For those not aware, the article assumes you are stuck in Google Chrome. Ublock works correctly in Firefox and derivatives, I advise you to use that instead to end the suffering.
If you find yourself in a "only Internet Explorer 5.5 is supported" situation, you could perhaps use Ungoogled Chromium and manually install Ublock Origin to buy yourself time to get out of that dead lock.
Nice work! FWIW, you can still use Manifest V2 extensions, like uMatrix, uBlock Origin, or Violentmonkey, in Chrome by passing command line flags. For example, on macOS:
open -b com.google.Chrome --new --args --disable-features=ExtensionManifestV2Unsupported,ExtensionManifestV2Disabled
When Google finally nerfs that, it is past time to move to Firefox or Brave, the latter of which has explicitly announced uMatrix support.
> For as long as we’re able (and assuming the cooperation of the extension authors), Brave will continue to support some privacy-relevant MV2 extensions—specifically AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix
Once Google removes MV2 and it's supporting code, Brave is not going to shoulder the cost of keeping all of that patched to run on newer builds of Chromium. Especially not because their own blocking doesn't rely on it, uMatrix has been deprecated since 2021, and AdGuard is already committed to transitioning to MV3.
I thought these stopped working altogether with the release of Chrome 142? I know you could override it for awhile there, but I've been lead to believe that option is gone.
This is part of what forced my hand and made Firefox my daily driver, at least for personal use.
It works fine in Chrome 148. Earlier Chrome versions removed chrome://flags versions of the above even with "Temporarily unexpire M147 flags" (and similar), but command line invocation continues to work.
Yes, I still use it and can confirm that I have had no concerns or problems with it. On the other hand, if I had to reinstall, without research, I'm not sure how I would reinstall it. Having alternatives is a good thing.
Weirdly enough I was wondering what Tavis Ormandy has been up to recently, as I haven't seen his name associated with any global show-stopping vulnerabilities from the Project Zero team for a while.
I miss uMatrix, too. Thank you for working on this!
>I really don’t want to give that up – is there a solution?
Use Firefox, uBO works great. While I really enjoy seeing people find creative technical workarounds, the reason for it being needed in the first place is Googles fight against Adblockers with Manifest V3. Firefox allows people to sidestep this artificial downgrade of adblocking capabilities.
If you find yourself in a "only Internet Explorer 5.5 is supported" situation, you could perhaps use Ungoogled Chromium and manually install Ublock Origin to buy yourself time to get out of that dead lock.
Firefox hasn't (yet) crippled their add-ons, and says they have no plans to do so (today).
NoScript can do what you want, and more.
Once Google removes MV2 and it's supporting code, Brave is not going to shoulder the cost of keeping all of that patched to run on newer builds of Chromium. Especially not because their own blocking doesn't rely on it, uMatrix has been deprecated since 2021, and AdGuard is already committed to transitioning to MV3.
This is part of what forced my hand and made Firefox my daily driver, at least for personal use.
I miss uMatrix, too. Thank you for working on this!
but cloudflare blocks my "outdated browser" all the time
Use Firefox, uBO works great. While I really enjoy seeing people find creative technical workarounds, the reason for it being needed in the first place is Googles fight against Adblockers with Manifest V3. Firefox allows people to sidestep this artificial downgrade of adblocking capabilities.