advertising

Ads have become a nuisance on the web, forcing both users and even browser makers to take heavy-handed solutions to fix that problem. More often than not, these involve blocking ads and third-party tracking cookies that, unfortunately, also deprive legit sites of a source of income. While Google is working on making well-behaved ads more trustworthy, Firefox maker Mozilla is taking a different approach and has partnered with Scroll to offer an ad-free experience but at a small price.

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Apple has published a new commercial in Japan that shows its MacBook in various animes scene -- the AirPods also make an appearance every now and again, though without a logo, of course. The company also included scenes with MacBook-esque laptops that include other generic logos like hearts, pears, and twice-bitten apples. The video highlights how common and easily recognizable the MacBook has become.

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Google recently boasted that Google Play Store has netted $80 billion in revenue for developers. Those figures are, of course, only from the legitimate ways app developers earn money, either from outright app purchases, in-app buys, subscriptions, or even ads. The last source of income, however, is rather problematic even for Google who manages the sanctioned apps these apps can use. This is mostly due to less than savory advertising methods which the company has now given the boot from Google Play Store.

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With Windows 8, Microsoft changed the Windows Start menu so drastically that users were up in arms about it. It never truly backed down from that tile-based design even if it made concessions along the way. With Windows 10 and its successive feature updates, the company is transforming that menu into an advertising dashboard for its apps and services. Unsurprisingly, not a few users are quite peeved by it but, fortunately, it's not that hard to "fix" once and for all.

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Google is in a rather ironic but favorable position when it comes to Internet ads. It derives a huge chunk of its revenue from them but also makes a web browser that promises to protect its users from malicious agents, most of which operate through ads. Its solution was to help form a coalition that will develop industry standards that sift the good ads from the bad ones. That coalition's latest focus is on misbehaving video ads and its new rules that Google has chosen to implement in Chrome will, again ironically, force it to change how YouTube ads behave as well.

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Today Google updated the way Google Search results appeared in web browsers on desktop computers after a similar redesign earlier this month. The most visual bit of this update - the most prominent, easy to see, and central element of this update - is the favicon. As it was with mobile UI for Google Search results updated in May of 2019, so too shall it be for Google Search results on desktop computers - or at least that's what Google suggested on the 17th.

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Google seems to be putting its products on a sugar diet. First, it gets rid of Android's dessert names, now it wants Chrome to go cookie-free. Granted, web cookies have gone beyond being useful to the point of being a liability. And Google should know, considering how close it is not just to the Web but to the whole advertising industry that corrupted those cookies. Now it's making rather bold moves that will shake up that very industry by removing support for cookies from one of the world's most used browsers.

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Realme smartphones will have ads (content recommendations) with the newest software update at the start of 2020. This system of content recommendation will "promote apps and commercial links" in the base operating system, through the Phone Manager app and Security Check page after installing new apps. Major brands like Google and Samsung have released ads in phones like these in the past.

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News of Facebook working to create its own operating system has probably raised a lot of eyebrows and ruffled many feathers. The social giant made no secret that its goal is to be independent of Google and its ecosystem, particularly Android. At a time when Huawei is trying and struggling to do the same due to political circumstances, there will definitely be doubts about whether Facebook can pull it off. It definitely can and that's the most frightening part about it.

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Once upon a time, app launchers were the pride and joy of Android users, showing off the freedom and customization iOS users could only dream of. That has mostly died down by now, save for a few notable names, perhaps pointing to a shift in user behavior and expectations. Only a few big and trustworthy names remain in that section of the Android market and Apex Launcher is no longer one of them, thanks to some rather brain-dead decisions by its developers.

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Given how it profits from ads, it's almost ironic that Google is pushing technologies and features in Chrome seem to block ads. The truth is that Google is only after misbehaving and malicious ads so that users will eventually develop a level of trust for good ads. When it comes to misbehaving ads, none can be more debilitating to a computer than a "heavy" ad that consumes CPU cycles and battery life. That's why Chrome's next move is to offer a heavy-handed option to prevent these heavy ads from loading in the first place.

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Google announced a new Google Ads Policy that targets unproven or experimental medical techniques. Google Ads revealed a new Healthcare and medicines policy that prohibits the advertising of "unproven or experimental medical techniques such as most stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, and gene therapy."

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