In my previous post I criticized Google's decision to disable NPAPI plugin technology. I still think it was a bad decision. But today let's talk about a change that should be an improvement for virtually all users.

Chrome will begin pausing many Flash ads by default to improve performance for users. This change is scheduled to start rolling out on September 1, 2015.

Source: https://plus.google.com/+GoogleAds/posts/2PmwKinJ7nj

Say what? Is Google going against ads? cool Well, not really. HTML5 ads are apparently OK. But those obnoxious Flash-based ads will become click-to-play.

The setting in question is located in Settings->Advanced->Content Settings->Plugins:

It has been present in Chrome for several months already. So, I'm guessing that Google will be only pushing out some configuration change, or change the default value for new installations. Who knows, as Google is not giving us any details at this point..

Google's ad detection algorithm might need some improvements and there might be some other side-effects but overall I think it's a great change! Good job Google, you made my day better! smile