This adds a (sometimes significant) delay, which Google is trying to avoid. Today, ad blockers use Chrome’s “webRequest” API to block certain HTTP requests from ever being made at all, but Chrome needs to check with each relevant extension before processing a request. Among other things, Manifest V3 will stop most ad blockers from working as they’re currently able to. Google is proposing a broad set of changes to Chrome’s extension platform, called Manifest V3, the arrival of which we’ve been expecting since late last year. As the tech behind ads has improved, so too have the blockers, with projects like EasyList that not only prevent the ad from loading, but can also make the page appear as if it never had an ad. While the internet is not the same Wild West it was a few short years ago with flashing ads for lewd websites, pop-ups and pop-unders, and more polluting your favorite websites, there are plenty of people out there who still won’t use Google Chrome without an ad blocker (hopefully unblocking sites they wish to support). Google is proposing a new change to Chrome that arguably falls into the latter category as it will adversely affect the functionality of ad blocker extensions like uBlock Origin and AdGuard.

Over the years, Google Chrome has changed in many ways, some good, some not so much.

Chrome ublock origin