Every time I read these articles I am so happy that the sponsored links are blocked by Pi-hole. Makes my family furious because it also disables all the shopping links as well, but well worth it imo.
Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
81–90 of 242 posts
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days It feels truly absurd how many queries I need to append "reddit" to get something useful. The web has changed but Google isn't keeping up.
Of course, SEO blog spammers are learning to add these terms to their sites.
As long as "site:" still works (limiting your search scope to a particular domain), then the SEO'ers can pound sand. Pretty much 100% of my google searches these days are scoped to a particular domain. This is because my search needs in 202x are very different than in 200x. Back then, I wanted to find the right web site for X. Today, I know the best web sites for X, and I always want to search for that exact X on that exact site.
I am no longer interested in discovering new web sites. The established ones are known to be good, and any new, unknown one is almost 99.9999% likely to be SEO spam. For example, I'm not interested in Dropshipper 45512's automatically generated web store where he gets a commission to ship you Alibaba goods, and that's really all you get in the long tail of shopping searches. Search engines need to pivot away from helping people find new web sites (since they are mostly crap) and instead help to curate the best content from existing known-good ones.
Yes, it sucks if your new site is legitimitely one of the 0.0001% that are human-made and awesome. Sorry, but I'm not going to find you through search. Don't worry, I'll find you through word of mouth if you are actually high quality.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#83Google's search product has become a shadow of its former self. Every year it seems harder to find what I'm looking for. The top half of the first search result page is now (potentially malicious) ads, and what follows is likely SEO spam. I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days so I'm not served nearly useless results. It's a sad decline from 10+ years ago when I'd type a half-formed…
I used DDG which was slightly better; but for a couple of months, I've switched to kagi, and it's been a revelation. It's much better than both, it's google from 15 years ago. Drawback is that unlimited searches needs a subscription (10$/months). But I personally think it worth for the time and focus gains.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, SEO blog spammers are learning to add these terms to their sites.
As long as "site:" still works (limiting your search scope to a particular domain), then the SEO'ers can pound sand. Pretty much 100% of my google searches these days are scoped to a particular domain. This is because my search needs in 202x are very different than in 200x. Back then, I wanted to find the right web site for X. Today, I know the best web sites for X, and I always want to search for that exact X on tha…
have you considert duckduckgo with bangs? I use them daily e.g. `!so ` would search on stack overflow. U can use `!g` if you ever need google again.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#85Google's search product has become a shadow of its former self. Every year it seems harder to find what I'm looking for. The top half of the first search result page is now (potentially malicious) ads, and what follows is likely SEO spam. I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days so I'm not served nearly useless results. It's a sad decline from 10+ years ago when I'd type a half-formed…
Altavista was better. It would certainly return more than the 5 SEO stained results pages that current search engines are repeating over and over again, pretending that they're bigger than they are.
Google was better, too. This is because someone decided it was better to sell ads than give people the most relevant results. It’s not like it’s an unsolved problem in computer science to block persistent spam / scraper / cloaking domains — someone at Google told the people who used to do that to stop.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#86Back in the early 2000s I helped create policy and procedures at Google to stop this kind of thing. Google's early anti-malware policies, extended to ads, and internal procedures to make sure we effectively stopped malware ads. That was a long time ago though and it's sad and frustrating to read it's not working so well now.
In particular the article points out several big red flags about how malware scanners are automatically finding the site and download are suspicious. It's a shame Google Ads isn't using that information.
(As for DownloadStudio, they have a Wikipedia page that looks 100% innocuous. Searching for "DownloadStudio" has Google search offering an inline answer to "Is DownloadStudio safe" with a reference to the website for DownloadStudio saying "yes it's safe". In this case the inline result is actively harmful. https://i.imgur.com/37GzDKe.png)
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#87Took me a while to understand what "using Google to download software" means. Was there a hidden functionality I wasn't aware of? Turns out, what they mean is "don't use Google to search for software you wish to download".
> Took me a while to understand what "using Google to download software" means Classic clickbait tactics. That was intentional, it made you click the link.
I'm confused about the confusion. This is probably one of the most common ways people obtain software.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#88Google was once considered trustworthy. It never was, but we thought it trustworthy. Where can you find a trustworthy source for software? Depends on your platform. Linux: Your package manager. In my case, apt. Mac: Apple has an app store of its own. Use that, or one of the BSD package management systems ported over. Ios: Apple app store is decently curated. Android: Google's app store is terribly curated. Give up no…
And governments are doing their best to break the app stores, destroying even the basic safely mechanisms such stores can offer. This should be taken as instructive, but is ignored by most.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#89Google's search product has become a shadow of its former self. Every year it seems harder to find what I'm looking for. The top half of the first search result page is now (potentially malicious) ads, and what follows is likely SEO spam. I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days so I'm not served nearly useless results. It's a sad decline from 10+ years ago when I'd type a half-formed…
> I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days It feels truly absurd how many queries I need to append "reddit" to get something useful. The web has changed but Google isn't keeping up.
This makes me laugh - I've found myself appending "reddit" to my search queries more and more frequently when looking for product or service reviews.
The regular google results are filled with affiliate-link-driven ads disguised as product reviews. If you want to really know what people think about products, you have to go digging these days.
Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software
#90Think twice before using Google.