Google Chrome: In order to enhance its performance and ensure safe user experience, Google Chrome has decided to limit the resources, in terms of battery and data, used by the ads. The measure comes based on Better Ads Standards and Chrome is hoping to address the ads which users find annoying or harmful, the company announced in a statement.
Chrome said that they recently found that some ads were using a disproportionate amount of resources like network data and photo battery without the user knowing. Ads like those that are poorly programmed, are unprogrammed for network usage optimisation or that mine cryptocurrency, can cost money, drain battery life and saturate networks which are already strained.
Chrome said that they recently found that some ads were using a disproportionate amount of resources like network data and photo battery without the user knowing. Ads like those that are poorly programmed, are unprogrammed for network usage optimisation or that mine cryptocurrency, can cost money, drain battery life and saturate networks which are already strained.
Hence, the browser, which aims to be fast and responsible, has decided to limit the resources an ad can use before users interact with it. With this move, once an ad reaches the limit of resources it can use, the ad page will automatically be redirected to the error page and the user will be informed that the ad was using too many resources.
To set these limits, Chrome extensively studied the ads it sees and decided to limit the resources to 4MB of network data or 15 seconds of CPU usage over any 30-second period or 60 seconds of total CPU usage. Chrome said that ads that exceed this threshold form only 0.3% of the ads it sees, but these ads account for as high as 27% of the network data used by the aps, and 28% of the total CPU usage used by the ads.
The company said that it is planning to experiment with this initiative for a few months and roll out this feature in a stable form on Chrome at the end of August. This extended period, Chrome said, would give ad creators and tool providers the time to adjust their workflow according to these thresholds.