how to get ublock origin on safari

uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.

Easy on cpu and memory..

Github (gorhill/uBlock)

uBlock Origin is not just an “ad blocker“, it's a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature.

Open-source ad blocker

The uBlock Origin is a free and open-source, cross-platform browser extension for content filtering—primarily aimed at neutralizing privacy invasion in an efficient, user-friendly method.

CPU and memory efficiency

Globally, uBlock Origin could save consumers more than $1.8 billion/year( study ). Open source ad blockers are a potentially effective technology for energy conservation.

Various browsers support

uBlock Origin’s extension is available for several of the most widely used browsers, including: Chrome, Chromium, MS Edge, Opera, Firefox and all Safari releases prior to 13.

About uBlock Origin

In 2014 uBlock Origin’s founder, original author and lead developer, Raymond Hill, created the original uBlock extension, with its development initiated by forking the codebase of HTTP Switchboard with a separate blocking extension, uMatrix, which had been previously designed for advanced users. The initial uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill in order to enable community-maintained block lists while simultaneously adding additional features and upgrading the code quality to proper release standards. First released in June 2014 as an exclusive Chrome and Opera extension, in late 2015 the initial uBlock extension expanded to other browsers under its current name – uBlock Origin. (occasionally represented globally as – uBlock₀).

Following this 2015 introduction, a collaborative comsource and Sourcepoint industry research survey reported an 833% growth rate over a 10-month period ending in August 2016, the most rapid growth among any industry software publicly listed at that time. This report attributed this enormous surge to collective user demand for “pure” blockers with the capacity to operate outside the “acceptable advertising” program used by AdBlock, and other industry extensions.

Quickly gaining traction throughout the entire ad-blocking industry, the uBlock Origin Firefox version collected over 5 million active users, with its Chrome extension subsequently compiling over 10 million active users. Developer Nik Rolls then officially released uBlock Origin for the Microsoft Edge browser in December 2016.

In January 2017, uBlock Origin was added to the repositories for Debian 9 , and Ubuntu (16.04), and the uBlock Origin extension was awarded the prestigious IoT honor of “Pick of the Month” by Mozilla.

As of 2024, uBlock Origin continues to be maintained and actively developed by founder and lead developer Raymond Hill.

The uBlock Origin extension remains an industry leading, open-source, cross-platform browser extension with software developed specifically for multiple platform use, and as of 2024, uBlock Origin’s extension is available for several of the most widely used browsers, including: Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Opera, Firefox and all Safari releases prior to 13.

The uBlock Origin project still specifically refuses donations at this time, and instead advises all of its clients, users and supporters to donate to block list maintainers.

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The Ultimate Superuser’s Guide to uBlock Origin

uBlock Origin is the most powerful and versatile ad blocker available. Unfortunately, the design is also a little obscure. This guide will explain the ins and outs of uBlock Origin’s advanced features, including adding custom lists, creating custom user filters, setting up dynamic blocking rules, and adjusting rules for uBlock Origin on specific domains with the advanced user interface.

Installing uBlock Origin

Setting up advanced options, dynamic filtering rules, saving and reverting filtering rules, third-party scripts and frames, viewing and editing dynamic rules, removing elements with static rules, finding and using custom filter lists, storing and syncing rules.

A pre-built version of the uBlock Origin extension is available for Google Chrome , Firefox , Safari , Microsoft Edge and Opera . You can also build the extension manually from source for Firefox and Chrome.

Also read: uBlock Origin – Better Than AdBlock Plus?

A quick warning : uBlock Origin is not and has never been connected to ublock.org or the uBlock extension. The Origin part in the name is very important in distinguishing between these two unrelated projects that once shared a similar codebase. ublock.org and the uBlock extension should be avoided, as they are imitators that purposefully confuse the market to steal data and deceive users. Be sure you have uBlock Origin and not uBlock.

Before we can do anything interesting with uBlock Origin, we need to enable advanced settings. Make sure to check out the required reading before you proceed. If you lack the troubleshooting experience to manage these types of decisions, consider reading up on how cookies work before you start tinkering with their functionality. Otherwise, expect the unexpected!

