Chrome Update 'Abusive' Targets Ads Used on Some Pirate Sites



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After being pushed to fringe advertising networks, some hackers sites now that many users would prefer not to encounter. Starting in December, however, a new version of Chrome will attempt to curtail some "abusive experiences" on all sites, by getting rid of spam and misleading dialog boxes, while nuking video 'play' buttons that lead to unwanted downloads.

More than a decade ago, users visiting torrent and file-hosting platforms were often greeted with the same quality of ads.

Leading companies and brands with their marketing appearing on major 'pirate' sites, with visitors to The Pirate Bay, for example,.

Over the years, anti-piracy groups have sought to deprive 'pirate' platforms of their income streams, which have been reported to have increased. This has not been reduced to a reduced rate for the sites in question.

Perhaps inevitably, the ads are sometimes created through the net, including popups, popups, fake download buttons and forced downloads. Google has already taken steps with measures built directly into Chrome, not just pirate sites.

Google's Safe Browsing initiative was launched in 2016, the company announced steps to hit fake 'download' and 'play' buttons. Last November, Google said that Chrome version 68 would try to prevent it.

"A play button that sends a user to an unwanted APK (left) and a close
button that triggers popups (right) "

While these efforts had some effect, a new announcement from Google suggests that the systems built into Chrome need to be improved.

"These protections blocked pop-ups and new window requests from sites with certain abusive experiences like redirecting pages. However, we have learned that this approach did not go far enough, "says Google Product Manager Vivek Sekhar.

"In fact, more than half of these abusive experiences are not covered by our current set of protections, and nearly all involve harmful or misleading ads. These ads tricks by clicking on them to close the ad. Further, some of these abusive ad experiences are used by scammers and phishing schemes to steal personal information. "

As a result, Google has announced that starting in December, Chrome 71 will remove ALL ads on the "small number of sites" with persistent abusive experiences, which will hopefully encourage a speedy response to potential issues.

Site owners will be able to check their own sites against the 'Abusive Experiences Report' in their Google Search Console to check if they are affected. If changes are not made within 30 days, Chrome will remove all of their ads.

Google stresses that it always wants users to be in control of their own browsing experiences. So, if they choose, Chrome users will be able to disable 'abusive site filtering' by toggling it off in the browser's settings.

TorrentFreak with a small number of 'pirate' site owners. That being said, the sites are more likely to fall into the trap of being questioned, so they will be following the update.

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