Chrome's Ad Blocker Will Expand To Video On August 5

An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced that Chrome's ad blocker is expanding to video on August 5, 2020. As with previous ad blocker rollouts, the date is likely not tied to a specific Chrome version -- Google will be expanding the scope of its browser's ad blocker server-side. YouTube and other websites with video content will have to review their ads to make sure they are compliant. The Coalition for Better Ads today announced a new set of standards for ads that show during video content, based on research from 45,000 consumers worldwide. There are many different types of ads that can run before, during, or after a video, but the Coalition is banning just three for videos less than 8 minutes long: mid-roll ads, pre-roll ads, and large display ads.

Huh?

[DogDude]

Wait... so Google's browser is going to block Google's advertisements? I find that a little bit hard to believe.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Huh?

[DogDude]

Probably so. But this won't make any of us who have to deal with their ads any happier. The only thing that Google and the other ad networks can do is to police their ads with actual humans. They don't want to spend the money to do this, so we'll continue to get (dangerous) garbage through their ads. I haven't seen ads in a while, but from what I remember, there was some awful stuff coming from Google, as well as from the smaller ad networks.

The only way I'm seeing ads is if the website serves them up themselves, which is the way it should be done.

Re:

[bogaboga]

..an attempt to win over some users and find a middle-ground: some non-intrusve, non-infuriating ads allowed...

[bold mine]

I do not want any ads, and never will!

Re:

[mspohr]

There are NO non-intrusive, non-infuriating ads.

What instead of ads?

[tepples]

I do not want any ads, and never will!

Would you prefer having to pay a monthly subscription to each website that you visit in a month?

Re:

[Opportunist]

Yes. Yes I would. If the content is worth my time, it's also worth my money.

Multiple subscriptions or filter bubble?

[tepples]

I can think of two ways to choose articles to read: through a particular subscription website's list of articles, or through a news aggregator such as Slashdot. Which of these did you have in mind? Or what third option?

Say you subscribe to an individual website, such as MIT Technology Review or The Wall Street Journal, and you read whatever articles are listed on its front page. Relying on a single site's curation sucks you into that site's editorial filter bubble, causing you to lose access to opposing vie

Re:

[Rob Y.]

So many sites detect ad-blockers now - and refuse to let you in until you disable them, that they're becoming less useful anyway.

Re:

[Aighearach]

Learn how to use your ad blocker to block their overlays, sillypants.

They can hide behind a true paywall, but a pay-or-ads wall that is ADA-compliant is easily bypassed simply by turning off style sheets. (in FF, View->Page Style->No Style) but you can almost always just block the overlay instead.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Close window, move one down in the search engine result list.

Never had to iterate more than 3-4 times.

Re:

[Aighearach]

Yeah, the only ads I can see are slashvertisements.

There is no content that is worth allowing ads into my life.

Many people don't imagine how peaceful a life free of ads and push notifications is. Or that you can still use technology! lol

Re:

[Opportunist]

Non-intrusive, non-infuriating ads?

The ones that you don't notice? Because everything else does not qualify.

Re:

[ljw1004]

Wait... so Google's browser is going to block Google's advertisements? I find that a little bit hard to believe.

I think you misunderstood. Google is a member of an industry self-regulating body called the "Coalition for Better Ads". Chrome has the behavior that if any ads fail that coalition's guidelines, then none of the page's ads will show at all. You can be sure that Google has worked closely with Youtube to make sure all their ads are compliant and so won't be blocked. If any of Google's competitors aren't as ready as Youtube, then those competitors will have their ads blocked.

Re:

[DogDude]

I understand. Google will be "self-regulating" themselves. I believe that it'll be as effective as every other industry that "self-regulates".

Re:

[Opportunist]

"Better ads" kinda sounds to me like "better thumbscrews".

How about ... no?

Re:Huh?

[twocows]

No, what they're going to do is ban ads that don't fit the "better ads" guidelines. All of Google's ads will meet these guidelines because they're involved with the creation of them. What this will do is block ads on competing ad networks, probably frequently whether they violate the guidelines or not. It serves the dual purpose of making normal users happier (fewer ads) and hurting Google's competition. It's a win-win for them. That's not to say it's a bad thing, I think more adblocking is always better than less, but it's certainly self-motivated.

Re:

[Aighearach]

That's not to say it's a bad thing

Indeed, under anti-trust law we have to rely on the DoJ to say that. Someday they just might.

Re:

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Google's browser will block ALL ads, including ALL video ads from all sources that are intrusive and do not conform to acceptable standards

Google will be the sole judge to decide what is considered intrusive and constantly change the nebulous ill defined and even less understood acceptable standards.

Google will still maintain the goal Dont Be Evil

With a small change.

Dont Be obviously Evil.

How about

[ArchieBunker]

Blocking auto play videos? I have plugins for that but they only work half the time. How difficult can that be?

Letting muted video autoplay reduces harm

[tepples]

Because of all the ways that the web platform allows things to animate, blocking videos isn't as easy as it sounds.

The default policy in web browsers as a whole nowadays is to make a video click to play unless it's muted. This is actually a harm reduction policy because if web browsers blocked automatic playback of silent video, websites would fall back to even less efficient playback methods. These include animated GIF or various simulations of motion JPEG using JavaScript or CSS animation.

On most major we

August 5

[OffTheLip]

Why the rush?

Re:

[pgmrdlm]

/sarcasim

They don't want to end up like the Caucus app that still has not been resolved that is in the news.,

OR

[comodoro]

You can enthusiastically wait for Chrome to serve you other ads than current ads, OR you can just install uBlock Origin and be done with it. It is not just an ad blocker, but general crap blocker. I do not remember when I last saw Facebook's Like tracking button. Of course ads will eventually move server side and the arms race will continue, but no reason to suffer in the meantime.

I prefer a different Chrome Ad Blocker

[JoeyRox]

It's called the Brave browser.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

I have a suspicion that something nefarious is going on behind the scenes there.

Re:

[Sebby]

I have a suspicion that something nefarious is going on behind the scenes there.

Agreed - this is likely another smoke screen [github.com] for something else they're trying to pull.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Stay away from Brave. The ad blocker is rubbish so you still need uBlock Origin anyway, and it's also a crypto currency scam. You can earn credits by using the browser and exchange them for Etherium.

If they are into that kind of dodgy business then who knows what else they are doing to you.

Ad type selection

[twocows]

Honestly, I'd be perfectly happy viewing their ads and might even look at them from time to time if they let me set text-only ads. They already let me set my own interest preferences and hey, maybe they'd introduce me to some new product or service that would actually be useful to me. Back in the day, text ads used to be a pretty common thing and I'd actually look at them from time to time, and that was when they were almost never relevant.

Instead, since they insist on image/video BS, I block everything and don't think twice about it. I don't want to waste bandwidth on ads that make it more difficult to view the content I came to a page for, let alone create attack surface because they can't be fucked to police their ad network.

Can it block autoplay on websites like CNN?

[ElectricStudio]

I have strong negative feelings about auto play videos in general, would this also be able to block that? Especially on websites like CNN where the videos blare out and loop into second non related videos.

AdBlocker for YouTube

[mspohr]

I have this add-in on Firefox. Works great. No ads on YouTube!

Repent now

[invalid_user]

The world is gana end soon.