OT Search Engine

[Flyby PC 23]

It's OT again, but is anybody else having grief with Google these days?

 

It seems to have forgotten what the back button is actually for, and half the time the forward button isn't much better. What once seemed effortless and automatic now sees me looking at a screen which doesn't change until I press a link again. Do I need to double click my links now? Nobody told me.

 

Now I find my searches are perhaps matching one or maybe two words and ignoring three or four others. I'm given pages of links I don't want, and asked "Did you mean this or that?" No, I typed what I meant, now go and find it.

 

 

I'm fed up with this. Is it Google chrome or Internet Explorer getting ideas above it's station? I have Firefox installed too, but find all links lead to Bing or Yahoo.

 

What is going on? Why are my tools suddenly turning into such nuisances?

[Tamper 9]

Next to the back and forward buttons, you'll see a little arrow for 'dropping' the browser history. You can drop this and you'll see immediately what's happened...pages aren't going directly from page to page anymore, there's too much potential revenue lost that way (b@stards). You'll see things like "ad.doubleclick.net" in the history, even though you never went to such a site (or thought you didn't). Your navigation is being 'redirected, because - and this is the stupidest GD thing I've ever heard of - the idea that you 'passing through' these redirections is making someone money.

 

In that drop-down browser history, you'll also likely see links like "criteo.us.com" (or some such), or "Internet Explorer cannot display the page" (because there wasn't a "page" exactly, to load. Go search for criteo online, you'll see what they do: Ad services. And there are a *bunch* more like 'em.

 

These are the things that make the ads show up on a site that are customized to you. Try it - have you ever noticed you can be looking at a site- Home Depot, for example - and have an ad on that site that has *nothing* to do with Home IMprovement? That's the type of things these redirections do, by basically follwing you around the web. It is **very** annoying, but since a lot of it is driven by stupid corporate greed, I don't see it getting better. As you have realized, it's getting worse. It is not by far just Google.

 

Maybe others have studied it more and know a way to stop it; there might be. Personally, I just drop the down arrow and go back a few steps (to the actual last site, not the re-directions). There are some "opt-out" pages you can register with that supposedly help - but I've already been there, registered, and passed their 'opt-out' test...and it still happens on my machine. (I suspect because money is more valuable than my desire to not be annoyed. As I said: B@STARDS.

 

Sorry I can't help more.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Tamper

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Thanks Tamper...not been caught out with that yet, but I'll make a note

[OlPaint01 0]

I think its all in Google's business plan...the Google 'search list of hits' links take you through their market research server and capture your browsing habits. I have my hosts file dead-head all these BlackHat sites to ip address 127.0.0.1. I get a "Page cannot be Displayed" message on my screen for the links so I am not shunted out to any of those "Phishing" locations.

 

OlPaint

Edited June 11, 2012 by OlPaint01

[Tamper 9]

OlPaint - even with the directing in your hosts file, I would think you'll still wind up with the issue Flyby describes - the 'back' button will just say "(your browser) cannot display the page", but there would still be at least one if not several 'layers' of URLs that will try to load, which is why he found that clicking "back" didn't actually go back on the first attempt (or even subsequent tries).

 

The sites we're talking about aren't really 'phishing sites'. They are (what the business logic deems) "helping" us. They are perfectly legitimate businesses themselves, but I disagree strenuosly with what these people consider legitimate. The way they look at it, they provided you a service, for free (Google, etc) that you consented to by using it. The 'service' they sell is in targeting ads based on your internet activity...I've heard it called lots of things, including 'behavioral advertising'.

 

I call it bullsh!t, myself...

 

Are you saying you have some method to completely eliminate this? If so, kindly outline (in laypersons language, please) the steps to do it - I am sure many would appreciate it.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Tamper

[Tamper 9]

Update: I went to Criteo's website, Criteo being one of the more obvious offenders in my recent experience (though there are many, many others). Anyway, on Criteo's page, under their "Privacy Policy" link, is a tool for disabling their tracking cookies. (It's a cookie itself, which I think is even more BS, to need another cookie to disable one I didn't want to begin with, but...well, welcome to corporate greed...)

 

Now, I had previously been to a site run by the Network Advertising Initiative (http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp) but - even though there is a 'test' to determine if the cookies are present on your machine, and I passed the test - I was still having trouble with the damn Criteo crap. It seems to be working since I opted out directly on their site (though I couldn't explain why). All (or most) of these companies are supposed to be members of this NAI, and supposed to support your right to "opt-out"...but (if we think about it) they don't support it too vigorously, because if they did, their businesses would fail.

 

Google has a tool (get this, you have to use a tool to undo what they did to you automatically *geez*) at http://www.google.co...erences/plugin/ Of course, the problem with this is it'll only work on Google (so what, I have to do this with a custom tool, for every site I go to? Again, B @ S T A R D S...)

 

Depending on which browser you use, there are special tools ('plug-ins') you can use. One such tool is called TACO, but it appears to only support the Firefox browser.

 

I am hoping OlPaint will elaborate on his method in a form more usable, or any others who might have helpful info will speak up here...I myself don't have "the" answer for this, just a collection of ideas and some legwork, really.

 

One thing I can say: This is a freaking menace that someone should be shot for creating...but then, we all knew the old saying before we ever heard of the Internet: There's no such thing as "free".