Google Chrome now includes the ability to completely block resources from loading inside the browser, and the latest incarnation of the AdBlock extension for Chrome is using this "beforeload" event to not only hide ads from the user but
prevent them from downloading entirely.
This brings the Chrome AdBlock extension in line with its namesake, the popular AdBlock Plus add-on for Firefox.
The Chrome extension — available
here — is maintained by independent developer Michael Gundlach, and although the two share a name, it's not related to the popular AdBlock Plus Firefox add-on from coder Wladimir Palant. But as of last month, they also share the ability to block an ad before it downloads.
Google opened up Chrome to extensions in December, but until recently, the AdBlock extension could merely hide ads — not block them. "Firefox has always had support for blocking resources from downloading," Gundlach tells The Reg. "But when Chrome extensions came out, they lacked that ability, so they weren't as powerful as Firefox was. We've been having to hide the ads after downloading them or add CSS rules that say 'don't show these ads' even though they're downloading."
It's unclear when the "beforeload" event was added to Chrome — in part because it wasn't added by Google. Apple added it to the open source WebKit engine used by Chrome, and at some point, it made its way into the Google browser. It's now available in the latest stable version of Chrome, version 5.
"Thank Apple," says Googler Aaron Boodman, the man who created the Firefox Greasemonkey extension, in an online discussion recently dug up by a Slashdot reader.
"They added it to WebKit. We just inherited it."