Back in the middle of 2022 it became knownthat Google was preparing to stop supporting extensions of the Manifest V2 standard and switch completely to V3. This change should improve user security, but there is a problem: due to the new API, many adblock services will stop working with the release of this update.
Initially, it was planned that Manifest V2 support would be disabled in January 2023 for users of the beta builds of Chrome and Canary, in the summer they would begin to disable users of the stable version and completely end by 2024. Later update was postponed indefinitely. Now David Lee, product director at Chrome, told Resuming the transition to Manifest V3 / Chrome Developer that all browser versions, except stable ones, will switch to Manifest V3 in June 2024. It's about building Chrome 127 for developer channels, beta testers and Canary users.
The test period will last at least a month, after which the update will be rolled out to the stable version of the browser — that is, no earlier than July 2024. From this point on, all Manifest V2 extensions will be automatically disabled for users, and downloading such extensions from the Chrome online store will also become unavailable.
Considering that this problem has been known about for almost a year and a half, the developers of ad blockers are actively working on new ways to bypass it. For example, the creators of uBlock Origin have launched uBlock Origin Lite, corresponding to Manifest V3 and using a new API. It is assumed that it will continue to work even with Chrome 127, but it will not be possible to check this for sure before updating the browser itself.
