On June 30, ad blocking breaks for tens of millions of people, and Google is the one flipping the switch. A Chrome update landing that day turns off uBlock Origin, an ad and tracker blocker, along with every other blocker built the old way. There is no setting to turn it back on.
Chrome 150 deletes the last hidden option that let power users and company IT departments keep these older extensions running. About four weeks later, Chrome 151 closes the final side door too. After that, the blockers are gone for good on Chrome. Google engineer Devlin Cronin confirmed the timeline in a public code change.
What actually changed
Chrome extensions used to work under a rulebook called Manifest V2. An ad blocker could watch every request your browser made and decide, right then, what to block. That live control is what let uBlock Origin hide ads, kill trackers, and react to new ad tricks the moment they showed up. More than 40 million Chrome users run it.
The new rulebook, Manifest V3, does not allow that. Extensions now have to hand Chrome a fixed list of blocking rules ahead of time, and Chrome decides what to do.
Raymond Hill, who makes uBlock Origin, says a Manifest V3 version cannot do everything the original does. A stripped-down build called uBlock Origin Lite exists, but it supports far fewer filter lists and cannot hide ad elements on the page the way the full version can.
Google says this is about safety. An extension with live access to your traffic can, if hijacked, quietly steal passwords or inject code into any page. That is real. A popular extension called "Save Image As Type" was taken over and secretly changed to skim money from online purchases, and it went unnoticed for months.
The Next Web on Chrome disabling Manifest V2, Tech Times on the Chrome 150 timeline
The ad company is switching off ad blockers
Here is the awkward math. Google made an estimated $239.5 billion from ads in 2025. Ad blockers cut into that by hiding the very thing Google sells. So the company turning them off is the same company that gets paid when you see ads.
And US government security officials have told people to use ad blockers. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recommends them as a defense against malvertising, which is malware hidden inside online ads. Switching blockers off in the world's most-used browser, which holds about 65 percent of the market, removes a defense those officials asked people to keep.
Your options are thin. Inside Chrome, uBlock Origin Lite still works, but expect weaker blocking. Microsoft Edge is built on the same Chrome code and is following the exact same timeline, so moving to it changes nothing. The real escape is a browser that does not use Chrome's engine, such as Firefox, which still runs the full uBlock Origin.
