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Google Chrome could disable your ad-blocker

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

  • Updated:

News has been coming through recently that Google has some rather big changes planned for Google Chrome. Some of the changes will affect the way Chrome extensions work on the web browser. And there is one change in particular that is bound to ruffle some feathers. Changes to certain Google Chrome pieces of code will block a number of ad-blocking extensions from working in the future. Many ad-blockers will stop working so it is worth our while to look again at which are the best ad-blocking extensions for Google Chrome.

Which ad-blockers is Google Chrome going to kill off?

A developer named Raymond Hill was the first to raise the alarm about the upcoming changes to Chrome. His concern relates to his own extension including uBlock Origin and uMatrix, which he says will be unable to exist once the changes kick in.

Google Chrome could disable your ad-blocker

In a document called Manifest V3 Google has outlined what the change will look like and how it will affect the way you use the Chrome web browser. The key change relating to ad-blockers affects what extensions will do and which sites they can interact with. The other main factor is how permissions for extensions will be affected.

Google ad blocker information

Ad-blockers usually use one of two permission methods, webRequest and DeclarativeNetRequest to control what shows up on your web pages. This change will shut out all ad-blockers that use webRequest. The move is designed to stop extensions that claim to be one thing but then turn out to be malicious once they’ve been downloaded, but will also affect ad-blockers that aim to hide certain aspects that the web pages you visit want to show you.

The key difference is that webRequest ad-blockers allow the extension to block or modify the signal coming from the website’s servers. This is behavior that Google wants to block. The DeclarativeNetRequest ad-blockers, however, allow Chrome to handle network requests, which is still fine.

ad blockers for chrome
Chrome extensions are about to go through a big change. Including ad-blockers.

According to Hill’s blog post, which raised his issue’s with the change this will also change what ad-blockers will be able to block. Hill believes limiting ad-blockers how Google plans to will stop them from being able to block media elements larger than a certain size, disable JavaScript execution, and removing outgoing cookie headers.

Which ad-blocker should you choose?

The good news is that Adblock Plus won’t be affected by the change like uBlock origin and uMatrix will be. If you want to ensure your ad-blocker will work once Google implements these changes you should activate Adblock Plus. The bad news, however, is that according to Business Insider Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Taboola pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their ads.

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney is a news reporter for Softonic, keeping readers up to date on everything affecting their favorite apps and programs. His beat includes social media apps and sites like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Patrick also covers antivirus and security issues, web browsers, the full Google suite of apps and programs, and operating systems like Windows, iOS, and Android.

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