Users of the popular uBlock Origin extension on Google Chrome might need to make the switch to a new browser. Or maybe cave and subscribe to YouTube Premium—features like offline downloads, background listening, and unlimited music streaming make it a decent value. Regardless, uBlock Origin is getting deprecated on Chrome as Google completes the process of migrating extensions to the new Manifest V3 standard, which it says improves privacy and security. uBlock Origin Lite will continue to function.

Google has been working on this transition for many years. Core to the changes in Manifest V3 is an update to the Web Request API that limits how much information extensions can collect from users’ browsers. Gizmodo explained in 2019 that the now-deprecated version of the API “requires users to grant permission for Chrome to pass along all information in a network request, and that can include private data such as emails and photos.” The new API in Manifest V3 allows ad-blockers to block content without requiring users to give up as much sensitive data, sometimes unknowingly.

Part of Google’s interest in tightening up the security of extensions is that they have been used as an attack vector to steal users’ information, like credit card information, and to masquerade as legitimate extensions for sites like Coinbase and steal user login credentials. IT departments across enterprises often restrict employees from downloading Chrome extensions specifically to avoid the risk of malware.

Google has a legitimate interest in closing these gaps, and as the lead developer behind Chromium, it has put significant effort into improving the web browsing experience. But Google has a mixed reputation with the web development community, particularly when it pushes technology with its own interests in mind, such as the AMP standard for webpages that it forced on publishers in exchange for elevated search placement only to abandon.

Considering that Google still generates the vast majority of its revenue from advertising, it is not hard to see other motivations for changes that affect ad-blocking. Google has insisted over the years that it is not trying to intentionally hinder ad-blockers. Chrome is at the center of a Department of Justice case against Google, in which a judge has ordered the company to divest Chrome as the browser helps Google maintain its dominance in search. Google is appealing.

uBlock Origin and others relied on certain aspects of the old Web Request API to perform comprehensive blocking. “Lite” versions of uBlock Origin and other ad-blockers will still function, but developers of the extensions have said Google has been steadfast in making changes that will diminish their functionality.

The lighter version of uBlock Origin should block most ads for most people, but does not come with more advanced features, like custom filters or a picker element that allows users to select a specific area on a website to block. The changes will make it harder, but not impossible, to evade advertisements on YouTube, especially as uBlock will have to update the extension itself to block YouTube whenever Google manages to thwart it. Previously, uBlock users could manually update scripts themselves with workarounds.

uBlock Origin is considered one of the best tools for subverting advertisements on YouTube. Google serves advertisements on YouTube from the same domain (DNS) as the website, which means that blocking the DNS for the ads would also render the site unusable. uBlock Origin used more complicated methods for cutting out YouTube ads, likely to the chagrin of Google. The company plays a game of cat-and-mouse to detect ad-blockers on YouTube and stop them (it costs a lot of money to host web video, of course). Real dedicated types will continue looking for ways to block YouTube ads, but the elimination of custom filtering scripts—which can inject code to modify the page itself—in the Chrome version of uBlock will make doing so harder.

As a news website, it is safe to say we have mixed feelings about ad-blockers. On the one hand, they allow us to produce content without charging readers. That being said, JavaScript-heavy advertisements can make webpages incredibly slow and finicky to load, as they often have to be requested from separate ad-serving servers, and a page often will not fully load or display jittery scrolling until the ads are served. The FBI has recommended that the public install ad-blocking software, as malicious web ads have been used to target consumers with fake or dangerous products.

It is worth noting that Google caved to advertiser demands when it cancelled its plans to phase out third-party browser cookies, which allow advertisers to track when internet users purchase a product after seeing an ad. That lends credence to the idea that Google at least tries working in good faith to protect privacy. Perhaps just not when it might hurt the company’s own business. Google uses data from Chrome to personalize its own ads.

uBlock Origin should still work as normal on Firefox, as Mozilla is not transitioning to the Manifest V3 standard. And on mobile there are ad-blocking options like Safari with the AdGuard extension. If you decide to switch away from Chrome, please be sure to whitelist Gizmodo, thanks.