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Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

arstechnica.com

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Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#121

Post by BizarreByte »

jeffbee wrote: post #97
JonChesterfield wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a consensus on do use Microsoft bing which just can't be right

Under the same banner of just staying away from popular malware targets, it would be consistent to choose bing or DDG while searching from your web browser running on OpenBSD/riscv64. Just confuse the hell out of the bad guys. But, the big flaw in the article is the author fails to suggest a better alternative. DDG raises 2 malware sites in the top 10 organic (I assume) results for "tor download". You're not safe fro…

> it would be consistent to choose bing or DDG while searching from your web browser running on OpenBSD/riscv64. Just confuse the hell out of the bad guys.

As a bit of a joke I used one of those browser fingerprint tools running on a browser under OpenBSD/macppc. The entire setup was completely unique, they had never encountered another user that matched. It would confuse the bad guys, but it’s very easy to track.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#122

Post by vehemenz »

izacus wrote: post #102
vehemenz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They allow anyone to submit to the repository with minimal vetting, and the package selection is inferior compared to Homebrew. Maybe we have different ideas about what "official" and "comprehensive" mean.

I'd love to hear what "official" means to you and why that definition has value for a package manager.

Prima facie, a one-stop, secure, official (paid Microsoft employees working on it) source for binary downloads seems like it has plenty of value for end users.

I'd be interested in knowing why keeping the Windows Store around and having a secondary package list for winget that most people don't use is a better paradigm.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#123

Post by gymbeaux »

jrockway wrote: post #118
dahdum wrote: post #26

Earlier 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.

I keep hearing about adding reddit to one's search queries, but what sort of things are y'all searching for where reddit's opinion is relevant? Reddit is kind of like that effect that people say about popular journalism; for the things that you're an expert on, they always get it wrong, but for things you know nothing about, they have a way of sounding right. Reddit is very much like that for me; if I know nothing ab…

There’s a lot of useful stuff on Reddit but you do have to be careful as “upvoted” stuff is sometimes wrong and “downvoted” stuff is sometimes right.

My bigger issue with it is that volunteer-mods are often power-hungry and ban people who they disagree with or who hurt their feelings.

Reddit is a social experiment, and the result is humans are still trash to each other when they’re anonymous.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#125

Post by Alupis »

jrockway wrote: post #118
dahdum wrote: post #26

Earlier 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.

I keep hearing about adding reddit to one's search queries, but what sort of things are y'all searching for where reddit's opinion is relevant? Reddit is kind of like that effect that people say about popular journalism; for the things that you're an expert on, they always get it wrong, but for things you know nothing about, they have a way of sounding right. Reddit is very much like that for me; if I know nothing ab…

> but what sort of things are y'all searching for where reddit's opinion is relevant

If you want real, unvarnished reviews and opinions of products, you need to get it from real people that have owned the product for more than 1 day before leaving the review.

I recently needed to purchase a new winter coat. Surfing many reddit threads across a dozen or so subs actually convinced me to not purchase the coat I had in mind. It looked nice and all, but real users that had owned it for a while had disappointing things to say about the zippers failing prematurely.

That's not something you would find in Amazon reviews, which are mostly people who recently purchased the item and have not owned it long enough to experience failures.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#126

Post by consumer451 »

consumer451 wrote: post #43
tech234a wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has winget built in.

I had no idea this existed. Neato! C:\>winget search "hacker news" Name Id Version Source ------------------------------------------------ Hacker News Reader 9WZDNCRDKBC1 Unknown msstore Hacker News (YC) 9NBLGGH1RHHV Unknown msstore I have no idea on the provenance of these packages, so will not be installing until I understand this more, but thanks for sharing winget. "winget search torrent" listed some apps which I…

Just wanted to add the most useful search I've found so far:

  C:\>winget search foss

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#128

Post by rdudek »

dahdum wrote: post #26
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #2

Google'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.

The problem is the spammers are already creating garbage content on Reddit as well. Fortunately, the moderators of the big subreddits will usually take care of it and remove the posts, but some of the smaller / niche ones still leave things up there.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#129

Post by antihero »

coldpie wrote: post #25
macintux wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typical ad blockers surely don’t filter out Google search results.

The search results are not the problem. The ads are. Ads are placed above search results, so users are more likely to be mislead by them. Installing an ad blocker removes the misleading ads, leaving only the legitimate search results.

Every example in this article is using ads not gaming SEO

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#130

Post by csdvrx »

realusername wrote: post #4
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #2

Google'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…

They pretty much lost the war against content farms already. I'm not sure the content indexing & crawling model they have is even adapted to the current web.

They will never fight that war again. Just follow the money: google has all the reasons to tolerate SEOs, since these SEO linkfarms are filled to the brim with ads, conveniently sold by google!

I'd be surprised if anyone at google would understand that to be a problem, because "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

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