If you're a fan of uBlock Origin, don't be surprised if it stops functioning in Chrome. The Google-owned browser has started disabling the free add blocker as part of the company's plan to phase out older "Manifest V2" extensions, PCMag reported.

On Tuesday, the developer of uBlock Origin, Raymond Hill, retweeted a screenshot from one user showing the Chrome browser disabling the ad blocker. "These extensions are no longer supported. Chrome recommends that you remove them," the pop-up from the Chrome browser told the user.

In response, Hill wrote: "The depreciation of uBO in the Chrome Web Store has started."

This occurs when the Chrome Web Store has already been discouraging users from downloading uBlock Origin, or even delisting the extension, with a warning that says "it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions." That said, PCMag was still able download and use the extension over Chrome. So the disabling and delisting may not be as wide-scale at the moment. Google didn't immediately respond for a request for comment.

PCWorld reported: The writing is almost literally on the wall for Chrome's most popular ad blockers. After months of warnings that extensions like uBlock Origin would be removed after Chrome's Manifest V3 extension update, Google is now telling Chrome users who try to download it from the Chrome Web Store that it "may no longer be supported."

On a more recent Chromebook review unit, the download button is fully disabled. uBlock Origin cannot be installed at all.

The new warning that uBlock Origin "doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions" was spotted on Twitter and reported by Bleeping Computer. While the most popular commercial ad blocking solutions have been updated for Manifest V3 compatibility, the solo, unpaid developer of uBlock Origin has kept the extension on Manifest V2 as a way to highlight the issues with the updated standard.

An alternative version called uBlock Original -- less capable but compatible with the newer standard -- has also been released. The original uBlock Origin has 39 million users according to the Chrome Web Store (and there are many more when you count Firefox and alternative Chromium-based browsers) while the newer uBlock Origin Lite extension currently only shows 700,000 users.

Ghostery CEO Jean-Peal Schmetz recommends that users who care about ad blocking effectiveness should switch to Firefox, the only major third-party browser left that isn't based on the open-source Chromium project controlled by Google. The original, unhobbled uBlock Origin is still working on Firefox, though developer Raymond Hill has run into some issues with Mozilla as well.

BoingBoing reported Manifest V3 is the new extensions framework for Google Chrome browser, and one notable outcome is that ad blockers can't block so many ads. After years of delay, Google is reportedly "purging" such extensions and accelerating the framework's rollout.

According to user reports, uBlock Origin is quickly disappearing from the Chrome Web Store. The official page for the ad-blocking extension now states that it is unavailable because it doesn't comply with Chrome's "best practices" for add-ons. However, we can confirm that the page is still accessible from our EU Windows client.

In my opinion, it appears that Google is very interested in removing uBlock Origin. It is not clear why the Google is doing this, or if it will put out an updated version.