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Comment by justsid | Hacker News Reader

What boggles my mind is the fact that surely people working for Google also use Chrome. Are they not up in arms internally because of how awful the web is without ad blocker?

I have the same experience as you, every time I set up a new machine or watch friends/relatives browse the web, it just blows my mind how bad the unfiltered internet is.

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I wouldn't be surprised if the people that did care about that internally at Google either used something like Firefox or had their private build that can run uBlock or similar ;)

In 2011, when I worked at Google (on ads, not on Chrome), I did use Firefox as my main browser. But back then, there was much less need for an ad blocker. I still remember asking my manager whether it was OK to click an ad (from a VPS provider) while browsing from the corporate desktop.

Did you get a response from your manager?

Yes, I did, and he said it was as OK to click ads as to click any other link.

Enterprise editions of Chrome continue to have manifest v2 support, so this doesn't necessarily affect Google employees.

Guess I know what I'm deploying in my enterprise of one seat.

If anyone finds a good guide, this would be a great place to share it.

According to https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate... the message is this:

June 2025: Chrome MV2 deprecation enterprise rollout

People will do anything not to get eating, except getting rid of the beast.

On macOS:

  # defaults write com.google.Chrome.plist ExtensionManifestV2Availability -int 2

This will continue to allow MV2 extensions for your Chrome instance. Confirm the policy has been set by checking chrome://policy. See [1] for possible values.

Now, because uBO is now disabled in the Chrome Web Store, you also need to install it as a "forced extension" (the way extensions are deployed in enterprise environments). Install the extension according to the section "Use a preferences file" in [2]:

  - Create a file named cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm.json
  - Place it in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/External Extensions/
  - With content:
  { "external_update_url": "https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx" }

You'll need to create the "External Extensions" directory, set file permissions according to docs, restart Chrome. The file name contains the extension ID to be installed, which you can verify from the submission URL of this post. Upon Chrome restart, it should notify you with a message in the top right that an extension was forcibly installed.

The ExtensionManifestV2Availability definitely still works for now, but it's been a about a month since I used the preferences file way of installing the extension on a new device. YMMV.

[1] https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#ExtensionManifestV... [2] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/how-to/distribu...

Nice, works for now, I'm sure they'll pull the rug on this solution too in under a year.

I'm switching browsers, I hate ads more than I like Chrome.

Sounds like June 2025 is the real date when it'll no longer be possible to use manifest v2 extensions per https://blog.chromium.org/2024/05/manifest-v2-phase-out-begi...

> Are they not up in arms internally because of how awful the web is without ad blocker?

Chrome still has many ad blockers. While I use chrome/chromium fairly little, ublock origin lite has worked well for me when I do. I'm aware older manifest V2 extensions are theoretically superior at blocking a wide variety of undesired content but if your main concern is not seeing ads, that is absolutely doable.

The core issue is that those ad blockers are easy to defeat. The only reason ad companies haven't invested energy in defeating them (yet) is because they're not popular enough.

Once they are the only option in Chrome, it's just a matter of time until Chrome becomes largely useless at blocking ads.

ublock origin lite is mv3 compatible and not nearly as good at blocking ads as the original, for instance.

If you've never used an ad blocker, I guess it may just be the normal web rather than anything terrible. Because ad blocking isn't illegal, it may not be quite as bad as a Disney employee pirating all their movies, but I suspect it's still not that common (at least most people I knew while there didn't use one, and of course I was happy to install one again the day after leaving).

Is it that bad with ublock lite ?

> Are they not up in arms internally because of how awful the web is without ad blocker?

You realize these people pay check depend on that, right?

Employees can disagree with their employers.

The list of things that can be done is way bigger than the liat of things that are in fact done in real life. A Google employee could voluntarily put his hands over an open flame, but it's just very improbable.

Google employees have quite literally protested decisions of Google’s in the past, which sometimes cost them their jobs.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/google-fires-employees-p...

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