What the heck, at google???

Vanity | 2-20-2010 | vanity

[LegendHasIt]

OK, a few hours ago I tried to do a google search.... Something very benign (I do all my searches for things that 0bama & co wouldn't like with other search engines anyway).

So I type in my search terms and click the button.

And it comes back with a page saying "We have detected unusual search patterns coming from your computer. You must identify yourself to continue., with blanks to fill in, and one of those security scramble graphics where you have to type in the letters/numbers to prove you aren't a robot.

Of course I got the heck out of there immediately, and swore to never use google again, since I don't trust them anyway.

Then a full computer scan with Ad-Aware reported a "hostile entry attempt from google.com" and submitted it for "Threat Alliance analysis".

[Mycroft Holmes]

Also, if you haven’t already, switch to Firefox and get the “no-script” add on. You might also like one called (I think) don’t track me, and ad-blocker.

You are thinking of the extension Ghostery (for "dont track me"). I've got that one installed and it's pretty informative.

AdBlock Plus is pretty useful too, as well as Flashblock for those of us on bandwidth limited connections.

With all the hating on Google this might be unwelcome, but I just love me some Google Dictionary. This fetches a definition of anything I select on a page. Pretty nice

This all runs on Chrome too.

[cynwoody]

There are companies that can make sure the algorith puts a certain site at the top of a list, and they’ll monitor and modify their paramaters to keep you there. The company I was associated with charged about $1,000, and that was a bare minimum for certain search terms. If you wanted to have your site be on the top all the time, it would cost you big time.

That's the SEO industry. Ironically, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. That is to say, optimum for the searchee, not the searcher. I am the searcher (I don't really have a web site I want to promote, LOL). Thus, SEO is my enemy, not my friend. It is also Google's enemy, because it reduces the effectiveness of the Google search engine as perceived by its users (me).

Folks seem to have trouble understanding the search engine business model. To a search engine, the searcher is the product, not the customer. The customer is the advertiser, to whom the search engine delivers eyeballs. The search engine wins by delivering eyeballs to advertisers. It best does that by delivering the best search results with the least effort on the part of the eyeball.

[rawcatslyentist]

spybot is OK. Just OK. Get Malwarebytes, it actually STOPS the invasions. I have had 3 comps crash and burn with Spybot S&D in the past decade. MB has kept me safe for almost 5 years now.

Check out this Firefox add onn

TMN Track Me Not. It sends spoof/false searches to Googel, and has them chasing their tail up a tree.

[djf]

I got totally fed up with all the Java BS and cookies yada yada yada at Google.
Switched to Yahoo search, much cleaner. If they start pulling stunts like Google, I will dump them and find another one.

[Salamander]

http://www.google.com/ads/

Be prepared to plunk down big money.

This is no longer the nice, helpful Google wunderkind of the 90s.

Small businesses are summarily steam rolled by the Big Guys.

[LegendHasIt]

Oh, I had redirected all the google-analytics, googleads and doubleclick URLs a long time ago, although they seem to come up with new ones pretty often, and yeah, I had experienced horrible stalls and slowdowns prior to that , especially over at HotAir.

Earlier tonight I added google.com to the redirect list.

That ought to be interesting.

[wiggen]

Hey i could have written your. Awesome. My phone barely knows i own it.

[Krankor]

Is it safe to add on to Firefox?

[vanilla swirl]

I use Ubuntu Linux, Firefox with add-ons and ixquick for anonymous searches.

But nothing is foolproof;
How a father found out his daughter was pregnant;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

[Fresh Wind]

I have used Google Patents (since when it was a “beta” feature) to search for very old patent information. Sometimes you have to examine many patents to find what you want, because their search based on OCR processing of scanned patent images from the USPTO, and that doesn’t work reliably on very old patents. In extreme cases, you might have to look at dozens or maybe hundreds of patents.

I have had exactly the same problem as what you have described, including the “unusual search patterns” message and the “Captcha” entry roadblock (which I could never get past no matter how many times I tried.

But this wasn’t recent-this was several years ago. I haven’t had the problem recently, though.

I’m more inclined to think this is a software glitch rather than anything sinister, an attempt to block “bots”.

But with Google, you’re never sure.

[Fresh Wind]

Every Windoze user needs to get the hosts file from this site:

Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

It includes the entry you mentioned, and hundreds more.

[R. Scott]

I haven’t see that. I just did a Google search to check it out.

[R. Scott]

I haven’t see that. I just did a Google search to check it out.

[magslinger]

I do do a lot of 'prepper' type searching, which we know that the Administration hates...

The Goobers in the Goobermint ought to talk to each other.

[stylin19a]

no kidding ! I as doing a search on remote control electric golf carts.

Now, damn near every web page has advertisements and links to some seller of electric golf carts.

[duckman]

“(I do all my searches for things that 0bama & co wouldn’t like with other search engines anyway).”

WH/DNC pressure on google?

[trebb]

Sounds like a phishing attack - someone trying to get your info to use for themselves.

[blindsangamon]

It is for this reason that I NEVER use Google’s search engine. I use Ixquick.com or Scroogle.com, which perform anonymous searches through their proxies.

[agere_contra]

I use http://search.yippy.com/

Great service, very fast and they have a strict privacy policy.

[CAluvdubya]

This is new. Google determined that a few Malware programs were hijacking browsers to up the traffic to client sites. So they took some of the most commonly used key words and tied them to a ‘check if human’ protocol. Not the most elegant way to handle bots, but effective. In my opinion they should have detected quantity and not the qualities of the searches, If you are sending a search request every half second, you are not human.

On my Droid, the stupid google box with squiggly letters came up on my phone. I don't remember the reason they gave for this but, it took me several tries to figure out what the darned letters were to be able to even get to FR on my phone. I can't read those stupid squiggly letters! I was so annoying!