Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech Daily. Well,
Speaker 1: today is the day when Google's Chrome browser starts to
Speaker 1: block ads on the Internet. And you might be thinking
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, that sounds kind of crazy. Doesn't Google
Speaker 1: run one of the biggest ad networks online? Yes, but
Speaker 1: here's what they're trying to do. They're trying to block
Speaker 1: those annoying ads, the ones that get in your way
Speaker 1: of reading, the ones that block your entire website, And
Speaker 1: those are the ads that they're going to try to
Speaker 1: stop in an effort to make advertisers find ways of
Speaker 1: reaching us better.
Speaker 2: So let's see. There's a thing called the Coalition for
Speaker 2: Better Ads.
Speaker 1: This is an industry group that is focused on making
Speaker 1: the user experience of online advertising better. And I'm kind
Speaker 1: of laughing, because, yes, there are good ads out there,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate when we are reached with good ads,
Speaker 1: but we've been bombarded with so many bad ads over
Speaker 1: the years that we just kind of want to avoid
Speaker 1: them all together. They've come up with something called the
Speaker 1: Better Ads Standards, and what they did was they looked
Speaker 1: at all the different types of ads that are found
Speaker 1: online and they.
Speaker 2: Came up with the twelve worst types of ads.
Speaker 1: Those include pop up ads on the desktop, auto play
Speaker 1: video ads with sound, large sticky ads that you can't
Speaker 1: get rid of, and on mobile of course pop up ads,
Speaker 1: post sitle ads with a countdown density, ads.
Speaker 2: Which take up more than thirty percent of the screen.
Speaker 1: Flashing animated ads, and full screen scrollover.
Speaker 2: Ads, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: So those are the types of ads that Chrome is
Speaker 1: going to start blocking by default.
Speaker 2: And what happens is every site will get sort of.
Speaker 1: A rating, so it'll be a passing rating, a warning,
Speaker 1: or a failing and if a site gets to a
Speaker 1: failing rating, basically, Google's going to start blocking.
Speaker 2: That site's ads.
Speaker 1: Now, all this stuff is happening in the background, you
Speaker 1: don't really need to know about any of that. All
Speaker 1: you're gonna notice is that you're going to start seeing
Speaker 1: some places where ads should be. But you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a message saying that ad blocking has occurred, as well
Speaker 1: as an option to disable that setting and allow ads
Speaker 1: on that site. So Google's ad filter is going to
Speaker 1: check if a page belongs to a site that fails
Speaker 1: these standards. And it's not just it's not just like
Speaker 1: random advertisers.
Speaker 2: Google is including all ad.
Speaker 1: Providers, or many ad providers, including their own ad platforms,
Speaker 1: which is ad Sense.
Speaker 2: And double Click. So as a regular person that's using Chrome,
Speaker 2: what should you do? Well? Personally, I would.
Speaker 1: Disable this altogether, That's what I would do, because this
Speaker 1: is very picky and choosy. So Google's not saying we're
Speaker 1: blocking all ads, We're just blocking annoying ads.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means something different to every single person out there.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't like ads tracking me and this doesn't
Speaker 1: really mention anything about privacy, which is what happens when
Speaker 1: you go to a website like Amazon, you look at
Speaker 1: something and next thing you know, that ad follows you
Speaker 1: around the Internet for the next fifteen websites that you visit.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really say anything about that. So what I do
Speaker 1: is I disable these default Chrome settings that block ads,
Speaker 1: and I would do something on my own. So there
Speaker 1: are lots of add ons you can get for your
Speaker 1: computer or your phone that will help you protect your
Speaker 1: privacy and block annoying ads as well. One of them
Speaker 1: is called Duck Duck Go Privacy Essentials. That's kind of
Speaker 1: an all in one that blocks a lot.
Speaker 2: Of trackers and things.
Speaker 1: One of the most popular ad blockers for nerds is
Speaker 1: called you Block Origin, and the reason that nerds like
Speaker 1: that one is because it's lightweight, it's simple. I believe
Speaker 1: it's open source, but I'm not sure on that one,
Speaker 1: but basically it works. It's very lightweight and nice.
Speaker 2: Another really popular one is called ad block Plus.
Speaker 1: So ad block plus works pretty much across all different
Speaker 1: websites and browsers, and also your mobile phone so that
Speaker 1: can work. And they also have things like content blockers
Speaker 1: and Safari for your iPhone. And I'm testing something new
Speaker 1: which is kind of like a system wide program called
Speaker 1: stop ad and that one stops ads.
Speaker 2: And trackers across your entire computer. So again, these are
Speaker 2: some options that are out there for you. Maybe you
Speaker 2: don't really care, so it doesn't really matter, just like
Speaker 2: Chrome do its thing.
Speaker 1: But the idea here is that everyone's experience online will
Speaker 1: be better if these marketers are put in their place.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demiro. If you
Speaker 1: want to learn more, go to Rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you next time.