14 DAY TRIAL // Google is working on a new ad blocker for Chrome browser, but this time the target won’t be killing off all ads that show up when loading a page, but only those that use too many system resources.
Google calls these “heavy ads,” and according to a recent commit discovered by 9to5Google, they would be blocked if certain triggers are detected.
“This intervention unloads ads that are in the .1% of bandwidth usage, .1% of CPU usage per minute, and .1% of overall CPU time. The current numbers are 4MB network and 60 seconds CPU, but may be changed as more data is available,” the commit reads.
“This change introduces a feature that unloads ad iframes that have been detected to use an egregious amount of system resources. This reuses the quiet safebrowsing interstitial UX, which gets loaded into the ad iframe.”
No word on the ETA
Whenever the browser detects such an ad and blocks it, users are provided with a short message telling them that the ad has been removed because of the resource usage.
“This ad uses too many resources for your device, so Chrome removed it,” one such banner reads.
There are no specifics at this point, such as to when we could expect this feature to become available for all users, but given a commit has already been discovered, it shouldn’t take too long before it reaches the Canary build of the browser, so we can give it a try before the public debut.
Meanwhile, users running ad blockers are protected against these heavy ads anyway, as such software basically blocks all ads on a specific page, including the ones using too many system resources. But implementing such a feature natively in Chrome would mean more users are protected, even without the need for installing third-party ad blockers.