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Google.com partially dangerous

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Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#61
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I tried to download chrome yesterday, and you STILL get www.downloadchromenow.com and other spam site adverts at the top of the results, which absolutely serve malware/spyware Until they sort out their ads it's true, it is a dangerous site

Like the other peer comments, this does not show up for me. I'm afraid there's a good chance you already have some malware (or at least a rogue extension) that is inserting ads into your pages.

I've been testing these kinds of searches every now and again for a few years now (and complaining about it on HN regularly). The malware ads are generally intermittent and won't show all of the time. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

I can assure you that for many years Google has been serving ads that link to malware for search terms like "firefox". I've seen them across different machines, different browsers, different ISPs, different OSs.

The situation with firefox seems better now but only because Mozilla is seemingly buying up all the ads for searches with "firefox" in.

Here's a post about it from a year and a half ago that also links to several earlier posts along the same lines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8879229

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#62
post #7

> Attackers on this site might try to trick you to download software or steal your information Thats an awful description of googles business model, but partly true...

Well I tried to download chrome yesterday, and you STILL get www.downloadchromenow.com and other spam site adverts at the top of the results, which absolutely serve malware/spyware Until they sort out their ads it's true, it is a dangerous site

pacaur -Sy google-chrome

Didn't get any malware links like that.

Windows software installation model is horrifying.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#63
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get two ads (edit: on duckduckgo) before any search results, one for googlechromeonline.com and one for downloadsem.com, both are spammy.

You have some type of malware or rogue extension on your device. I would look into that...

I have no malware on this box. Bing gives me 3 ads for Google Chrome. First one is legit, other two are spam (downloadsem.com and downloadbst.com.)

Oops forgot the side ads, I also get an ad from apps-2016.com.

I am searching from Canada.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#64
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should. Though if search engines were actually held liable for every malware link they place above real results, Google would no longer be a profitable business. Just the fake banks Google puts in search ads alone...

microsoft writes the operating system they are infecting. then people with older computers think their hardware is too slow and buy a new one. how can they not use vm's and heuristics to click all their ads and see if it infects their own operating system, before approving the ads, and then rechecking them every so many clicks?

Most of the time it's a brief look with a VM that the ad approval process goes thru, and honestly that may not show the malware.

A lot of the time the malware is designed to only show up in certain case scenarios such as date/time, specific version of an OS like Windows XP SP1 but not SP2. Designers come up with the most ludicrous ways of circumventing the Ad approval process, and with hundreds to thousands of new ad's per day there simply isn't an easy way to do all that testing for each single new ad being served, on top of discovering new methods used to skip the checks.

Some networks are truly terrible and just have automation systems but those networks aren't as profitable and are beginning to die out.

With deep learning networks becoming so popular I do often ponder if this type of prevention could be automated slightly better!

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have some type of malware or rogue extension on your device. I would look into that...

That only affects DDG and not Google or Bing? That doesn't seem likely. You sure you're not running an adblocker? (Also it's rogue, not rouge.)

There some type of law that requires malware/extensions that inserts fake results in one's searches to work with all search engines? LOL

Common sense would dictate that Google would NOT be selling AdWords that would replace THEIR own ad for the top search result for their own products.

EDIT: Wait, you are talking about Duck Duck Go? This thread is about Google.com NOT DDG. Regardless, I get Google's official site at the top with DDG.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#66
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only affects DDG and not Google or Bing? That doesn't seem likely. You sure you're not running an adblocker? (Also it's rogue, not rouge.)

There some type of law that requires malware/extensions that inserts fake results in one's searches to work with all search engines? LOL Common sense would dictate that Google would NOT be selling AdWords that would replace THEIR own ad for the top search result for their own products. EDIT: Wait, you are talking about Duck Duck Go? This thread is about Google.com NOT DDG. Regardless, I get Google's official site at…

The one I replied to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11526264 is about Bing and DDG.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#67
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There some type of law that requires malware/extensions that inserts fake results in one's searches to work with all search engines? LOL Common sense would dictate that Google would NOT be selling AdWords that would replace THEIR own ad for the top search result for their own products. EDIT: Wait, you are talking about Duck Duck Go? This thread is about Google.com NOT DDG. Regardless, I get Google's official site at…

The one I replied to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11526264 is about Bing and DDG.

My bad... You still have some issue.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have some type of malware or rogue extension on your device. I would look into that...

I have no malware on this box. Bing gives me 3 ads for Google Chrome. First one is legit, other two are spam (downloadsem.com and downloadbst.com.) Oops forgot the side ads, I also get an ad from apps-2016.com. I am searching from Canada.

I get the same results... Wow! I would stop using Bing Canada.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#69
post #9

Even, github.com is partially dangerous. "Dangerous websites have been sending visitors to this website, including: github.com/mgp25, github.com/racaljk, and github.com/100pcrack"

Yes , github hosts UGC which has a lot of spam/malware.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#70
post #28

Funny, everyone knows Google is dangerous. In all seriousness though, they've got one of the largest public facing systems in the world. Given the surface area and traffic volumes, it's surprising that the don't have more issues than they do.

Public facing systems isn't the issue, user generated content is.
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