Chrome readies built-in ad blocker in early version of Canary

Google has added a built-in ad blocker to the roughest version of Chrome, signaling that it will assume responsibility for barring some online ads in the polished product as early as October.

The ad blocker appeared in some users' copies of the "Canary" build of Chrome last week; Canary is the name Google gives to the preliminary version of the browser, one that is updated nightly and precedes the three-step release process of "Dev," "Beta" and finally "Stable" code.

Chrome's ad blocker was present only in Windows' Canary build; it was AWOL from the macOS edition.

Reports of Google's ad-blocking plans first surfaced in April, shortly after the Coalition for Better Ads announced a set of online ad types that users in the U.S. and Europe said were the most annoying and disruptive. Google was a founding member of the coalition. Two months ago, Google confirmed that it would introduce ad blocking to Chrome, saying then that the target timetable was next year.

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