Google Removes uBlock Origin from Chrome Web Store
Google flipped the switch today. All remaining Manifest V2 extensions have been removed from the Chrome Web Store — including uBlock Origin, one of the most widely used content blockers on the planet. The move completes a transition years in the making, and it changes the browser extension landscape overnight.
What shipped
Google reached the final milestone of its MV2 deprecation timeline. Extensions still on Manifest V2 can no longer be found, installed, or reinstalled from the Chrome Web Store. For users already on Chrome 138 or earlier, installed MV2 extensions will keep working — but they won't receive updates and can't be reinstalled if removed.
The Chrome Web Store is the default extension marketplace for virtually every Chromium-based browser, including Brave, Edge, Opera, and Vivaldi. So this purge ripples beyond Chrome itself — even browsers that still support MV2 functionally lose access to those extensions unless they host them elsewhere.
Why it matters
For most users, this is the moment ad blocking on Chrome becomes a second-class experience. uBlock Origin relies on the webRequest blocking API, which MV3 deprecated in favor of declarativeNetRequest — a significantly more limited framework. uBlock Origin Lite (the MV3-compatible fork) exists, but it's not the same tool. Power users who depend on dynamic filtering, scriptlet injection, and per-site cosmetic rules lose those capabilities on Chrome.
Brave has stepped into the gap. The Brave team announced it will host four key MV2 extensions on its own backend: uBlock Origin, AdGuard, uMatrix, and NoScript. Brave users can enable them directly in browser settings without touching the Chrome Web Store. It's a pragmatic workaround — and a signal that browser vendors are starting to diverge on extension policy in ways we haven't seen since the IE era.
Where to go from here
If you're a Chrome user who depends on uBlock Origin, you have three paths:
- Stay on Chrome 138 — your existing install keeps working, but no updates, and one accidental uninstall means it's gone for good.
- Switch to Brave — it hosts uBlock Origin natively, plus its built-in Shields offer comparable protection without any extension at all.
- Move to Firefox — Firefox remains the only major browser that never adopted the MV3 restrictions. uBlock Origin runs at full capability.
This isn't the end of ad blocking. It's the end of ad blocking on Chrome without friction.