One of the perks of living in the internet age is that virtually everyone has access to an unimaginable amount of information with just a few taps on a keyboard. However, such perk also comes with a particular type of vexation that every netizen has to endure—the barrage of annoying ads. They have been practically inescapable and have the tendency to pop up unexpectedly, interfering with your browsing experience.
But finally, Google Chrome is giving its users a cool new way of dealing with these annoying ads. The world’s most popular browser got a new update on Thursday that blocks unwanted ads.
Of course, selling digital advertising is how Google earns most of its revenue so don’t expect all the ads to disappear anytime soon. However, the new feature should be enough to weed out the most annoying ones.
For instance, CNN reported that on a desktop PC, the new Chrome feature will prevent pop-up ads, those that auto-play videos with sound, those large sticky ads that take over the bottom portion of a screen but refuses to budge, and those ads that shamelessly take over the browser. Meanwhile, the upgraded mobile version of the browser is now calibrated to block full-screen scroll over ads, those with flashing animation and those ads that are displayed even before the content is loaded.
🚨 BREAKING: Rolling out TODAY: #Google Chrome is rolling out its built-in ad blocker to crack down on ‘annoying’ web pages! pic.twitter.com/xEtxgyOrIp
— Larry Kim (@larrykim) February 15, 2018
To determine whether an ad is annoying or not, Google is just adapting the standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry trade group composed of tech firms like Facebook and Google. The company will sample a few pages of a website and, based on their experience, the firm will grade the site as having passed, failed or be given a warning.
If publishers reach a certain number of violations, they will earn a failing grade. They will be given 30 days to rectify the problem and then request another evaluation. If they don’t correct the issues noted, then Google will block ads placed on their sites.
As a Chrome user, you will be alerted if Google is blocking the ads on the site you are viewing. For desktop users, the notification will appear near the address box. For Android users, the notification will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. For those who don’t mind the distraction, there is also an option to turn off the ad-blocking feature and continue surfing the web as usual.
Chrome’s new ad filter feature works on PCs running Mac, Linux, Windows as well as Chrome OS. The feature will also run on Android mobile devices as well but Google has not yet revealed when the ad blocking feature will be available for iOS devices.