Google is about to disable uBlock Origin and every other Manifest V2 extension in Chrome

Chrome 150 removes the last MV2 override flag on June 30, killing uBlock Origin and all content blockers that depend on dynamic filtering.

Google is weeks away from permanently disabling every Manifest V2 browser extension in Chrome , a change that will kill uBlock Origin and fundamentally limit what content blockers can do inside the world’s most popular browser. Chrome 150, scheduled to reach the stable channel on June 30, will remove the ExtensionManifestV2Disabled flag, the last mechanism that allowed users and enterprise administrators to keep MV2 extensions running after Google began phasing them out.

Chrome 151, expected approximately four weeks later, will strip the remaining MV2-related flags entirely. Google engineer Devlin Cronin confirmed the timeline in a Chromium code review commit that removes the flag infrastructure from Chrome’s codebase. Once the flags are gone, there is no workaround, no enterprise policy override, and no hidden setting that will restore MV2 functionality.

The change has been coming for years. Google first announced the Manifest V3 migration in 2019, arguing that the new extension framework would improve security, privacy, and performance. The core technical change is the replacement of the webRequest API, which allowed extensions to intercept and modify network traffic in real time, with the declarativeNetRequest API, which requires extensions to submit static filtering rules in advance.

Google’s security argument is not without merit. The webRequest API gives extensions deep access to every network request a browser makes, which means a compromised or malicious extension can silently intercept passwords, redirect traffic, or inject code into any page a user visits. A recent case in the Chrome Web Store illustrates the risk: the popular “ Save Image As Type ” extension, which had hundreds of thousands of users, was hijacked by a group calling itself Karma and silently modified to steal affiliate commissions from e-commerce transactions, a compromise that went undetected for months.

Firefox, which is not built on Chromium and is not subject to Google’s extension framework, continues to support Manifest V2 and uBlock Origin in full. Mozilla has implemented its own version of Manifest V3 but has maintained backward compatibility with the webRequest API, allowing content blockers to function without restriction. Brave, which is Chromium-based, has built its own ad-blocking engine directly into the browser, bypassing the extension framework entirely.

The timing is notable: Google’s AI search overhaul , announced at I/O 2026, is already accelerating a traffic collapse for publishers who depend on search referrals. The simultaneous weakening of content blockers in Chrome means users will see more ads on the pages they do visit, while Google’s own AI-generated answers increasingly replace those pages altogether. The combined effect tightens Google’s grip on both the discovery and monetisation layers of the web.

For the estimated 40 million uBlock Origin users on Chrome, the practical options are limited. They can switch to Firefox or Brave, both of which support full-capability content blocking. They can install uBlock Origin Lite and accept reduced functionality, or they can do nothing, in which case Chrome 150 will silently disable the extension and display a notification that it is no longer supported.

Google has framed the Manifest V3 transition as a necessary modernisation of a platform that serves billions of users. The security concerns it cites are real, and the “Save Image As Type” hijacking is exactly the kind of incident that a more restrictive API framework is designed to prevent. But the question of whether the same company that sells the ads should also control the tools available to block them is one that the technical merits alone do not answer.