1. Click on the uBlock Origin extension’s icon.

2. Click the Settings icon.

3. Tick the box next to “I am an advanced user.”

Once you have advanced settings enabled, you can adjust blocking settings on a granular level.

Filtering is handled in uBlock Origin at two levels: globally and locally. Global rules apply to all URLs, while local rules are for the current URL only.

The first column specifies the URL that the content originates from.

The second column indicates global settings, which are inherited by the specific URLs.

The third column indicates local rules for the current URL.

If you mouse over a box in the “global” or “local” rules column, you’ll see red, grey, and green thirds.

Click on the red third to set a blocking rule for the associated content type. The green third permits the corresponding element. The grey third sets a “noop” rule, which stands for “no operation.” This setting will prevent uBlock Origin from taking action on the associated content. Setting a “noop” filter will override global settings for a specific URL.

At the top of the window are content types. These can be blocked at the global and URL-specific level. These are blunt filters but useful nonetheless.

Under the content types are the URLs loaded on the current webpage. A plus icon indicates that content from that URL is being permitted. A minus icon indicates that content from the URL is being blocked. You can sometimes see a mixture of pluses and minuses for one URL, which indicates that some of the content is permitted while other content is blocked.

You can also look at the color coding next to the URL. Green indicates that content from that URL is permitted. Yellow indicates that some content from that URL is blocked. Red indicates that all content from the URL will be blocked.

Settings an inherited based on specificity. For example, global content type rules have the lowest priority. Rules set on filtering lists have a medium priority ranking: they can override global settings, but not URL-specific user settings. The highest priority is given to URL-specific local rules set by the user.

Changes you make to filtering rules are automatically reset the next time you visit a website. To make your settings permanent, click the lock icon.

To revert to the last saved state, click the eraser icon.

In general, it’s a good idea to block third-party scripts and frames by default. This protects both your privacy and your eyeballs. It can also break websites, so keep a quick finger on the “noop” override.

To block third-party scripts and frames, click the red third of the box next to each in the global column. This will automatically block all third-party scripts and frames on every URL.

If a website breaks, you can set a “noop” override to permit third-party scripts and frames. Click the grey box in the local rules column to set a “noop” rule and override the global blocking rule for this URL.

This noop rule will only apply to the current URL.

Alternatively, you can also hunt down the URL of the blocked resource and permit that resource specifically. This is easiest with the third-party frame has a clear origin, like a YouTube or Twitter embed. If you permit those frames globally and save the rule, those URL-specific filters will trump the global content type filters.

By balancing global and local filters with content type filters, you can set sensible online privacy settings while permitting content you don’t find as objectionable.

To view the filters that you’ve already set, look at uBlock Origin’s Settings page under the My Rules tab. Here, you’ll see the rules you’ve set in two lists. The list on the left is for permanent rules and the list on the right is for temporary rules, as indicated by their headings.

The text contents of the right-most temporary rule column can be edited directly with the cursor, mouse, and keyboard. If uBlock Origin detects a difference between the two columns, you’ll see contextual buttons labeled “Revert” and “Commit” that offer the option to sync the columns with one another. Click “Revert” to copy the unchanged contents of the permanent rule list to the temporary rules list. Click “Commit” to copy the change from the temporary rules list to the permanent rules list.

You’ll notice that the text formatting of the rules follows specific conventions. The syntax is like so:

If you follow the dynamic filtering rules syntax guide on uBlock Origin’s GitHub page, you can change and set rules with text strings directly from this pane.

Also read: How to Get More Out of Your Adblocker

If you want to remove elements from the page using graphical tools, you can access that feature by setting cosmetic rules. These rules remove DOM elements based on a graphically-based node selection by the user. If you see something on a website that bothers you, like a email subscription banner, an ad-block detector, or anything else offensive to your sensibilities, you can remove it this way.

Temporary Rules: Element Zapper

There are two different ways to set cosmetic rules in uBlock Origin. The first is with the Element Zapper, accessed through the lightning bolt icon on uBlock Origin’s extension dropdown pane.

