The debate about ad-blockers – for and against – is about to kick into life again: Adblock Plus has made a change to its Chrome extension that means it can now be deployed across company networks.
Adblock Plus for Administrators takes away the ‘first-run’ page – the option screen that appears when you first install Adblock Plus – meaning admins can be sure all their machines are sticking with the same configuration.
The company says its working on more ways to make rolling the ad-blocker out across an organization smoother and promises the same changes are coming to its Firefox extension (they’re already in place for the development build.)
The benefit of ad-blocking for corporations goes beyond avoiding irritating pop-ups or simply ditching commercial distractions entirely, there’s also the upside of reducing the risk of malware-infected ads encroaching on your network.
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That said, the moral questions around ad-blocking are just as relevant for companies as they are for individuals. I don’t expect to see Adblock Plus popping up on the TNW network any time soon.
➤ Major Adblock Plus update for Chrome includes feature for mass installation on big networks [Adblock Plus via Venture Beat]
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