Chrome Quietly Finishes Off uBlock Origin — Here’s What Millions of Users Are Switching To

Chrome Quietly Finishes Off uBlock Origin — Here’s What Millions of Users Are Switching To

Google is closing the final loopholes that kept classic uBlock Origin alive in Chrome. With no Manifest V3 version coming from its own creator, users are moving to alternatives — and one ad blocker with 16 million installs is leading the pack.

For the past two years, Chrome has been slowly dismantling support for Manifest V2 (MV2), the extension framework that classic uBlock Origin depends on to block ads dynamically. That process is now entering its final stage. Chrome 138, which shipped in July 2025, was the version that disabled MV2 for ordinary users and removed the in-browser toggle that let people switch it back on. What remained after that were a handful of obscure technical escape hatches — flags, registry edits, and DevTools tricks — that let determined users keep the full version of uBlock Origin running anyway.

Those escape hatches are now being removed for good. Chrome 150, rolling out around June 30, 2026, strips out the last flag that allowed a manual re-enable. A Google engineer confirmed the change directly in a Chromium code review, writing that MV2 extensions are no longer permitted in any supported version of the browser. Chrome 151, expected roughly four weeks after that, goes further still, eliminating the remaining flag infrastructure and closing the DevTools-based workaround that a small number of technically inclined users had been relying on. Once both updates land, there is no supported way left to run classic uBlock Origin in standard Chrome.

Why there’s no “uBlock Origin for MV3”

Some users have been waiting for the project to simply rebuild uBlock Origin for the new extension format. That isn’t happening. Raymond Hill, the developer behind uBlock Origin, has said plainly on the project’s official wiki that no Manifest V3 version of the extension exists. The reason is technical: MV3 caps how many filtering rules an extension can apply and removes the kind of real-time, dynamic filtering that made the original so effective against fast-changing ad-delivery and anti-adblock scripts. Hill’s team did build a lighter, MV3-compliant companion — uBlock Origin Lite — but it deliberately trades away much of that dynamic filtering to stay within Chrome’s new limits.

Where Chrome users are going instead

For people staying on Chrome, two MV3-native options have absorbed most of the attention: uBlock Origin Lite, the official scaled-down fallback, and AdGuard AdBlocker, a long-running independent ad blocker that has aggressively optimized itself for the MV3 era.

AdGuard’s browser extension currently sits at roughly 16 million users on the Chrome Web Store, with a 4.6–4.7 star rating. Its most recent build, version 5.4.3.60, was published on June 14, 2026, putting it on pace with Chrome’s own release cadence. Independent ad-blocker testing sites have verified that AdGuard can reach a perfect 100-out-of-100 score on AdBlock Tester — but only after a user manually enables the extra filter categories in its settings. Out of the box, with only its default “basic” filtering active, AdGuard performs noticeably less aggressively, which matches reports that newly installed users sometimes don’t notice much of a difference until they dig into the options menu.

Getting AdGuard to its best performance

Reviewers note that AdGuard’s strongest results come only after some manual setup. The general steps people are following:

1. Install “AdGuard AdBlocker” from the Chrome, Edge, or Firefox extension store.
2. Leave basic filtering on after install — most visible ads disappear immediately.
3. Open the extension’s settings, go to Filters, and enable Privacy Protection, Social Media Filtering, and Annoying Content for the strongest results.

Reviewers who tested the extension this way report that YouTube pre-roll ads, banner ads, and recurring pop-up overlays are largely eliminated. AdGuard’s “Stealth Mode” — which strips tracking parameters like utm_source from URLs and limits what search queries and browser fingerprint data get exposed to third parties — is also frequently cited as a meaningful privacy advantage over uBlock Origin Lite, which does not include equivalent tracking-protection features.

It’s worth distinguishing AdGuard’s free browser extension from AdGuard’s separate paid desktop application, which performs system-wide network filtering rather than just in-browser ad blocking. The two are sold and licensed separately, and the browser extension itself remains free.

The alternative built by uBlock Origin’s own team

For users who’d rather stick with something from the original uBlock Origin developer, uBlock Origin Lite requires no configuration and works immediately after installation. It currently holds a 4.5-star rating on the Chrome Web Store with a large install base. Independent reviewers consistently describe it as effective for everyday ad blocking but missing some of the dynamic filtering and cosmetic clean-up that made the full version stand out — testers generally put its real-world effectiveness somewhat below the original, though it remains a capable, zero-setup option for anyone unwilling to install a third-party extension.

The bottom line

The shutdown isn’t a rumor or a future possibility — it’s a rolling, already-confirmed change to Chrome’s codebase, with Chrome 150 landing around June 30, 2026 and Chrome 151 following roughly a month later. Ads that had been suppressed for years are starting to reappear for anyone still relying on classic uBlock Origin once those updates install. Whether the right move is a fully configured third-party blocker like AdGuard, the lighter official fallback in uBlock Origin Lite, or simply switching to a browser like Firefox or Brave that still supports the full extension, doing nothing means watching the ads come back.

Chrome version numbers, release timing, and extension statistics are current as of June 17, 2026, and may shift as Google finalizes each rollout.