Brave makes new official bypass to support uBlock Origin and more

Forget Google Chrome, Brave makes new official bypass to support uBlock Origin and more - Neowin

DEALS

Software

Gaming

Reviews

Guides

Hands On

Specs Appeal

Opinion

Windows 11

Write for us?

Send news tip

-->

Almost exactly a month ago, we learned that Google Chrome will be removing a bunch of Manifest V2 (MV2) extensions once and for all, as even known bypasses to use popular add-ons like uBlock Origin would stop working.

Currently, Chrome is on version 150, and as such, some of those workarounds are already on their way out, although there are still ways to keep using MV2-based extensions like uBlock Origin. We published a detailed guide on that, which you can find at this link.

However, with the upcoming version 151, Chromium will completely remove all MV2 add-on support and remove them from the Web Store by August 31 2026. This means Google's Chrome browser will be totally rid of all such extensions, including the beloved uBlock Origin, among others.

If you are an affected user, possibly the best course of action after this will be to jump onto Mozilla's Firefox. The Chrome rival has been supporting Manifest V2, as moving to MV3 is still completely optional. This means you can use uBlock Origin and other such add-ons worry-free, for a while at least. Plus, Firefox is soon getting a new UI overhaul too, and many new useful features, which means you may well quite enjoy the switch. You can check out the details in this article here.

If you want to stick to Chromium-based browsers only, assuming you care about the underlying engine (Firefox is Gecko-based), then Brave is a great alternative; and with the latest update released last week, the firm has made an underlying change to add a new ability to automatically detect and replace known Web Store MV2 extensions with Brave-hosted equivalents.

Thanks to this effort, users will no longer find their MV2 extensions disabled, and they will no longer be prompted to manually find and install the Brave equivalents. The newest update to the browser, version 1.92.134, added this useful feature.

So if you are on an older version of Brave and are finding that some of the extensions you use daily are disabled, you will need to update. You can download it from the Neowin software stories page.

Other options are Opera, though the company recently stated that eventually, it will move to MV3, so it's not a long-term solution.

Finally, there is Microsoft's Edge, and so far, the company has not announced when bypasses will stop working, as it's still labelled as "TBD" (short for To Be Determined). However, it does state that MV2 extensions "will continue to be supported through Enterprise policies at least until the date in the Chromium Manifest V2 support timeline."

Brave makes new official bypass to support uBlock Origin and more

Related Articles

(no title)

Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray

AI has torched the market for junior programmers

Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills

The Anatomy of an AI-Native Org