Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

> Adblockers basically need webRequestBlocking to function properly. Pretty convenient (cough cough) for a company that makes most of its revenue from ads to be removing that.

Why does this keep getting repeated? It's not true.

Anyone can use uBlock Origin Lite with Chrome, and manifest v3. It doesn't just work fine, it works great. I can't tell any difference from the old uBlock Origin in terms of blocking, but it's faster because now all the filtering is being done in C++ rather than JavaScript. Works on YouTube and everything.

I know there are some limits in place now with the max number of rules, but the limits seem to be plenty so far.

It is true though. Like, literally. Why do you think it is called Lite?

> It is true though. Like, literally.

Doesn't seem true to me. If it's true, then why is uBlock Origin Lite functioning properly as an adblocker for me?

> Why do you think it is called Lite?

Because it's simpler and uses less resources. And they had to call it something different to distinguish it from uBlock Origin.

One of the most frustrating things about these discussions is that it-works-on-my-machine effect. Anecdotal evidence is easily surpassed by a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that are changing. Here's what the author of uBlock Origin says about its capabilities in Manifest V3 versus Manifest V2.

> About "uBO Lite should be fine": It actually depends on the websites you visit. Not all filters supported by uBO can be converted to MV3 DNR rules, some websites may not be filtered as with uBO. A specific example in following tweet.

You can read about the specific differences in the FAQ:

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...

My personal take is if you're a pretty unsophisticated user and you mostly don't actually interact with the add-ons at all, Manifest V3 will probably be fine.

If you understand how ads and tracking work and you are using advanced features of the extension to manage that, then Manifest V2 will be much, much better. Dynamic filters alone are a huge win.

I agree with crazygringo that uBlock Origin Lite seems to work fine for me as far as blocking ads on the websites I visit.

I also agree that these discussions can be frustrating. In my opinion, that's because people claiming that Lite isn't good enough only seem to post super vague stuff, like links to the FAQ that list a bunch of technical details about what it can't do, when I don't understand the practical upshot of those things. Or vague assertions that it's not doing something which is allegedly important, where it's never actually explained what that thing it's not doing is and why it's important.

I have yet to see anybody show a specific example of a website where Lite doesn't actually work well enough. Or of any other specific thing it's not doing. I don't think I should have to read a series of 20 web pages dense with specialized technical details to understand what it's supposedly not doing. If it can't be explained simply and clearly what it's not doing that's so important, maybe it's not actually missing anything important at all.

I suppose I am a unsophisticated user of web browsers. I never got around to understanding or interacting with all the details of what "proper" uBO can do. Yet I still seem to browse the web just fine, and even build webapps sometimes, and I don't see any ads. So what's this great thing that I'm missing?

> super vague stuff, like links to the FAQ that list a bunch of technical details

Not being able to block remote fonts is a vague technicality? It's a feature I use, a user-facing setting, not an under-the-hood technicality. (Budding web designers have a tendency to pick overly thin fonts because it looks fancy/unique at a glance and being interested in the actual text on the webpage was not their job description)

I'm less familiar with the other things. Clicking one experimentally, it mentions:

>> The primary purpose of dynamic URL filtering [is] to fix web page breakage

Webpages break on adblocking not infrequently. I'm not a blocklist developer so I can't say how useful this particular function is, but I'm also not going to assume that, just because I don't know the technical details, that it's just handwavey technical details nobody needs to care about and everything will be the same regardless of what the most qualified person on the topic is saying

> I don't think I should have to read a series of 20 web pages dense with specialized technical details to understand what it's supposedly not doing

Consider that you're not paying for someone to produce marketing material; it's a free thing. Sometimes that means that finding out information requires reading source code, or in this case, it's probably data files that contain these dynamic thingies so you could see the list of what mitigations will stop being possible and on what kinds of sites those are. If you (or someone else) do a writeup that fills the information gap you are looking for, I'm sure a lot of other people also appreciate that existing