On August 31, Chrome will remove the last real ad blockers. Edge started last week.

In sixteen days, Google will remove from the Chrome Web Store all extensions that have not adopted its new format. The real uBlock Origin is one of them. On August 7, Microsoft announced that Edge would do the same, effective immediately.

The bouncer is gone. In his place, a printed list taped to the door. Guess who still gets in.

If you block ads with an extension, what comes next concerns you. If you block nothing, you are about to understand why some people care so much about these tools.

What exactly is happening, and what is not

Let's start by cooling things down. Half the articles on the subject are talking nonsense.

On Chrome, the real uBlock Origin already no longer works. It has been forcibly disabled since July 2025, with no button to re-enable it. Version 139 of the browser also removed the setting that allowed companies to avoid this. On August 31, its listing will disappear from the store. There will be no more updates, and if you uninstall the extension, you will no longer be able to reinstall it. Google is locking the door after having everyone leave.

On Edge, the process is starting now. In its August 7 article, Microsoft explains the method in detail. Warnings will first appear on the extensions page. Then, extensions using the old format “will gradually be disabled by default” over the coming months. Test versions will be affected first, followed by the regular version. For the general public, everything will be over by the end of 2026. Computers managed by a company will get a reprieve until early 2027.

Want to know where you stand? Paste one of these three addresses into your browser's address bar.

chrome://extensions      Chrome
edge://extensions        Edge
about:addons             Firefox

Why an ad blocker needs to be a bouncer

You first need to understand the mechanism. Otherwise, it is impossible to see why people have been complaining for four years.

With the old format, the extension positions itself between the page and the browser. It sees every request go by—that is, every request sent by the page to load a file, an image, or an ad. It examines them one by one before they leave. This one gets through, that one does not, and the other one deserves a closer look. It is a bouncer standing in front of a door. He looks at every face.

With the new format, the extension can no longer examine every request. It provides the browser with a list of rules in advance, and then the browser applies them. This list has a maximum size and is prepared ahead of time. No one judges each case when it shows up. It is an A4 sheet taped to the door with the names of people who are not allowed in.

The man with the fake mustache on the right was not on the list. Technically, he is in the clear.

The practical consequence is that uBlock Origin Lite, created by the same author for the new format, does not do the same job. The main problem is not even what it blocks, but how quickly it reacts. Its filters arrive with the extension's updates. They therefore have to go through the store's review process. When a site changed the way it displayed ads on a Tuesday, the old version could respond within the hour. The new one waits for the store to finish reviewing its code.

Microsoft's figures, and the one that's missing

Microsoft accompanies its announcement with three carefully chosen figures. Among the most widely used extensions in its store, 95% have already switched to the new format. Only 58 extensions in the old format remain with significant usage. Of those 58 extensions, only 3 have no modern version available.

Translation: move along, everything is resolved. Only three stragglers remain.

Except one figure is missing: the number of users of those three extensions. And they aren't necessarily stragglers. Their very function may be incompatible with the new format. We're not talking about a developer who didn't have time to fill out a form. We're talking about a tool that can no longer work under the new rules. Counting extensions rather than their users is a very polite way of declaring the problem solved.

What you should do this weekend

You have three options. I'll give you mine at the end.

First option, Firefox. In its own version of the new format, Mozilla kept the capability Google removed. The real uBlock Origin therefore works there in full. On Mozilla's store, it shows 10,545,700 users, a rating of 4.8 out of 5 from nearly 22,000 reviews, and version 1.73.0 updated on August 5. This isn't exactly an abandoned project at the back of a garage.

Second option, Brave. This is where many articles get it wrong by claiming that Firefox is the last resort. Brave distributes four extensions in the old format itself, including uBlock Origin, and promises to do so for as long as possible. The problem is that “as long as possible” isn't a date. Recent test versions have already disabled them. I wouldn't make it a five-year plan.

Third option, you change nothing and install uBlock Origin Lite. It comes from the same author, is honest about its limitations, and still blocks the vast majority of ads. You won't be sent back to 2005, with twelve windows opening on their own.

Personally? Firefox for browsing, and I keep Chrome open next to it for the two company websites that only work with it. I've been doing this for fifteen years and I've never had to pick a side.

What does this actually change for you?

If you've never installed an ad blocker, the question is fair: why get worked up over a simple extension?

On the left, a normal recipe website in 2026. The recipe is somewhere in there, apparently.

Three very down-to-earth things. The recipe page for Sunday’s cake, where the list of ingredients is hidden behind four banners and a video that starts playing by itself. The mobile data gobbled up when you read the news on 4G, because ads often weigh more than the article. And your mother’s old laptop, which runs less slowly with an ad blocker than with an extra stick of memory. The blocker also costs significantly less.

Let’s be honest: after August 31, nobody will wake up to find a screen covered in ads. uBlock Origin Lite will keep doing its job. The difference will show up mainly on sites that change their methods every week, especially video platforms. There, the race between advertising networks and blockers is measured in days, not months. It will be a slow degradation, not a sudden breakdown.

We’ve already experienced a comparable situation. In 2004, pop-up windows made the web hellish. Extensions solved the problem before browsers integrated their own blockers. The difference is that, back then, nobody made a living selling those windows.

What I think

Google’s official argument holds water. It has to be acknowledged. An extension capable of seeing every request can also see everything you do. Some truly nasty pieces of software have already been sold as blockers. Limiting that power is therefore not absurd.

The problem is determining who sets the limits. The company that makes its living from advertising also writes the browser’s technical rules used by everyone. It is still the one deciding what a blocker is allowed to see. Even assuming that everyone is acting in good faith, this position remains untenable. Microsoft could have differentiated itself on this point. It prefers to follow along without question. Above all, this shows how costly it is to maintain a browser that is genuinely different from Google’s.

So yes, I’ll check my extensions this weekend. And I’m thinking again about a phrase we used to hear twenty years ago, back in the days of Internet Explorer 6: it’s better for several browsers to exist. We were right. We eventually won. And now we have to learn the lesson all over again.