This tool sets a temporary rule removing the specified DOM element. With the next browser session, the element will return. To create a rule, click the element zapper icon, and then click on the page element you want to remove. As you mouse over various DOM elements, they’ll be colored yellow to indicate what element is currently selected. Once the right element is selected, click to remove the selected element instantly. No confirmation box will appear after clicking

The element zapper will do its best to pick the element you’ve selected, but you might need to dance your mouse around a bit to get the element you’re hoping for. It will attempt to adhere to the largest DOM object that its algorithm can locate and select.

Permanent Rules: Element Picker

To set a permanent rule, use the Element Picker, represented by the eyedropper icon to the right of the lightning bolt.

This will activate an interface similar to the element zapper, but now DOM elements will be highlighted in red instead of yellow.

When you click on the red highlighted element, a text box will appear in the lower-right, previewing the class or ID of the selected element. It’s this text-based class or ID match that will be used to remove the element in the future. And since many sites obfuscate their code to make ad blocking more difficult, you may need to refine the element picker’s automatic selection from time to time. You can also use this tool to select “layers” of the DOM that are completely obscured or exist only in DOM logic.

To select a different element, mouse over its name in the yellow box below the white text box. Click on the text to see the associated element highlighted in red.

When the correct element is selected, click the “Create” button to create the rule and remove the element. You can also click the adjacent “Pick” button to return to the element picker if you selected the wrong part of the page.

In the future you can find the rule in uBlock Origin’s settings under the “My Filters” tab. New rules will appear at the bottom of the list with their data and timestamp.

If you want to ignore a rule, you can type an exclamation point at the beginning of the line to comment out the element rule. You can also see additional static filer syntax in uBlock Origin’s documentation on GitHub.

uBlock Origin comes with some preset filter lists, but there are many more you can add. The easiest way to add more filters is to browse FilterLists .

If you find a filter list you want to add to uBlock Origin’s filters, click “Details” and then “Subscribe.” This will automatically download and include the list in uBlock Origin’s blocking rules for websites visited in the future. Only lists with the uBlock Origin icon can be added to uBlock Origin in this way.

These filters will then appear under the “Filter Lists” tab in uBlock Origin’s options page. They can be viewed and toggled from that page in the future.

To make a local backup of your uBlock Origin rules, you can save your settings out to a file. Find the dialog options at the bottom of the main uBlock Origin settings tab.

If you want to use the browser-based cloud storage for extensions, you can tick the “Enable cloud storage” option on the main page of uBlock Origin’s settings. This will allow you to upload data within the extension’s small file space within the browser. This only syncs with other copies of the same browser, however.

If you upload your uBlock Origin settings in Firefox, you cannot then download them in Chrome on another computer. As a result, sharing configurations through files is the most reliable method of the time being. To sync your rules among multiple browsers and computers, you can share the backup configuration text file over a cloud storage service.

uBlock Origin isn’t exactly an ad blocker. It’s a wide-spectrum content blocker. That means it can control what comes into your browser no matter its origin. That makes it extremely powerful, and extremely easy to mess up. So take care with what you do, and if something breaks, be prepared to fix it.

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Alexander Fox is a tech and science writer based in Philadelphia, PA with one cat, three Macs and more USB cables than he could ever use.

Use uBlock Origin on macOS: Install and Set-Up

• September 6, 2023

Table of Contents

uBlock Origin is the most powerful and versatile ad blocker available. Unfortunately, the design is also a little obscure. This guide will explain the ins and outs of uBlock Origin’s advanced features, including adding custom lists, creating custom user filters, setting up dynamic blocking rules, and adjusting rules for uBlock Origin on specific domains with the advanced user interface.

Installing uBlock Origin

A quick warning: uBlock Origin is not and has never been connected to ublock.org or the uBlock extension.

 uBlock Origin is available in the extension stores for Google Chrome , Firefox , Safari , and Opera.

Setting Up Advanced Options

1. Click on the uBlock Origin extension’s icon.

2. Click the Settings icon.

3. Tick the box next to “I am an advanced user.”

Once you have advanced settings enabled, you will reveal a new pane for dynamic filtering.

Dynamic Filtering Rules

Filtering is handled in uBlock Origin at two levels: globally and locally. Global rules apply to all URLs, while local rules are for the current URL only.

The first column specifies the URL that the content originates from.

