Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google

So in other words, Google are the bad guys for depreciating/axing a feature which they no longer use, and which was probably never intended to be used in the way which Scroogle are using it?

That's right, it's all about Scroogle. I appreciate that Scroogle are upset that their service (which relies on hacks) will no longer work, however, it's ridiculous that even developers are acting irrational these days.

Why Scroogle thinks that Google should pay developers to maintain an interface to support their service which strips the ads from results, is beyond me. I'd say this change shows scroogle's true colors...

I'm amazed it was allowed to continue for so long. It's pretty clearly against Google's terms of service.

Scroogle shall be sorely missed.

I've now switched to using ixquick instead:

https://us2.ixquick.com/

Does anyone know of any other privacy-respecting search engines that can be used over SSL ?

I'm not amazed at all. I would guess that most violators of Google's terms of service don't even get noticed by Google until and unless their actions begin to significantly impact Google's bottom line or Google feels threatened in some other way.

The API changes that resulted in Scroogle no longer being able to get results from Google may not have had anything to do with Scroogle violating Google's terms of service.

But if it did, then it's likely Scroogle was performing a significant number of searches and Google noticed. This would lead me to believe that there is a serious demand among a significant number of Google's customers for more privacy, and Google itself was not meeting that demand.

I hope other privacy-respecting search engines step up to the plate and fill the void left by Scroogle's demise.

Write a little script that runs a search on google every few seconds and let me know how long it runs before you're blocked. Google definitely cares.

These guys weren't using an API, they were breaking the rules and scraping an obscure search results pages that Google apparently neglected to secure.