge will save (and sync) your passwords without the option of using a primary password.
Re:Time to go back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, you can use a tool like BitWarden and then not be locked to any particular browser ever again.
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Err false, Chrome and Edge do not sync passwords without authentication. On Windows this takes the form of Hello which you can absolutely set to be a password, though facial recognition, PIN, and fingerprint also work. Additionally that authentication is unique to the device.
And if someone can pass a Hello check then they have completely unfretted admin access to your Windows machine already at which point any additional password you throw at it becomes meaningless.
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First of all there's no "Hello" on Android or Linux. Secondly I'd trust "Hello" to manage my access to pretty much everything as much as I'd keep a spare key under the doormat.
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First of all there's no "Hello" on Android or Linux.
You don't say. Incidentally Chrome uses fingerprint authentication for password fill on Android. I don't run Chrome on Linux so can't comment there, so even your post is half wrong.
Secondly I'd trust "Hello" to manage my access to pretty much everything as much as I'd keep a spare key under the doormat.
Then you have no clue what you're talking about. If you run Windows you fundamentally trust everything on your computer to Hello whether you want it or not. It's the primary authentication system for the user into the OS handling not just login but all security tokens in the OS. It's not a key under the door mat, it's all the loc
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Firefox will also decide that if you have a network home directory shared by several computers, you are running it on all of those computers when you are running it on any of them, and will not want to start on a second computer because it cannot IPC with the first instance. This happens on both Windows and Linux.
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I'm not surprised that, assuming I'm understanding correctly, that Firefox doesn't like running from a profile that is a network shared filesystem active used as the profile for multiple instances of Firefox on multiple computers. Why would you expect that to work?
FWIW, here's a workaround: use a different browser profile on each of those computers that are sharing a networked home directory. Just run it from the command line as "firefox --ProfileManager" to make a new profile and pick one. Well named profi
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I expect "run the same application on multiple computers" to work because that generally does work, including other web browsers. It's really unhelpful for it to offer only "try again" and "give up" as options when the two likely causes are (a) Firefox crashed and left a lock file hanging (in which case it should offer to clean up the lock file) and (b) user is trying to run on two computers simultaneously (in which case it should offer to select a profile).
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This is quite the edge case. FWIW, there are loads of things that don't behave well with a networked /home that is actively used and shared by multiple devices. In my experience, it's often easier and makes more sense to network a subdirectory under /home rather than all of /home (for example, have /home/$USER/nfshome be the shared volume). This is trivial to do with automount, and it's easy to make symlinks for anything you still want to have directly under /home/ (ex. ln -s /home/$USER/nfshome/Documents /
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Lol, starting a web browser as "quite the edge case".
Stop defending stupid behavior by an application just because you are a fanboi for the application.
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Lol, starting a web browser as "quite the edge case".
LOL, reading comprehension wasn't the edge case I expected. A networked /home is the edge case, in case you honestly couldn't tell.
How many people do you know that have a networked /home on their desktop (or wherever you're running Firefox)? And how many don't? Guarantee you it's an edge case.
Stop defending stupid behavior by an application just because you are a fanboi for the application.
Ad hominem already? <insert Thatcher quote> Good luck man
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I've had a networked /home almost everywhere I have had an organization-provided Linux or Unix account, going back 30 years -- either AFS or NFS, and others use various other networked filesystems. Maybe you have only used toy systems. The only edge case is that Firefox is apparently developed by edge lords who think the hobbyist and amateur cases are universal.
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Maybe you have only used toy systems.
Or maybe I fix the problems and move on rather than continue to bitch and moan about them and blame others? You've been doing this for 30 years and still haven't implemented any workarounds??!??! OK, boomer :-)
Re: Chrome Also (Score:2)
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Just had that happen ... and now I'm running Firefox.
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Unfortunately I have to use either Edge or Chrome to watch Formula 1
Last season I could use FireFox but this year they aren't supporting it.
Re: So? (Score:2)
s/Firefox/Lynx
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Won't someone please think of Edge's user?
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I use Edge, because it seems to block YouTube ads far more reliably than Firefox does, for whatever reason. But that's all I really use it for.
I don't know why, I guess it updates extensions far more often than Firefox so when YouTube breaks it Edge gets the updated version?
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Vivaldi does a good job of blocking YouTube ads as well, and for Twitch, I did not even know they had on-stream ads until recently when it got discuses in a stream. Killed any desire to ever subscribe there though. I rather support people on Patreon.
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Firefox is made for users. Ublock on Firefox works fine and does a very good job including for Youtube, Chrome based browser (including edge) decided to remove v2 extension so it will be impossible for extension like ublock to work like they do today with v3.
automatically disabling extensions is "criminal" (Score:5, Interesting)
Not going to jump into the whole v2 vs v3 thing here, but the logic of ever automatically starting up a browser without its security extensions, or a computer w/o it's VPN or firewall, if so configured, is bizarre to me. It's a total failure of failsafe principles of engineering.
I've run into this with Ghostery when an update of he plugin itself turned off most of its own blocking ... silently and w/o warning (about 6mo - 1 yr ago when the update the Chrome / Edge version to be compatible with v3 ). Also an issue with e.g. the GoogleFi VPN on android. sometimes it'll silently fail, or just won't start after phone reboot and when that happens everything works just as before, but not over VPN.
