5 Ways to Block Ads in Google Chrome

We are in the website building arena for almost a decade. The content publication on websites has been changed quite a lot during these years and Pay per click advertising is one of the major reasons for these changes. Google’s entry in pay per click world through Google Ads and Google AdSense opened a door for small scale publishers to make money online from their blogs. If you are annoyed with advertisements on a website, here is how you can block ads when using Google Chrome browser.

Blocking Ads in Google Chrome

Pay per click leads to millions of websites popped up in recent years with the main objective of earning money through advertisements. Though this is good for getting the information quickly, online advertisements can become a nuisance at times. Earlier Google restricts the number of ads on single webpage to maximum of three. Now there are no such restrictions with AI powered auto ads in place. In addition, with all sorts of autoplaying video, banner and pop-up ads showing on your browser, you can easily be irritated and frustrated. If you are fed up with these digital ads appearing on your Chrome browser, you can block some these ads in the following ways.

1. Disable Ads in Chrome Settings

The first option is to use Google Chrome’s default settings.

• Launch the Google Chrome browser on your computer.
• Navigate the Chrome menu by clicking on the three dots button at the top-right corner. Click “Settings” at the bottom of the menu options.

• Check the sidebar on the left and click on “Security and Privacy” menu.

• Under “Security and Privacy” section, click on “Site settings” from the list.

• Scroll down and expand “Additional content settings” section and then click on “Ads” option.

• If the default behavior shows as “All sites can show any ads to you”, click “Block ads on sites that show intrusive or misleading ads” option.

• That’s it!!! Now, Google Chrome will block intrusive ads on websites.

In addition to the above setting, Google Chrome also automatically disables the ad if it consumes more system resources. For example, multiple video ads present on a page could easily disturb the scrolling and consumes high memory. In this case, Chrome will automatically remove some of the ads and you will see a message saying “Ad removed” with a blank space instead of the advertisement.

Click on “Details” next to “Ad removed” message to view the reason and you will see the details like “This ad used too many resources for your device so Chrome removed it.”

2. Disable Pop-ups and Redirects in Chrome Settings

Sometimes, website owner shows ads in a pop-up window. Similar to blocking display advertisements on the content, you can also block pop-ups and redirects in Chrome

• When you are done with “Ads” settings, click the back arrow button nearer to “Ads”.
• Go to “Pop-ups and redirects” and enable “Don’t allow sites to send pop-us or use redirects”.

Since, some websites may show legitimate pop-ups like login screen, you can add an exception by clicking on the “Add” button. You will see a notification that “Pop-up Blocked” in the address bar whenever Chrome blocks a pop. It is also possible that you can click on that notification and enable pop-up for that site. This will add the site in the exception list in Chrome settings page.

3. Block Ads on Specific Site

As you can see, Chrome “Pop-ups and redirects” section has an option to allow or block individual websites. However, you have no “Add” button showing in “Ads Settings” page. The above options as explained in section one will block ads on all the sites without any exception. However you can choose to block or allow ads on specific site when viewing that website. We also recommend doing this instead of blocking ads completely on all websites as that will affect the earnings of legitimate publishers also.

• When you browse and find a site showing intrusive ads, click on the padlock icon in the browser’s address bar. Select “Site Settings” option from the drop-down.

• You will find a list of options to control the behavior of the currently viewing website. Click on the dropdown against “Ads” and select “Block” or “Allow” option.

• Selecting “Block” will add the website under “Not allowed to show intrusive or misleading ads” section in Chrome “Ads Settings” page. If you choose “Allow”, the site will be added under “Allowed to show any ads” section. You can anytime delete the site from the list to allow or block ads.

4. Block Ads with Ad Blocker Extension

The default ad blocking option will only stop some of the ads from appearing on your Chrome browser. If you completely want to get rid of ads, you need to rely on third-party Chrome extensions.

• Extensions work effectively on YouTube and other video streaming websites to block ads showing on the video.
• You can also block social trackers and browse without compromising your privacy.
• Allow or block specific websites as per your preference.

Launch the Chrome browser on your computer and go to “chrome://extensions” page. Click on the three lines extensions menu and choose “Open Chrome Web Store” link at the bottom.

You will see extensions section of the Chrome Web Store opens. Once the Chrome Web Store screen appears, search for “Ad Blocker” to get the list of extensions available for ad blocking purpose. Select any extension from the list and then click “Add to Chrome” button. Confirm adding extension to your browser and start using the ad blocker extension to completely block ads when viewing websites.

Check out the top ad blocker extensions available for Chrome.

5. Using Chrome Reader Mode

If you focus on reading text and image content, then reader mode is the best option. However, Chrome does not offer reader view like Edge, Safari and Firefox browsers. You can either use experimental flag or use “Reader View” extension as we have explained in this article. You can read the webpages without any clutter using reader mode in Chrome.

Conclusion

Using the above options, you can block most of the unwanted ads and improve your Chrome browsing experience. Remember, default Chrome settings will block only intrusive ads and acceptable ads on the page will be still showing. In this case, you can disable all ads with one of the ad blocker extensions. However, as we explained above, there are many small scale publishers completely rely on advertising revenue. So, ensure to block only intrusive sites and add legitimate sites in the exception list.