What Manifest V3 means for Brave Shields and the use of extensions in the Brave browser

In late 2021, Google first announced plans to deprecate Manifest V2 (MV2), the longstanding Chrome extension manifest file format, and force extensions to be built using Manifest V3 (MV3) going forward. What does this mean for Brave users? In short:

• Manifest V3 will not weaken Brave Shields in any way

• For as long as we’re able (and assuming the cooperation of the extension authors), Brave will continue to support some privacy-relevant MV2 extensions—specifically AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix

Brave Shields block ads and trackers by default, and they’re built natively in the Brave browser—no extensions required. Since Shields are patched directly onto the open-source Chromium codebase, they don’t rely on MV2 or MV3.

Thanks to this independence, Google’s forced removal of MV2 will not weaken Brave Shields. The filter lists (such as EasyList and EasyPrivacy) we rely on to protect users from invasive ads and trackers are open for community contribution, and we expect the privacy community at large to continue maintaining these lists. Brave’s privacy research and engineering teams will do so as well.

No matter what happens with the deprecation of MV2 and the shift to MV3, Shields will continue to offer better, more stable protection than extensions.

Will MV2 extensions still work in Brave?

Yes, for now. We recognize the importance of supporting existing Manifest V2 extensions. We have force-enabled Manifest V2 support in the Brave browser, ensuring that you can continue to use your favorite extensions without interruption. In June 2025, Google plans to remove all remaining Manifest V2 items from the Chrome Web Store. While Brave has no extension store, we have a robust process for customizing (or “patching”) atop the open-source Chromium engine. This will allow us to offer limited MV2 support even after it’s fully removed from the upstream Chromium codebase.

Which MV2 extensions will work in Brave?

As of now, the MV2 extensions we plan to explicitly support are AdGuard AdBlocker, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix. This feature will be best-effort: we might have to modify support based on either Google’s plans or what extension authors ultimately decide to do. If extensions become stale or obsolete, we may remove support for them rather than offer our users an out-of-date (potentially even unsafe) experience.

We’re gradually rolling out a new page in Settings that lists these extensions. Once you have the update, you will see it in brave://settings/extensions.

What’s the issue with Manifest V3?

As a recap, Manifest V3 restricts the blocking capabilities of Web extensions, making it harder for privacy-enhancing extensions such as uBlock Origin to protect users. The privacy community has already begun releasing experimental versions of ad block extensions that are rebuilt from the ground up to meet the new constraints of MV3: AdGuard AdBlocker MV3 Experimental and uBlock Origin Lite are just two examples. And we’ve seen that these experimental versions do block ads and other unwanted Web content. However, MV3 imposes new limitations, such as a cap on blocking rules, the removal of background scripts, and changes around cosmetic filtering. Overall, these new MV3 extensions lean on workarounds to solve problems MV3 itself introduces.

The increased importance of user-first browsers such as Brave

Brave provides best-in-class privacy, no extensions required. We’re also actively working on new features such as procedural filtering, which will give us more flexibility in blocking invasive ads and trackers, ensuring a cleaner and safer browsing experience for our users. If you’re not able to use Brave, browser extensions can be helpful to achieve some (though not all) of Brave’s protections in other, less private browsers. Most ad block developers put a lot of thought and care into the performance and safety of their extensions, and they can provide some additional privacy.

Brave also builds a host of other privacy protections adjacent to ad blocking, such as fingerprint randomization, ephemeral storage partitions, and more; such protections would be impossible in an extension-based solution. By building natively in the Brave browser, we’re saying these features are table stakes, not something that should be offered as an optional add-on.

While Brave will continue to offer limited support for MV2 extensions, the real solution is to use Brave’s industry-leading, native features. All are available by simply downloading the Brave browser.

For more info, you can read Google’s updated timeline for deprecation of MV3.