The second column indicates global settings, which are inherited by the specific URLs.

The third column indicates local rules for the current URL.

Click on the red third to set a blocking rule for the associated content type. The green third permits the corresponding element. The grey third sets a “noop” rule, which stands for “no operation.” This setting will prevent uBlock Origin from taking action on the associated content. Setting a “noop” filter will override global settings for a specific URL.

At the top of the window are content types. These can be blocked at the global and URL-specific level. These are blunt filters but useful nonetheless.

Under the content types are the URLs loaded on the current webpage. A plus icon indicates that content from that URL is being permitted. A minus icon indicates that content from the URL is being blocked. You can sometimes see a mixture of pluses and minuses for one URL, which indicates that some of the content is permitted while other content is blocked.

You can also look at the color coding next to the URL. Green indicates that content from that URL is permitted. Yellow indicates that some content from that URL is blocked. Red indicates that all content from the URL will be blocked.

Settings an inherited based on specificity. For example, global content type rules have the lowest priority. Rules set on filtering lists have a medium priority ranking: they can override global settings, but not URL-specific user settings. The highest priority is given to URL-specific local rules set by the user.

Saving and Reverting Filtering Rules

Changes you make to filtering rules are automatically reset the next time you visit a website. To make your settings permanent, click the lock icon.

To revert to the last saved state, click the eraser icon.

Setting Smart Dynamic Rules

In general, it’s a good idea to block third-party scripts and frames by default. This protects both your privacy and your eyeballs. It can also break websites, so keep a quick finger on the “noop” override.

To block third-party scripts and frames, click the red third of the box next to each in the global column. This will automatically block all third-party scripts and frames on every URL.

If a website breaks, you can set a “noop” override to permit third-party scripts and frames. Click the grey box in the local rules column to set a “noop” rule and override the global blocking rule for this URL.

Alternatively, you can also hunt down the URL of the blocked resource and permit that resource specifically. This is easiest with the third-party frame has a clear origin, like a YouTube or Twitter embed. If you permit those frames globally and save the rule, those URL-specific filters will trump the global content type filters.

By balancing global and local filters with content type filters, you can set sensible online privacy settings while permitting content you don’t find as objectionable.

Viewing and Editing Dynamic Rules

To view the filters that you’ve already set, look at uBlock Origin’s Settings page under the My Rules tab. Here, you’ll see the rules you’ve set in two lists. The list on the left is for permanent rules and the list on the right is for temporary rules, as indicated by their headings.

The text contents of the right-most temporary rule column can be edited directly with the cursor, mouse, and keyboard. If uBlock Origin detects a difference between the two columns, you’ll see contextual buttons labeled “Revert” and “Commit” that offer the option to sync the columns with one another. Click “Revert” to copy the unchanged contents of the permanent rule list to the temporary rules list. Click “Commit” to copy the change from the temporary rules list to the permanent rules list.

You’ll notice that the text formatting of the rules follows specific conventions. The syntax is like so:

[parent site hostname] [element hostname] [request type] [rule]

If you follow the dynamic filtering rules syntax guide on uBlock Origin’s GitHub page, you can change and set rules with text strings directly from this pane.

You might also like the following posts:

What is macOS Sandboxing and Why Does It Exist?

Harden your mac security with these steps, configuring macos security with your built-in firewall.

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uBlock Origin—everything you need to know about the ad blocker

Rare is the browser extension that can satisfy both passive and power users. But that’s an essential part of uBlock Origin ’s brilliance—it is an ad blocker you could recommend to your most tech forward friend as easily as you could to someone who’s just emerged from the jungle lost for the past 20 years. 

uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill

Finally, an efficient wide-spectrum content blocker. Easy on CPU and memory.

Users: 7,868,123

This extension is not currently available.

If you install uBlock Origin and do nothing else, right out of the box it will block nearly all types of internet advertising—everything from big blinking banners to search ads and video pre-rolls and all the rest. However if you want extremely granular levels of content control, uBlock Origin can accommodate via advanced settings. 

We’ll try to split the middle here and walk through a few of the extension’s most intriguing features and options…

Does using uBlock Origin actually speed up my web experience? 