Like... Both of these products ( and obviously Edge as well) are designed and run by people who, i assume, clearly understand that in computing security that just turns itself off randomly say 0.5% of the time is almost as bad as it not existing at all... and yet the whole ecosystem seems basically fine with it.
(to me this is in the same space as the existence of Stripe (the banking API thing). Basically according to normal understanding/ application of tenets of banking security, Stripe is practically an illegal hacking service. And yet it is a $91B company... and practically underlies all of fintech that in any way integrates with bank accounts and everyone's just fine with it.)
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Sounds like you think you own your computer and software. Tch tch. You'll soon learn, and will be assimilated.
(that's all sarcasm for you who don't grasp sarcasm)
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Those of us who are not sucking on Microsoft's dick, and using an OS that doesn't abuse its users, namely Linux, DO OWN our computers... There is a growing number of us out here..
Re: automatically disabling extensions is "crimina (Score:2)
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ok. so...as of some time in 2021 it looks like Stripe is using Oauth now to log into banks systems' which is relatively sane.
I had last looked at it before they made this switch and then it was like so:
US banks don't support any sort of API access to your bank account information. So the only way to have a program do something as you using your bank account ( e.g. checking your balance or downloading transaction data) is to screen scrape their online banking app as you.
Stripe provides this as a service
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Software will get engineering principles right after it gets liability. Before that, any asshole and incompetent can do whatever crap they like doing.
Shucks (Score:1)
Gee now, isn't that just too bad, I was just about to start using Edge, but if they've made it unusable...
What's with you stupid pimps thinking you have the right to control what we have in our homes? Grow some fucking balls you absolutely terrible people
Alternatives... (Score:5, Informative)
Move to Brave -- since it will continue to support v2 extensions
Or move to Firefox / Waterfox / LibreWolf / PaleMoon / etc. -- any Firefox-derived browser.
I'm assuming there will likely be a few other Chromium forks out there that will continue to support v2 extensions.
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It's hard to get past Brave's previous associated with a crypto scam. Mozilla seems to have sold out.
LibreWolf seems to be the best option at the moment, but the number of choices is shrinking rapidly.
I only use Edge when explicitly required for work (Score:2)
If they turned off you block origin I wouldn't even notice.
My employer's intranet sites should not have spam that needs to be blocked
I have never met anyone who uses Edge for surfing public websites
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ublock*
Stupid voice to text
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Stupid, lazy lusers who can't be bothered to proofread their posts before hitting Submit.
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>"My employer's intranet sites should not have spam that needs to be blocked"
Nor should the sites require using Edge.
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Sure, but in practice some do. My employer's timesheet webapp has rendering problems on Safari. SharePoint's default document link arbitrarily wants to open Office files in desktop Office for Edge but in web Office for Firefox (it takes additional clicks to open in desktop Office in Firefox, so it's not a question of capability). Some homegrown PKI thing at my workplace uses VBscript so it only worked with Internet Exploder. Web developers make mistakes and stupid choices very often, but employers gener
Its not official until it's official. (Score:1)
Until Microsoft's documentation on MV3 changes, I wouldn't take this DEV build as being set in stone.
I don't see Microsoft flushing away it's only good chance to pull users from Chrome when the Ublockalypse happens in Google land. They know as soon as that happens there's going to be a mass exodus of Chrome users to other browsers, and they want to be the one people and businesses flock to since they're based on chromium for maximum compatibility and they also make it easy to Sync your Google account Chrome
All your browser belong to us (Score:2)
Yet another reason to use Firefox.
Not great, not terrible (Score:5, Informative)
In Chrome, I've been migrating to MV3 alternatives to the remaining MV2 extensions that I had in preparation for the cutoff. I switched from uBlock Origin to uBlock Lite, and honestly, after setting the default to "complete", I haven't really noticed any difference from uBlock Origin. I know that it's not getting 100% of the rules, but it's good enough that the vast majority of people won't notice the difference. It does mean that the handful of custom rules that I had added are gone, but none of them were critical, and they could probably be replaced with Tampermonkey scripts if I was desperate.
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I re-enabled my beloved uMatrix and once I can no longer do that, Brave is now installed and will probably replace Chrome once MV2 is actually completely dead.
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Did you set uBlock Lite to "complete" mode? Either as the default, or on a per-site basis? It's not very effective on the default "basic" mode. Running it in "optimal" or "complete" mode appears to block all ads on Slashdot.
Weird that advertising companies... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are so gung-ho in killing off adblockers in their web browsers. Surely there's no conflict of interest here and this is just a coincidence and is really totally about security, for real.
can't post anonymously now (Score:2)
they are making users wait forever to post
another evil corporation fu /.
when? (Score:2)
Just use Opera (Score:1)
I was on firefox for a while but they don't support new standards such as webgpu.
After moving to Opera a while back (which is chromium based) it all seems fine
When Can We Sue Ad Networks (Score:2)
I still see popups that try to execute code. What's worse is sites anti-ad checks rely on these, so they fail even if you don't have adblock but are trying to just block code execution.
When can we start suing the ad networks? If they and the browser manufacturers are going to force us in to this; then someone needs to take some responsibility for the content being served. Why should ad networks get a different set of rule than most webhosts. If you're hosting malicious content, you get taken offline.
...and yet I still use Firefox (Score:2)