Microsoft Edge will soon drop support for Manifest Version 2 (MV2), which means uBlock Origin will stop working in the browser. But Windows 11 users still have some browsing options that will support uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions.
The Firefox account on X shared a simple message in response to an article about Edge ending support for certain extensions: "Firefox support for uBlock Origin is not going anywhere."
Brave shared a longer message, which emphasized that "Brave will keep supporting uBlock Origin" and that Brave hosts uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions on its own servers. To enable MV2 extensions in Brave, you need to go to Settings > Extensions > Manifest v2 extensions.
Brave also has a built-in ad blocker that's unaffected by the MV2 changes.
Firefox runs on the Quantum browser engine, which is built specifically for that browser and is separate from Chromium. Brave is a Chromium browser. With both Chromium and non-Chromium options, people have a variety of ways to continue to use uBlock Origin.
Why are some browsers stopping uBlock Origin from working?
MV2 is an extension platform that developers can build upon. That older platform is being replaced by Manifest Version 3 (MV3), which is more secure and provides better performance than MV2.
The transition from MV2 to MV3 brings improvements, but it also removes support for the WebRequest API, which lets ad blockers dynamically intercept and block requests before they load.
The side effect of the transition is that uBlock Origin no longer works.
Since uBlock Origin Lite is an MV3 extension, it does not dynamically intercept content before it loads.
It's about more than blocking ads
In our recent poll about ad blockers, over 70% of respondents said they use uBlock Origin. Since that poll appeared in a piece about Edge ending support for uBlock Origin, the results are a bit self-selective, but still interesting. Even among those already interested in uBlock Origin news, 12% said they use uBlock Origin Lite.
While uBlock Origin Lite blocks many ads, it does not process ads in the same way as uBlock Origin. The full version of uBlock Origin intercepts the ads entirely, which reduces bandwidth usage and improves browser performance.
If you've ever loaded a web page and noticed that ads appear to be slowing things down, uBlock Origin would help in that situation but uBlock Origin Lite would not.
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