Google to start blocking redirect ads in Chrome from 2018

Google is planning to start blocking annoying redirect advertisements in Chrome, and the plan will reportedly roll out in three parts in 2018.

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Google is planning to start blocking annoying redirect advertisements in Chrome, and the plan will reportedly roll out in three parts in 2018.

"Following on from features like Chrome's pop-up blocker and autoplay protections, over the next few releases we'll be rolling out three new protections designed to give users all the web has to offer, but without many of these types of unwanted behaviours," Google Chrome Developer Relations team wrote in blog post late on Wednesday.

From January 2008, Chrome's pop-up blocker will prevent sites with these types of abusive experiences from opening new windows or tabs which is similar to how Google "Safe Browsing" protects users from malicious content.

"We've found that this redirect often comes from third-party content embedded in the page, and the page author didn't intend the redirect to happen at all," the blog post stated.

One feedback Google gets to hear from most users is that a page unexpectedly navigates to a new page, for no reason.

"To address this, in Chrome 64 all redirects originating from third-party iframes will show an infobar instead of redirecting, unless the user had been interacting with that frame. This will keep the user on the page they are reading, and prevent those surprising redirects," the GCDR team, noted.

Many users have reported about two types of 'abusive experiences' where a deceptive site control appears to do one thing, but has a different behaviour when clicked.

This article was first published on November 9, 2017
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