Now, Google Chrome will block ads draining your laptop's battery
A day after adding tab grouping capabilities, Google is moving to make Chrome a little less resource-hungry. The internet giant has announced that it will introduce a new system into the browser that will automatically detect and block ads capable of draining your laptop's battery or eating your data plan. Here's all you need to know about it.
Google is known for taking down abusive and harmful ads. But, the thing is, some innocuous adverts can also create problems - by consuming more battery and network data than required, without the knowledge of the user. These adverts, according to Google, only make 0.3% of all Chrome ads but account for 27% of ad-based data usage and 28% of ad CPU usage.
To tackle this problem, Google plans to restrict how much resources a display ad can use on Chrome. Basically, the company will cap ad resources at 4MB of network data, 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30-second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage. If an ad hits this limit before the user interacts, it will automatically be disabled.
Once an ad is blocked, Google says, its frame will navigate to an error page, informing the user that the ad has used too many resources and, therefore, been disabled. The company hopes that the move will improve the experience of Chrome users and push ad-creators towards placing lighter ads, instead of those that are poorly programmed or unoptimized for network usage.
The new resource-limiting feature will be tested for a few months before being publicly implemented for all Chrome users by the end of August. "Our intent with this extended roll-out is to give appropriate time for ad creators and tool providers to prepare and incorporate these thresholds into their workflows," the company said while detailing its roll-out plan.
