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As we reported earlier this year, Chrome will crack down on low-quality ads and auto-play content in 2018. Now they have a new target — fighting unwanted redirects.

Google said today that one out of every five reports from users of the desktop version of Chrome reported encountering unwanted content. As a result, Google has announced a series of safeguards – designed to combat spoofing that misleads Web users.

Google is taking a full range of measures to combat these unwanted redirects. Like some that masquerade as play buttons or other web controls to link to third-party websites, Chrome will block them next year.

Chrome has announced three protections to prevent unwanted redirects:

  • In early January 2018, Chrome’s popup blocker will block attempts to direct users to unexpected destinations by opening new Windows or tabs.

  • End of January 2018 (Chrome 64) : All redirects from third party iframes will now display information bars instead of direct redirects.

  • Early March 2018 (Chrome 65) : Opening the desired target link in a new TAB, but redirecting the main window to an unwanted page no longer works. Chrome detects this behavior, triggers the information bar, and prevents the main menu card from being redirected so the user can continue to the intended destination site.

Here is a demonstration of the second protection in Chrome on Android (note the “Redirect Blocked “message bar) :

For the third type of protection, see the diagram below, Chrome prevents the following behavior:

It seems the company, which has more than a billion Chrome users, is determined to clean up and improve the web.