Starting today, the Chrome browser for Windows, MacOS and Linux will start blocking intrusive adverts on sites to give a better user experience. Google had announced that these types of ads would be blocked back in December starting today after announcing their agreement with the Coalition for Better Ads last summer.
If you don’t remember, for desktops, ads that do the following risk being blocked:
- pop-up ads
- auto-play video ads with sound
- prestitial ads with countdown
- large sticky ads
For those who have the ad blocker enabled in Chrome on their desktop, you will no longer see these ads.
Although the blocking of ads in the Chrome browser is no active on Google’s side, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have the version of Chrome to activate it. The current Stable channel build doesn’t have the ad blocking bits in Settings just yet. That’s in the Beta channel but it is highly likely that we will see a new build later today that will allow you to enable it.
Once you do have the version of Chrome that has the settings, you can enable it by doing the following:
- Go to Chrome Settings > Advanced Settings.
- Under Privacy and security, look for Content Settings
- Click Ads
- Use the slider to enable ad blocking
The feature will also be in Chrome for Android but right now, the feature is only in the Canary (Alpha) version of the app.
It is important to keep in mind that the ad blocker will not block all ads, only the ones that are intrusive. So, for example, the adverts that are on ClintonFitch.com will not be impacted as they are not intrusive according to the guidelines from Google and the Coalition. As a site owner, I’m all for this type of ad blocking as it should improve the user experience.
