Chrome closes the last door on uBlock Origin: what changes in versions 150 and 151

Google is about to finish what it started years ago. With Chrome 150 already in testing and expected by the end of June 2026 and version 151 arriving shortly after, the browser is removing the last loopholes that let people keep using the original uBlock Origin. This isn't the beginning of the end for Chrome's most popular ad blocker. It's the end of the end.

It's worth clearing this up right away, because there's a notion going around that uBlock Origin "stops working now." In reality, the extension has been disabled for most users since mid-2025. What dies with Chrome 150 and 151 are the workarounds that kept it alive in spite of everything.

Where this comes from

The root of it is the migration from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3, the set of rules that defines what browser extensions can and can't do. Google announced the phase-out timeline in November 2023 and began enforcing it in 2024.

The turning point was Chrome 138, the last version that tolerated Manifest V2 extensions and only if you used an enterprise policy to re-enable them. With Chrome 139, Google pulled that policy and the shutdown started hitting all users at once. From then on, anyone who wanted to keep the full uBlock Origin in Chrome had to rely on patches: an internal browser flag, a Windows Registry tweak, some leftover policy.

Those patches are exactly what's now disappearing.

What versions 150 and 151 actually do

According to a discussion in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group repository, reported by Neowin, a Chromium contributor (Andrey Bershanskiy) and a Google engineer (Devlin Cronin) have confirmed that the code controlling Manifest V2 availability is being removed. The split looks like this:

• Chrome 150 removes the ExtensionManifestV2Disabled flag. Cronin explained that the feature had been enabled by default for over a year, so they're stripping out both the option and the associated code.
• Chrome 151 will take the rest: ExtensionManifestV2Unsupported, ExtensionManifestV2Availability, and most likely AllowLegacyMV2Extensions.

The practical upshot is that the well-known Windows Registry tweak that extended support will stop working as of Chromium 151. Cronin was blunt about why: maintaining Manifest V2 indefinitely isn't feasible because of the complexity, the technical debt, and the security risks he said they've actually found several MV2-specific bugs lately. He also acknowledged they won't wipe out all the code at once, so some things will keep working for a while before going away for good.

The underlying technical problem

Manifest V2 let extensions use the webRequestBlocking API, which gave them the ability to inspect and block network requests in real time. That power is what made uBlock Origin so effective, especially against ads and trackers that change constantly, like the ones on YouTube.

Manifest V3 replaces that mechanism with declarativeNetRequest, which forces extensions to work from predefined rule lists instead of deciding on the fly. Google raised the limits on those rules (on the order of hundreds of thousands of static rules and tens of thousands of dynamic ones) and argues the model is more secure and faster. But it's a straitjacket: a blocker can no longer react to what it sees, only apply what it wrote down in advance. Against a platform that updates its ads daily, that difference matters.

What options are left

Stay on Chrome with uBlock Origin Lite. uBlock Origin's own developer, Raymond Hill (gorhill), offers a Lite version built on Manifest V3. It works and still blocks ads, but with the limits Chrome imposes. It's not the same thing: blocking on sites like YouTube is weaker. Other well-known blockers have also shipped their MV3 versions with similar cutbacks.

Switch browsers. This is where the real alternatives are:

• Firefox keeps support for both Manifest V2 and V3, so the full uBlock Origin still works.
• Brave ships with built-in ad and tracker blocking, and for now it's the Chromium-based browser most committed to continuing MV2 support (Vivaldi appears to be heading the same way).

The rest of the Chromium ecosystem tends to follow Google. Microsoft Edge began disabling uBlock Origin in February 2026, and Opera — which back in October 2024 had promised to keep support going longer has told developers it's abandoning Manifest V2.

And the original extension?

Oddly enough, as of June 2026 the full uBlock Origin still appears in the Chrome Web Store, in version 1.71.0 and with millions of users. It's still Manifest V2 and uses the old API. But its own GitHub page already warns about the end of Chrome support, and with versions 150 and 151 rolling in, its future in Google's browser is, for all practical purposes, sealed.

The message for users is simple: if you rely on powerful ad blocking in Chrome, the next few weeks are the time to decide whether you'll settle for a stripped-down version or move to a browser that still gives you what you had. Google has been warning about this for two years. The countdown ends now.