From February 15 2018 onwards, Google Chrome will feature it’s own ad-blocker service. This is the first time Mountain View is putting in that will pro-actively remove ads.

This is in response to the increasing number of intrusive commercials that are appearing of late. Google did reveal it will be taking necessary steps to deal with the problem in June 2017. The move will see ads that don’t follow the Better Ads Standards experience the browser’s new active blocking. Google will also delete the ad from the Website as well.

While this is the strategy that Google will be implementing with its new ad-blocker, it doesn’t completely replace third-party apps. Only intrusive and non-compliant ads will not appear on Google Chrome. However, it is a Website-wide block. That means if an ad is not following standards, the built-in app will block all ads.

Amazingly, this is applicable to both desktop and mobile versions of Google Chrome. When the ad-blocker is active, it will inform users that it is doing its job via pop-up notification.

How will Google Chrome identify the non-compliant ads? According to the blog post that discusses the new feature, it follows set patterns from the publicly available EasyList.

The ad-blocker function is not about blocking ads completely but to improve the adherence to the Better Ads Standard. Google confirms that it does not want to filter any ads at all but to improve the experience for all web users. As of February 12, 42% of sites which were failing the Better Ads Standards have resolved their issues and are now passing.

It’s interesting to see that Google is playing nice for both users and advertisers.

At press time, the feature will roll-out in the US and some parts of Europe first. Other countries will get the feature in stages. Even so, the latter will not see ads on websites that are non-compliant if Google filters them out for regions that the app is active in.