Google makes most of its money through online advertising… so it might seem a bit strange that the company is planning to add an ad-blocker to its web browser. But earlier this year Google announced that soon its Chrome web browser would block “annoying, intrusive ads on the web.”
You’ll have to wait until 2018 for ads to be blocked by default when you’re using Chrome. But if you want to take an early look at the feature, all you need to do is try out the latest Chrome Canary or Chrome Dev browsers for Android.
Once installed, you can open the browser’s settings menu, navigate to Site Settings, and then look for the “Ads” section for options.
At this point, the feature is clearly new and experimental. When I first installed Chrome Canary on my phone and linked it to my Google account, I didn’t see the Ads option. So I cleared all data from the app and set it up again without signing into my account. And there it was.
But so far I haven’t found any sites where ads are actually blocked.
Eventually Google plans to block ads from sites that don’t comply with the Better Ads Standards. That means that it will block all ads on non-compliant sites, rather than just blocking non-compliant ads.
The company is positioning the move as a way to prevent users from installing plugins that block all ads, by helping ensure the best possible browsing experience. Viewed from a different light, it could be a way of encouraging advertisers to use Google’s own ad network… although theoretically any network that complies with the Better Ads Standards should be safe.
Now might be a good time to remind you that if you’re already using an ad blocker when you visit Liliputing, you may want to consider supporting the site by adding Liliputing to your ad blocker’s whitelist or by contributing to our Patreon campaign.
via TechCrunch and Caschy’s Blog
“Eventually Google plans to block ads from sites that don’t comply with the Better Ads Standards.”
So will Google Chrome’s builtin adblocker block Youtube’s video ads? According to that Better Ads Standard, it should be (“Auto playing video ads with sound”, and “Prestitial ads with countdown”). Since Youtube is owned by Google, that would mean Google should block part of their own ads if they are honest about this. I’m curious to find out how honest they will be.