Chrome prepares major ad blocker update

Google's efforts to make the web a safer place continue with the announcement that Chrome's ad blocker will soon be available across the globe beginning on July 9th.

As was the case with the initial rollout of its ad blocker, the date does not coincide with a new version of its browser as Chrome 76 will arrive on May 30th and Chrome 77 is set to launch on July 25th. This means that Google is expanding the reach of Chrome's ad blocker on its own servers and not through the program itself.

Last year, the company joined the Coalition for Better Ads which offers specific standards on how the industry should improve the way ads are delivered to consumers.

The Coalition for Better Ads recently announced that it would expand its Better Ads Standards beyond North America and Europe to cover all countries and Google is following suit with its own ad blocking efforts.

Banned ad types

The coalition has banned pop-up ads, auto playing video ads with sound, prestitial ads with countdowns and large sticky ads on desktop.

On the mobile side, eight types of ads have been banned including pop-up ads, prestitial ads, ad density higher than 30 per cent, flashing animated ads, auto-playing videos with sound, postital ads with countdowns, full-screen scrollover ads and large sticky ads.

Google's goal is to make the internet easier to navigate for users by cutting off ad revenue from websites that serve non-compliant ads.

The company also shared some of the early successes of its ad blocker program in the US, Canada and Europe. According to Google, two thirds of publishers whose sites were labelled as non-compliant in the past are now in good standing and less than one per cent of all of the sites it has reviewed have had their ads filtered.

Via VentureBeat