Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Chrome Will Block Tab-Under Behavior (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google is working on blocking tab-under behavior in Chrome, according to a document seen by Bleeping Computer. For users unfamiliar with the jargon, Google considers tab-under behavior when an unsuspecting user is scrolling or clicking on a page, but the site duplicates the current page in another tab and shows an ad or a new website in the page the user was initially reading. Countless of website owners and advertisers have abused tab-unders to show ads and redirect users to unwanted sites, all for the sake of ad impressions and redirection fees. This demo site created by Google engineers that shows how tab-unders work. Earlier today, Google published a document detailing three ways it's currently looking at for dealing with tab-unders in Chrome. The current approved proposal is for the browser maker to block websites before opening a new tab, similar to the pop-up blocking mechanism. According to Chrome engineer Charles Harrison, the tab-under blocking feature will be supported on five of the six Blink platforms -- Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, and Android, but not Android WebView. Once the feature is ready, it will ship with Chrome Canary under its own option on the chrome://flags settings page.

2 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. And to think... by thevirtualcat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And to think that ad companies wonder why ad blockers are so prevalent.

    "Gosh, we are purveyors of annoying content that nobody wants and we use every dirty trick in the book, including exploiting browser bugs, to get our content in front of faces. Why do people hate us so much?"

  2. Tab-unders are a new low by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They fundamentally break the browser behaviour. The problem is as soon as you close the advert to get back to your page you have now low the history. If you ended up there as a result of a search, screw you, no back key for you, start from the beginning.

    This isn't just an advert.
    This isn't just a quirky way of getting attention.
    This is fundamentally screwing with the web browser and to me is as offensive as a HTML5 pop-over that can't be cleared.