Google announces a definitive date for the end of support for Manifest V2, on which many ad blockers rely.
Google continues transition to Manifest V3, this “how-to guide” for extensions for the Chrome browser. Many developers have not yet adopted it and still prefer MV2, although it is less secure and obsolete. In a blog article published yesterday, the Mountain View firm confirms that extensions for Chrome using MV2 will be deactivated from June 2024. This is problematic, especially for developers of ad content blockers on Chrome, who believe that the new manifest makes their job much harder.
The first version of Manifest V3, this new framework of permissions and capabilities for Chrome extensions promised, for reasons of security and confidentiality of user data, toprevent many adblockers from working, damaging an entire industry. Obviously, the developer community initially rebelled against this new measure, and the Californian giant has since tried to rectify the situation, by collaborating with blocker publishers such as Adblock.
Google changes Manifest V3 so as not to break all ad blockers
Andrey Meshkov, CEO of Adguard, testifies to this desire to do well by Google : “with Manifest V3, we observed the immense effort that the Chrome teams in particular, but also other browsers are putting into work on a unified platformand I see how they listen to feedback from extension developers […] We are hopeful that the new platform will bring substantial benefits to the entire ecosystem browser extensions.
To make the task easier for these companies, Google offers new tools:
- Offscreen Documents, which give extensions access to the DOM for use in various scenarios such as audio playback
- improving support for content filtering with more generous limits in the declarativeNetRequest API
That said, the transition to Manifest V3 is inevitable. Starting in June 2024, in Chrome 127 and later, users will see the Manifest V2 extensions automatically disabled in their browser and will no longer be able to install these extensions.