Yes. Not only do web pages load faster because the extension blocks unwanted ads from loading, but uBlock Origin utilizes a uniquely lightweight approach to content filtering so it imposes minimal impact on memory consumption. It is generally accepted that uBlock Origin offers the most performative speed boost among top ad blockers. 

But don’t ad blockers also break pages? 

Occasionally that can occur, where a page breaks if certain content is blocked or some websites will even detect the presence of an ad blocker and halt passage. 

Fortunately this doesn’t happen as frequently with uBlock Origin as it might with other ad blockers and the extension is also extremely effective at bypassing anti-ad blockers (yes, an ongoing battle rages between ad tech and content blocking software). But if uBlock Origin does happen to break a page you want to access it’s easy to turn off content blocking for specific pages you trust or perhaps even want to see their ads.

Show us a few tips & tricks

Let’s take a look at some high level settings and what you can do with them. 

• Lightning bolt button enables Element Zapper , which lets you temporarily remove page elements by simply mousing over them and clicking. For example, this is convenient for removing embedded gifs or for hiding disturbing images you may encounter in some news articles.
• Eye dropper button enables Element Picker , which lets you permanently remove page elements. For example, if you find Facebook Stories a complete waste of time, just activate Element Picker, mouse over/click the Stories section of the page, select “Create” and presto—The End of Facebook Stories.    

The five buttons on this row will only affect the page you’re on.

• Pop-up button blocks—you guessed it—pop-ups
• Film button blocks large media elements like embedded video, audio, or images
• Eye slash button disables cosmetic filtering , which is on by default and elegantly reformats your pages when ads are removed, but if you’d prefer to see pages laid out as they were intended (with just empty spaces instead of ads) then you have that option
• “Aa” button blocks remote fonts from loading on the page
• “</>” button disables JavaScript on the page

Does uBlock Origin protect against malware? 

In addition to using various advertising block lists, uBlock Origin also leverages potent lists of known malware sources, so it automatically blocks those for you as well. To be clear, there is no software that can offer 100% malware protection, but it doesn’t hurt to give yourself enhanced protections like this. 

All of the content block lists are actively maintained by volunteers who believe in the mission of providing users with more choice and control over the content they see online. “uBlock Origin stands uncompromisingly for all users’ best interests, it’s not monetized, and its development and maintenance is driven only by volunteers who share the same view,” says uBlock Origin founder and developer Raymond Hill. “As long as I am the maintainer of [uBlock Origin], this will not change.”

We could go into a lot more detail about uBlock Origin —how you can create your own custom filter lists, how you can set it to block only media of a certain size, cloud storage sync, and so on—but power users will discover these delights on their own. Hopefully we’ve provided enough insight here to help you make an informed choice about exploring uBlock Origin, whether it be your first ad blocker or just the latest. 

If you’d like to check out other amazing ad blocker options, please see What’s the best ad blocker for you?

uBlock Origin for Safari

An efficient blocker add-on for various browsers. Fast, potent, and lean.

What is uBlock Origin?

An efficient blocker: easy on memory and CPU footprint, and yet can load and enforce thousands more filters than other popular blockers out there. uBlock Origin is free and open source. It's made for users by users. No donations sought by any uBlock Origin projects.

Usage: The big power button in the popup is to permanently disable/enable uBlock for the current web site. It applies to the current web site only, it is not a global power button.

This website only hosts the prebuilt extension for Safari. You can find the original uBlock Origin for Safari project by el1t here , and the original uBlock Origin project by gorhill here .

Install uBlock Origin for Safari

Download the file bellow, double click on it and click on `Trust` when you are asked `Are you sure you want to install the extension “uBlock Origin”?`.

uBlock Origin for Safari was created by Ellis Tsung . Website by Rémi Prévost , Mike McQuaid and Danielle Lalonde .

uBlock Origin

Description.

uBlock Origin

29.6K ratings

Finally, an efficient blocker. Easy on CPU and memory.

IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org". uBlock Origin is not an "ad blocker", it's a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature. *** Out of the box, these lists of filters are loaded and enforced: - uBlock Origin filter lists - EasyList (ads) - EasyPrivacy (tracking) - Peter Lowe’s Ad server list (ads and tracking) - Online Malicious URL Blocklist More lists are available for you to select if you wish: - Annoyances (cookie warnings, overlays, etc.) - hosts-based lists - And many others Additionally, you can point-and-click to block JavaScript locally or globally, create your own global or local rules to override entries from filter lists, and many more advanced features. *** Free. Open source with public license (GPLv3) For users by users. If ever you really do want to contribute something, think about the people working hard to maintain the filter lists you are using, which were made available to use by all for free. *** Documentation: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin Project change log: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases Contributors @ Github: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/graphs/contributors Contributors @ Crowdin: https://crowdin.net/project/ublock

4.7 out of 5 29.6K ratings Google doesn't verify reviews. Learn more about results and reviews.

Keith Jun 4, 2024

This is a critical extension which everyone should use to protect themselves from malware. I recommend that you also use the accompanying extension NoScript Security Suite which protects against cross site scripting attacks. If you are using this to protect your privacy, then you should also install the extension called Opt Meowt (made by a university's privacy research group) which preloads opt-out cookies so that you don't have to visit every tracking and advertising company (hundreds) to ... Show more

Dedev Jun 4, 2024

this is a must have extension. this blocks every ads (including youtube ads) and all trackers. which is makes browsing experience smoother.

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• Not being used or transferred for purposes that are unrelated to the item's core functionality
• Not being used or transferred to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes

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Install an ad-blocker on Microsoft Edge - uBlock Origin

uBlock Origin is a general purpose blocker for web browsers that blocks ads, trackers, and malware sites by default. In this guide, you'll learn how to install uBlock Origin on Microsoft Edge.

uBlock Origin (not to be confused with uBlock which is a different project) is an independent and open-source ad blocker relying on a curated list of servers. It prevents your browser from connecting to these servers to serve you ads.

Note: There are many ad blockers on the market and you can test alternatives. By using an independent, open-source and free ad blocker, you are more likely to avoid products with conflicts of interest, spywares or blockers with "acceptable ads" programs. In theory, any ad blockers with open blacklisting and whitelisting that the user can edit should be able to offer similar results

Warning : Using an ad-blocker may cause some pages to display incorrectly or not at all. To prevent this behaviour, we show how to disable the extension in such cases.

Installation

Like any other add-on, install uBlock Origin by visiting the Microsoft Edge Add-ons Store and clicking on Get (Fig. 1) and then clicking on Add extension when prompted (Fig. 2).

Upon successful installation a notification appears on the top-right corner, and the uBlock Origin icon is added to the extension menu on your toolbar (Fig. 3). To pin the icon on the toolbar, click the extension menu, and then click the pin next to the uBlock Origin icon.

When you visit a website, uBlock Origin automatically blocks malicious trackers and ads, which you can check by clicking the icon (Fig. 4).

Whitelisting

In some case, a webpage might malfunction or refuse to load if uBlock Origin is enabled. In this case, you can disable uBlock Origin for a given website by clicking on the icon and then click on the large power button (Fig. 4). Simply reload the page either by clicking the reload icon on uBlock Origin (Fig. 5) or by refreshing the page in your browser.

Note that using Ctrl+click will disable temporarily and uBlock Origin instead of disabling it on this site entirely and indefinitely.

uBlock Origin is a powerful, highly configurable tool to block any network request on your browser. If you are interested in more advanced usage, visit the official documentation page .

Found a mistake? An outdated screenshot? Think this could be improved? Check out our Github repository and contribute to help keep these guides up-to-date and useful!

More steps to take

Adjusting Edge settings to enhance your online privacy

In this guide you'll learn how to configure your Edge browser settings to harden your online privacy.

Cómo ajustar la configuración de Edge para mejorar tu privacidad en línea

Esta guía te mostrará cómo ajustar la configuración del navegador Edge para reforzar tu privacidad en línea.

Install an ad-blocker on Microsoft Edge - Privacy Badger

In this guide, you'll learn how to install Privacy Badger on Edge, a browser add-on devcelopped by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to block malicious ads and trackers.

