Google is planning three new user experience upgrades for its web browser, Chrome, that should eliminate annoying redirects, cut down on ads that show up in your window while opening the content you want in a new tab, and halt page overlays that click through to ads.
Perhaps the biggest annoyance is clicking on a link being redirected to an unwanted ad. "We've found that this redirect often comes from third-party content embedded in the page, and the page author didn't intend the redirect to happen at all," Chrome Product Manager Ryan Schoen said in a blog post on its Chromium blog. Google's fix will allow users to continue to the page they intended, while "all redirects originating from third-party iframes will show an infobar." This change will happen with the rollout of Chrome 64, which is still in early beta, later this year.
Another issue is when users click on a link that takes them to an ad, while the content sought will be in a new tab. "This is effectively a circumvention of Chrome's pop-up blocker, one of users' favorite features," Schoen said. "Starting in Chrome 65 we'll also detect this behavior, trigger an infobar, and prevent the main tab from being redirected. This allows the user to continue directly to their intended destination, while also preserving the context of the page they came from."
Finally, there are pages that disguise themselves as media players and download unintended content, or other pages that have overlays where a click anywhere will take you to an ad. These are harder to detect, but starting in January, Chrome's planned pop-up blocker will keep new windows or tabs from opening.
To keep site owners affected by third-party issues from feeling the hit on traffic, Google is allowing webmasters to file Abusive Experience Reports to report things that don't look right. However, "abusive experiences left unaddressed for 30 days will trigger the prevention of new windows and tabs."
The company reports that one out of five feedback items on Chrome show users encounter some sort of unwanted content that they did not plan on seeing when they click a link. The new measures should hopefully cut down on that type of feedback.
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