Chrome 71 will block any and all ads on sites with "abusive experiences"
Google is promising to punish sites that offer what the company calls "abusive experiences." Chrome 71, due for release in December, will blacklist sites that are repeat offenders and suppress all advertising on those sites.
The behaviors deemed abusive cover a range of user-hostile things, such as ads that masquerade as system error messages, ads with fake close boxes that actually activate an ad when clicked, phishing, and malware. In general, if an ad is particularly misleading, destructive, or intrusive, it runs the risk of being deemed abusive.
Chrome already takes some actions against certain undesirable website behaviors; it tries to block popups, it limits autoplay of video, and it blocks certain kinds of redirection. These measures have been insufficient to prevent misleading or dangerous ads, hence Google taking further steps to banish them from the Web.
Also at The Verge, 9to5Google, Engadget, and Search Engine Journal.
Previously: Google Preparing to Filter "Unacceptable Ads" in 2018
Google Chrome to Begin Blocking "Non-Compliant Ads" on Feb. 15
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pino P on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:50PM (2 children)
Using /etc/hosts as a means of content filtering is effective for some sources but not others. In particular, if the source randomizes the subdomain (such as 192bd0.badsite.example vs. a9f78a.badsite.example), the most widely supported syntax for /etc/hosts cannot cover all possibilities because it lacks wildcard support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:15AM (1 child)
This is true of any blacklist.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:22PM
The point that one notorious Anonymous Coward on the green site appears not to get is that this is less true of a wildcard blacklist than a single-hostname blacklist.