Google's proposal to change Chrome’s extensions system, otherwise known as Manifest V3, could be implemented soon, which will halt the current ad blocking capabilities of Chrome, and may mean that modern ad blockers would not work again.
Chrome offers the great feature of cross-platform syncing, with extensions that are pretty fast and of course, free – but it isn't all that perfect. But, the browser users have come to make do with the rather crummy memory management because of its overall good experience; Google is about to take it all away.
With Manifest V3, there will be a major change to the extensions system, including the permissions system and fundamentally, the way ad blockers work on the browser, particularly: modern ad blockers, like uBlock Origin and Ghostery, that uses Chrome’s WebRequest API to block ads before even downloading it.
Google, however has responded to the issues raised by the community, by sharing more details on the permission changes, with the most notable aspect been the single sentence: "Chrome is deprecating the blocking capabilities of the WebRequest API in Manifest V3, not the entire WebRequest API" - clarifying the changes to ad blocking and privacy blocking extensions.
What the lines entails is that Chrome will still have the capability to block some contents, though this is restricted to only paid, enterprise users of the browser.
The ad blockers will switch to more rules-based system, called “declarativeNetRequest” - while Chrome currently imposes limit of 30,000 rules, popular ad blocking rules like EasyList use up to 75,000 rules. Google has maintained that they are looking to increase the numbers, depending on the performance tests, but there is no commitments to any specifics.
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