Cómo instalar un bloqueador de anuncios en Microsoft Edge - Privacy Badger

Con esta guía aprenderás a instalar Privacy Badger en Edge. Privacy Badger es una extensión para el navegador desarrollada por la Electronic Frontier Foundation para bloquear anuncios y rastreadores maliciosos.

Google to Start Disabling uBlock Origin, Older Chrome Extensions on June 3

G oogle is sticking with its plan to phase out older " Manifest V2 " Chrome extensions, including uBlock Origin, starting next month. 

The company will start disabling extensions built with the older V2 framework on June 3, beginning with users of Chrome’s beta versions, including from the Dev and Canary channels. 

"If users still have Manifest V2 extensions installed, some will start to see a warning banner when visiting their extension management page—chrome://extensions—informing them that some (Manifest V2) extensions they have installed will soon no longer be supported,” the company wrote in a blog post . 

Google will disable V2 extensions "gradually in the coming months" for Chrome stable users with the aim of "completing the transition by the beginning of next year." The goal is to push all users to alternative and newer Chrome extensions built with the Manifest V3 framework, which the company says is more secure and private. 

“For a short time after the extensions are disabled, users will still be able to turn their Manifest V2 extensions back on, but over time, this toggle will go away as well,” the company added. 

Google has spent years pushing the IT community to drop Manifest V2. Although Manifest V3 is designed to protect users from invasive data collection, the same framework has also received complaints for its requirements, which can undermine ad blockers, such as uBlock Origin. 

But in Thursday’s blog post, Google notes that "over 85% of actively maintained extensions in the Chrome Web Store are running Manifest V3, and the top content filtering extensions all have Manifest V3 versions available—with options for users of AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin and AdGuard.”

Indeed, uBlock Origin also adopted Manifest V3 with the release of uBlock Origin Lite . But Google’s effort to phase out the older Chrome extensions is expected to ensnare the original uBlock Origin extension, which currently has 37 million users and still uses the V2 framework.  

The looming phaseout has caused many uBlock Origin users on Chrome to worry they’ll be forced to install a less effective ad blocker . Others like AdBlock also note that the V3 Manifest can prevent it from filtering out ads through automatic real-time updates. 

“Currently, our filter lists are updated automatically —often multiple times a day. So if you see an ad that has managed to get around the ad blocking filter, it’s typically taken care of right away because of these updates. Manifest V3 has made it so that we’ll no longer be able to do these types of updates in the same way,” it said in a blog post . 

In response, Adblock has developed a workaround called “differential filter list updates,” which promises to keep the filter lists up to date, despite the restrictions from Manifest V2. "Users likely won’t notice a difference in ad blocking quality."

To further steer users and developers to Manifest V3, Google also plans on removing the “Featured” badge—a symbol indicating high-quality—from Chrome extensions that use Manifest V2. Only businesses using “ ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy” will be exempt from losing support for their Manifest V2 Chrome extensions, which will last until June 2025.

You can get rid of AI Overviews in Google Search

There are a few different ways to remove ai-generated answers from your search results..

By Emma Roth , a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Share this story

If you’ve searched for something on Google lately, you might’ve noticed a wall of text that appears before the actual search results. This feature, called AI Overviews , offers an AI-generated answer to certain queries. But it also pushes your list of links further down the page, which makes it a bit annoying to scroll past when you want to do your own research — and it will get even more annoying once Google starts stuffing ads into it .

But even though Google doesn’t let you disable the feature, there are a few ways around it.

One of the best ways to “turn off” the feature is to reconfigure your browser’s default search engine options. The website tenbluelinks offers instructions on how to do this in Chrome on Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac as well as in Firefox on Windows and Mac.

• In Chrome on Windows or Mac, head to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search .
• From there, select Add next to the “Site search” section.
• Add a nickname for your AI-less version of Google in the “Name” section, add a shortcut, and paste in this URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14 .
• When you’re done, hit Save or Add . Then select the three dots next to the entry and choose Make default .

The next time you conduct a search, you should no longer see AI Overviews.

There are some other simple ways to avoid AI Overviews, too, including with uBlock Origin . One Reddit user found that you can avoid the feature by downloading the uBlock extension for your browser. You then head to the settings menu, go to the My filters section, paste google.com##.GcKpu into the list, and select Apply changes .

