Google: No native ad-blocker coming to Chrome

Google isn’t going to build a native ad-blocking option into its Chrome browsers, the company recently confirmed. That’s good, because Chrome is running on 2 billion computers, which means plenty of publishers would potentially face huge dips in advertising revenue.

“We feel like there are a lot of challenges in advertising,” vice president of Chrome engineering Darin Fisher said, according to CNET. “There are a lot of wrong ways. If publishers and advertisers do ads the right way, it can be great for the users and for the ecosystem.”

Google makes money off of ads, too

Make no mistake, Google makes a ton of money off of ads, too. It reported $19.8 billion in ad revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2016, up 18 percent from the year-ago report. An ad-blocker in Chrome could cut into that big time, particularly if it’s blocking anything related to AdWords or AdSense. Still, Fisher admitted to CNET that the quality of ads needs ot improve, and highlighted a coalition that Google is working on to help on that front.

While Google might not be, other companies are moving toward blocking ads entirely in an effort to improve user experience. Apple added support for third-party ad-blockers in iOS, for example. It’s up for debate if that’s the right way to do things, but now we have confirmation that Google won’t follow suit.