Possible solutions to Manifest V2 being turned off on Chrome Browser!

Not_OlesNot_Oles Hosting ProviderContent Writer
in General

Back in March I posted about the imminent demise of Manifest V2 in Chrome Browser. Please see the March post for context, including a screenshot and background links.

Three major issues for me stemming from the loss of Manifest V2 are the loss of Chrome's Accessibility High Contrast extension, the loss of uBlock Origin, and the loss of SwitchyOmega Prroxy Switcher.

  • High Conttrast -- Dark Mode

To replace the High Contrast Extension, what I want is dark mode.

In the March post, I suggested that Brave Browser might provide a solution. Trying Brave Browser for a month suggests that Brave works well on Android. However, I learned that, on a Chromebook, browsers besides Chrome run by default from within the Linux container. Thus, on a Chromebook, neither Brave nor Firefox for Linux have default access to the Chromebook's graphics processor. My Chromebook has a touchscreen and can run Android apps, so, besides Forefox and Brave forr Linux, I also tried Firefox and Brave for Android on my Chromebook. I think either Firefox or Brave for Android might be an okay solution to getting dark mode on a Chromebook which can run Android apps.

Last night, however, I came across another potential solution. Previous Google searches for "dark theme chrome android" just gave me results about the browser theme (color of URL bar, etc.). However, searching for "chrome android white text black background" gave me an AI generated result about a Chrome flag:

Force Dark Mode for Web Content (Chrome Flags):
Type chrome://flags in the Chrome address bar and press Enter.
Search for "Force Dark Mode for Web Contents."
Change the setting to "Enabled."
Relaunch Chrome for the changes to take effect.

Trying the Force Dark Mode for Web Content flag seemed to work really well on Chrome for Android 14 version 136.0.7103.87. The flag was "Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents" set to "Enabled with selective inversion of non-image elements."

I also tried the flag on my Chromebook. On Chrome Version 135.0.7049.128 (Official Build) (64-bit), the flag was "Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents" a/k/a chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark.

Of the twenty or thirty websites I have tried with these flags, all of them seem to render highly legible dark mode content on Chrome without any decrease in rendering speed.

Lots of people are interested in dark theme and dark mode. For those interested in dark mode for content as well as dark mode for theme, I recommend trying Chrome's Dark Mode for Web Content flags on both Android and Desktop.

  • uBlock Origin Lite

Given that the Chrome dark web content flags seem to work so well, it seems like a good idea to try finding a replacement for uBlock Origin. The most obvious candidate might be uBlock Origin Lite. I have to try it!

  • Proxy Switcher

I'm a big fan of Tinyproxy, which I have been running on a US VPS so that US websites will give me English and prices in American dollars even when I am traveling outside the US. SwitcyOmega has served me well for years to enable using my Tinyproxy instance with Chrome.

One candidate that I am trying as a possible replacement for SwitchyOmega is Proxyverse. See also proxyverse.io, the Proxyverse Github, and Byte.vet.

So far, Proxyverse seems to work great with Tinyproxy! I cloned and looked at the Proxyverse code. I haven't yet tried Proxyverse's residential proxies or the byte.vet feature.

  • Conclusion

Following the demise of Manifest V2, the Chrome dark web content flags, uBlock Origin Lite, and Proxyverse might permit continued use of Chrome browser on Android and on a Chromebook instead of switching to Firefox or Brave.

I hope everyone gets the servers they want!

Thanked by (1)tmntwitw

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.

© LowEndSpirit 2025

ipv6 ready