You can also try Bye Bye, Google AI , a Chrome extension created by Tom’s Hardware ’s Avram Piltch . The extension uses CSS to hide AI Overviews by default, but you can also customize it to remove Google’s discussions section, shopping blocks, sponsored links, and more. Tedium lists some solutions for getting rid of AI Overviews (including in Safari) and created the udm14.com site so you can conduct searches without AI results.

And finally, if you just want to avoid AI Overviews occasionally, you can do your search, then select More > Web to get an AI Overviews-less (and ad-less) list of sites.

Any of these methods should give you a break from AI search results — at least until Google rolls out an “off” button.

Update May 24th, 4:25PM ET: Added mention of udm14.com.

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uBlock Origin (uBO) comes with its own custom DOM inspector, to assist in the creation of cosmetic filters, as a complementary tool to the element picker and the logger . It can be accessed by clicking the </> icon in the logger:

A custom DOM inspector -- rather than creating hooks into the browser's own DOM inspector -- has benefits:

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Whereas the element picker is useful to interactively create cosmetic filters through point-and-click, the DOM inspector is useful to create cosmetic filters through the internal structure of the document in your browser. For instance this allows:

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Creating cosmetic filter exception:

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Google to push ahead with Chrome's ad-blocker extension overhaul in earnest

Starting monday, users will gradually be warned the end is near.

On Monday, some people using Beta, Dev, and Canary builds of Google Chrome will be presented with a warning when they access their browser's extension management page – located at chrome://extensions .

The banner will say that legacy Manifest V2 browser extensions will stop working soon.

Those extensions include ad-blockers and other content filters that rely on the Manifest V2 API. And though leading ad-blocking extensions more or less support Manifest V2's successor, conveniently named Manifest V3, there is still some argument that these filters will be disadvantaged under version 3 when they are no longer allowed to use version 2.

In any case, users are going to be warned that V2 is on the way out.

"This will be followed gradually in the coming months by the disabling of those extensions," said David Li, product manager for Chrome Extensions, in a blog post published Thursday.

"Users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store, where they will be recommended Manifest V3 alternatives for their disabled extension. For a short time after the extensions are disabled, users will still be able to turn their Manifest V2 extensions back on, but over time, this toggle will go away as well."

The manifest file for a browser extension is where developers declare its capabilities via the Chrome Extension APIs .

The transition from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3 has been underway for at least five years. It makes new APIs available to browser extensions and removes old ones. The most salient of these is the blocking version of the webRequest API, which is used to intercept and alter network traffic prior to display. Under Manifest V2, it's what extension developers use to stop adverts, trackers, and other content appearing on pages, and prevent certain scripts from running.

The new MV3 architecture reflects Google's avowed desire to make browser extensions more performant, private, and secure. But the internet giant's attempt to do so has been bitterly contested by makers of privacy-protecting and content-blocking extensions, who have argued that the Chocolate Factory's new software architecture will lead to less effective privacy and content-filtering extensions.

As a result of this multi-year tussle and concessions Google has made to frustrated extension developers, the current version of MV3 is generally perceived to be better than initially proposed, but hasn't entirely addressed developer concerns or provided functionality that's equivalent to what's being removed.

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Li acknowledged the issue by noting the ways in which Google has been responsive, by adding support for user scripts, for offscreen documents that have access to the DOM API, and by increasing the number of rulesets in the declarativeNetRequest API (the replacement for webRequest ) to 330,000 static rules and 30,000 dynamics ones. Those rules can be used by ad-blockers to weed out adverts and other stuff for users.

Manifest V3 is now supported to varying degrees by other browsers, such as Edge, Firefox, and Safari. And by the beginning of 2025, when the API changes have been available for some time in the Chrome Stable channel, Manifest V2 extensions will stop working.

Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will be spared until June 2025.

According to Li, more than 85 percent of actively maintained extensions in the Chrome Web Store support Manifest V3, "and the top content filtering extensions all have Manifest V3 versions available – with options for users of AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin and AdGuard."

For users of uBlock Origin , which runs on Manifest V2, "options" means using the less capable uBlock Origin Lite , which supports Manifest V3. ®

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