Adblockers are a popular add-on that enables browser users to essentially disable ads from websites. The popular Firefox extension called NoScript, which is largely used for that purpose, may be making its way to the Google Chrome web browser if developers have their way.
While there are many such adblockers available, Firefox’ NoScript is at the top of the list. The browser extension blocks all scripts from being executed while the web page is being loaded in the browser. The browser user is then able to decide to permanently stop such scripts from being loaded by any given website, or to simply block the ads in the current browser session.
While the NoScript extension is heralded as a security tool, it is more commonly used to stop ads which use Flash or JavaScript from appearing on the pages that users visit. While Google’s stable Chrome 4 release supports extensions by default, developers have been quick to ask why NoScript has not been supported by the popular browser as of yet.
The creator of the NoScript extension, Giorgio Maone, answered the developer community in December of 2009, when he stated that “Chrome is still lacking the required infrastructure for selective script disablement and object blocking. Maybe Google plans to implement the missing stuff later, maybe they’re still trying to figure out whether it can be done without enabling effective ad blocking, but in the meanwhile the pale AdBlock and FlashBlock imitations which have been hacked together by overwhelming popular demand, are forced to use a very fragile CSS-based hiding approach, ridiculously easy to circumvent.”
Maone followed up that statement with another in January of this year, stating that “It means the the technology infrastructure to make it possible is not there yet (so ‘now be possible’ does not makes much sense), but I’m in talks with good will Google people who say they want it to happen.”
Google’s Chrome 5, which was released to developers on Friday, may already include the functions that are required to port the NoScript extension to Google Chrome, so optimistic developers are hoping that Chrome 5’s new JavaScript and Plugin blocking features will fill the void.
