In June, Google revealed that Chrome will stop showing all ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that display non-compliant ads “starting in early 2018.” Now the company has committed to a date: Chrome’s built-in ad-blocker will start working on February 15, 2018.
Interestingly, this date does not appear to be tied to a specific Chrome version. Chrome 64 is currently scheduled to arrive on January 23 and Chrome 65 is slated to launch on March 6, suggesting Google will be turning on its browser’s ad blocker remotely, and possibly gradually for select users.
I am curious what this is going to mean for the future of Adblock Plus, Ghostery and Ublock Origin. I wonder when Firefox will add their own adblocker.