Google To Prevent Redirects On Chrome, Less Annoyance When Surfing

Most people on the internet should have experienced getting redirected to another website at some point, which makes the annoyance attributed to it a universal concept. Google is attempting to minimize the frustration of users by blocking irritating redirects. If successful, this should go a long way towards making ads on the internet more bearable.

The blocking of redirects on Chrome is part of Google’s effort to make surfing the net better for users, The Verge reports. The new system will be applied over the next few months, slowly rolling out to users all over the world. It will address cases of websites suddenly opening other windows to show ads to users, which can be quite disruptive during internet sessions.

Google will be implementing the block in three ways. The first is to simply stop websites or ads from opening new windows. When this happens, there will be a notification bar at the top of the page indicating that a redirect was just blocked.

Ads called reverse pop-ups will also be addressed by this new system. Reverse pop-ups are basically instances when the link that users click will be opened in a new tab while the current one takes users to an ad page. This is one of the more nefarious methods that websites and ad agencies have come up with to get around Google’s ad-blocker.

Finally, there is the matter of the invisible overlays on more nefarious websites, which basically act as one giant unseen banner, Engadget reports. When users click on any part of the page or certain parts of a page that don’t appear to have anything on them, they will still be taken to another page or another tab. Google will be dealing with these particular schemes in due time.

The rollout of these new measures will come separately. This means that users will have to put up with some of the redirects until Chrome 65 is out.