How To Stop Ads In Google Chrome – A Quick Guide

Welcome to a quick guide on how to stop ads in Goggle Chrome. Ads are everywhere on the Internet these days, and I can totally understand as a blogger. It is necessary to keep a business alive, and we follow good ad practices to not piss people off. But then, comes the black sheep. People who spam and don’t give a hoot about respect nor privacy.

That covers the quick basics, but let us walk through more details in this guide – Read on!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Adblocker	Disable Ads	Remove Adware
Manual Cleaning	Ad Black Hole	Useful Bits
The End

 

 

THE VARIOUS ADBLOCK

• AdBlock – This is what I use and recommend.
• Adblock Plus – Another reliable Ad Blocker.
• Adaware Ad Block

 

NOT ALL ADS ARE BAD… WHITELIST!

I know, the point of an adblocker is to stop displaying advertisements, but that is also what keeps the content creators alive. If you find this page useful, and you want to support your favorite YouTuber, Blogger, or Instagrammer – Remember to add them to the whitelist.

 

 

 

DISABLE POPUP ADS

Click on the ⁝ button at the top-right corner > Settings > Search for “ads” > Site Settings > Additional Content Settings > Ads.

Click on the toggle switch to set “Blocked on sites that show intrusive or misleading ads”.

Then hit the back arrow > Pop-ups and redirects (directly above the ads menu item) > Make sure that it is set to “Blocked”.

 

 

 

ADWARE & MALWARE CLEANERS

Fear not, Adware and Malware cleaners to the rescue! There are many to choose from on the Internet, and here are a few of the reputable ones.

• MalwareBytes – For Windows and Mac
• Avast Anti-Malware – For Windows and Mac
• Bitdefender – Windows and Mac
• Adaware – Windows
• Emisoft Anti-Malware – Windows
• Super Anti-Spyware – Windows

Just download, install, and let the cleaners do the magic.

 

WHAT IF THE REMOVAL TOOL FAILS?

This is not a sponsored post, but please do try out the Emsisoft emergency kit. That should be able to wipe out most of the “bad stuff” and restore your system. In the worst-case scenario where the malware refuses to give up – The only way is to reset your entire computer back to factory default.

 

 

 

EASIEST FIX – RESET TO DEFAULTS

The easiest way is to reset Chrome back to the factory default. While this is the safest and fastest method, but take note, you might lose all your existing bookmarks and saved passwords.

First, click on the ⁝ button on the top right-hand corner, then go to “Settings”.

On the settings screen, search for “reset”, then simply click on “Restore settings”. You can also click on “Clean up computer” later for extra measures.

 

MANUAL FIXES

Don’t like the idea of resetting to the defaults? Then there are a few things that you can do manually.

1. Run “clean up computer” as above, but do not restore to default.
2. Settings > Search “startup” > Change back to “Open the New Tab page”.
   • If the default startup page has been changed to “open specific page” by the malware, please feel free to remove all the funky pages.
3. Settings > Search for “search engine” > Change the default search engine back to Google (or Bing/Yahoo if you like).
   • You can go into “manage search engines” and manually remove all the weird stuff added by the malware if you want.
4. Next, search for “clear browsing data” > under the advanced tab > select everything > Clear Data.
   • In particular, make sure that the “Site Settings” are cleared. This will ensure that the bad sites will no longer have permission to send push notifications to Chrome.
5. Finally, click on the ⁝ at the top-right corner again > More Tools > Extensions. Remove all the funky ones that you don’t recognize and those that are installed without your knowledge.

These should pretty much restore Chrome back to the “clean” state.

 

 

 

INTRODUCING THE PI-HOLE

What the heck is a Pi-Hole? It is basically a mini-computer called Raspberry Pi, converted to become an advertisement black hole. Thus aptly called the Pi-Hole. Get it? How it works in a nutshell:

• The Pi-Hole is deployed just before the modem.
• It kind of acts like a firewall and monitors all the incoming/outgoing traffic.
• Then, staying true to the “black hole” name, it blocks out all known ad servers.

Yep. That is how we can block advertisements to the extreme. Just remember to update the ad server list from time-to-time and this bad boy will continue to do the magic.

P.S. For you guys who are interested, you can actually buy a Pi-Hole from eBay. But be warned. It is not cheap, and you need some technical knowledge to properly set it up.

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• Remove unwanted ads, popup, malware – Google Chrome Help
• How to Stop Pop-Ups in Chrome – Laptopmag
• How to Block Ads on Google Chrome – WikiHow