Chrome now blocks dodgy ads by default. Which is great for Google
WIRED / Google / iStock Online advertising is broken. Instead, publishers spotted with "numerous" problematic ad formats will be sent a warning and given 30 days to improve before Chrome strips all ads — good and bad — from its pages. Via this ad filter, Google is hoping to improve the user experience in the Chrome browser, but also kill off the worst ads to try to save the advertising market and its own business model — and no wonder, when $27bn of its revenue in its last quarterly results came from online ad sales, and 22 per cent of Brits are already using ad blockers, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau UK. Google's Chrome filter will help clean up a small slice of digital advertising, but does nothing to protect against malicious ads — and with cryptojacking, that's an increasing concern — or help avoid privacy-invasive tracking. AdBlock Plus operations manager Ben Williams says the Chrome change was "incremental", and didn't expect it to impact downloads of his firm's blocker.
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