Google Chrome users may soon experience disruptions to some of their favorite extensions. Google is preparing to move to the Manifest V3 extension platform.
If improvements are promised in the areas of privacy, security and performance, this development will be accompanied by the abandonment of some extensions. They will be gradually disabled and then removed from the browser. This change affects not only Chrome, but all browsers based on the Chromium engine. We can cite Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera.
Chrome and Manifest V3, why this change?
Google is updating the Chrome extension system to improve security, performance, resource management, and privacy. Unfortunately, it is expected that some extensions will no longer be supported. They will then be automatically disabled.
This change is part of a general approach to offer a better user experience, but will cause problems for Manifest V2 extensions. Although for a limited period it will still be possible to re-enable them, the option will disappear in the future. Users are scheduled to be redirected to the Chrome Web Store to find an alternative. According to the search giant, the goal is to completely replace Manifest V2 with V3 by early 2025.
Who is affected?
The change potentially affects tens of millions of users. for what In addition to Chrome, browsers such as Edge, Brave, Vivaldi or Opera are also affected. They all rely on the same engine, Chromium.
If Google plans to immediately disable support for the general public, “enterprise” customers have a solution via ” ExtensionManifestV2Availability » to delay the term by one year. The good news is that you can use it, but be careful, the operation is delicate because it requires manual intervention in the Windows registry.
How do you know if your extensions are affected?
To check if your extensions are affected by this change, you can follow this procedure:
1. Type in Chrome chrome://extensions in the address bar.
2. Google may now list incompatible extensions at the top of the page.
3. If this is not already the case, a message will likely appear before the affected extensions are disabled. The message might look like this: “These extensions may soon no longer be supported.”
The exact number of affected extensions is not yet known, but many are affected, including very popular tools like uBlock Origin or more specific extensions serving specific needs.
