Chrome to block resource-intensive ads by default in future release
A necessary evil though they may be to support our "free" web services, ads are kind of the worst. Even Google, a company whose very existence is predicated on ad revenue, seems aware of this: after blocking intrusive ads in Chrome, a new Chromium commit shows the company is intent on banishing resource-intensive ads, too. The in-development feature is called "Heavy Ad Intervention." Currently, the plan is to block ads that use more than four megabytes of bandwidth or take up CPU resources for 60 seconds or more — that's about a tenth of one percent of all ads, according to the commit. When an ad is in violation, a simple notice will be shown saying that it was removed, with a "Details" link explaining it used too many resources. The criteria for offending ads "may be changed as more data is available," though. Lest you think Google is being uncharacteristically charitable in its automatic blocking of the crappiest ads the web has to offer, remember that the company has been weighing its options when it comes to how it allows third-party ad blockers to operate within Chrome.