Google's New Ad Blocker Changed the Web Before It Even Switched On

You might see fewer ads on the web from now on. On Thursday, Google Chrome, the most popular browser by a wide margin, began rolling out a feature that will block ads on sites that engage in particularly annoying behavior, such as automatically playing sound, or displaying ads that can't be dismissed until a certain amount of time has passed. Google is essentially blacklisting sites that violate specific guidelines, and then trying to filter all ads that appear on those sites, not just the particularly annoying ones. Of the 100,000 most popular sites in North America and Europe, fewer than one percent violate the guidelines Google uses to decide whether to filter ads on a site, a Google spokesperson tells WIRED. But Google hopes ridding the web of its very worst ads might discourage Chrome users from installing more aggressive ad-blocking software that saps revenue universally.