Google Chrome could unload resource heavy Ads in the future

[harlan4096]

Some ads on the Internet use an "an egregious amount of CPU or network bandwidth" and that has to stop, according to Google. The company plans to integrate a new feature in the company's Chrome web browser that will unload resource heavy ads automatically.

Cryptominers, ads that load uncompressed or poorly compressed image files, use JavaScript to decode video files, make other expensive operations that tax the CPU, and ads that load large video files before user interaction are mentioned explicitly by Google as targets for the ad-blocking extension.

A small fraction of ads on the web use an egregious amount of system resources. These poorly performant ads (whether intentional or not) harm the user’s browsing experience by making pages slow, draining device battery, and consuming mobile data (for those without unlimited plans).

Google implemented an ad-blocker in the Chrome web browser recently that focuses on sites that display ads that violate the Better Ad Standards. The company revealed in 2017 that it would implement ad-blocking functionality in Chrome to block some ads in the browser and that the ad-blocking would begin in 2018.

Some saw this as a step in the right direction, others that it did not go far enough and did not address privacy and security issues associated with advertising.

Ad formats such as pop-up ads, auto-playing video ads or flashing animated ads on mobile devices are classified as problematic by the standard and thus blocked in Chrome when detected.

If Heavy Ad Intervention is implemented in Google Chrome, the browser would unload ads that meet the outlined criteria. Google defines egregious as "using more of a resource than 99.9% of ads as measured by the browser".
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