Here's how Chrome will filter annoying ads

Starting tomorrow, Feb. 15, Google's web browser Chrome will start automatically blocking overly intrusive ads, which might mark a huge (positive) change in how we view the web.

In a blog post Wednesday, Google has explained exactly how this will work.

Unlike certain ad blocker programs, Chrome will not block absolutely every ad you encounter. Instead, it will only remove ads that do not follow "Better Ads Standards," a set of standards for acceptable and unacceptable web ads created by a coalition of organizations and companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft. The idea is that users don't hate all ads, only overly intrusive ones, and if everyone gets rid of those, both users and publishers will end up happier.

So from now on, when you open a web page in Chrome and it contains one of the ads that are not up to these standards, it'll block them. This includes pop-up ads and overly large sticky ads on desktop, and flashing as well as full screen, scroll over ads on mobile. Check out the illustration below to see the rest.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Chrome will also help evaluate sites according to the types of ads they use. If a site violates the standards outlined above too many times, it might get a "failing" status. The other two statuses are "warning" and "passing." If a site stays non-compliant 30 days after being notified of its violations, Chrome will start blocking its ads.

Every time Chrome blocks an ad, it will show a message indicating that it happened; the user will be offered to "always allow ads" on a specific site.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Google claims that this initiative is already yielding results, as 42 percent of previously failing sites have already started removing annoying ads to better conform to the Better Ads Standards.