4 ms·
Google giving Malware Warning on all search results (now fixed)
- astrid 18y agoHonor to the first submission with a correct title, I deleted mine. It's official, Google is broken. It was so unexpected that I wondered if I hadn't a malware.
- daleharvey 18y agoheh we posted these at the same time, deleted mine since it would be best if there wasnt a hundred OMG google is broken on the front page I bet whoever just deployed the upgrade is kicking themselves right now though
- sabat 18y ago... while standing in the unemploymment line, yeah.
- rgrieselhuber 18y agoI just saw this - glad it's not just me.
- danw 18y agoSeems to be affecting everyone: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22may+harm+your+computer%22 http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22may+harm+your+computer...
- Jem 18y agoWent from 37 results to over 300 in the space of a minute.
- angstrom 18y agoThe best part is, I thought it was Chrome at first since there is a malware option in the configuration settings. That sucks. It's going to take twice as long to fix since the engineers fixing it have to edit the URL on all the googled results for "How to fix Google".
- ktharavaad 18y agoDeleted mine too, here's a screenshot in case they fix it http://tinyurl.com/b4k25q http://tinyurl.com/b4k25q Its really LOL that they mark google.com as "may harm your computer"
- patio11 18y agoIts like the Internet just stopped. It is midnight in Japan and here I am writing emails to customers saying "No no, don't worry, I haven't infected your computer... it is Google that has the problem."
- gravitycop 18y agoIts like the Internet just stopped. A la The Source of Magic. One day, all of the magic in Xanth was turned off. For awhile, Xanth was like Mundania. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_of_Magic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_of_Magic
- mechanical_fish 18y agoOh crap, Google broke the Orb! Now we're in for a four-hundred-year Interregnum! I'd better start studying witchcraft!
- patio11 18y agoApropos of nothing, my friends have suggested Xanth to me on and off again for over a decade now. I know nothing about it except that Amazon will deliver it to my doorstep. What three books should I be buying?
- gravitycop 18y agoWhat three [Xanth] books should I be buying? Perhaps not the one I mentioned, since I just spoiled it for you. :) I have found that adults don't tend to like Piers Anthony's writing (it's filled with puns and adolescent soft-porn humor), but if you want to better know where your friends - who might have read Xanth books at ages at which they could better appreciate the writing style - are coming from, I would pick the first three of the series: * A Spell for Chameleon * The Source of Magic * Castle Roogna
- apu 18y agoIf you want some more mature books from Piers Anthony, the Apprentice Adept series and Incarnations of Immortality series are better than the Xanth ones. Plus, they're both only 7-8 books long, so it won't take you forever to read them all (if you actually get into them). Apprentice Adept is kind of a cool dual-world series, with sci-fi in one world and fantasy in the other, and the ability for some to move between them. You should start with the first in the series, of course: Split Infinity. Incarnations of Immortality also has the juxtaposition of sci-fi and fantasy, but in one world. The "hook" for this series is that the major "forces" in the world (time/death/fate/war/etc...) are actually offices which people fill (think The Santa Clause, but without Tim Allen or christmas). The first book of the series is On A Pale Horse. A final word of warning: I read both of these series a long time ago, so it could be that they're actually not as mature as I remember =)
- sam 18y agoWow. Since clicking on any search result brings up the warning page, Google is unusable. Everywhere. I never thought I'd see this. I wonder how much this is costing the global economy per second...
- robg 18y agoI wonder how much it's costing Google per second...
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- mechanical_fish 18y agoI wonder how much it's costing me per second. I was right in the middle of some research! Now I'm going to spend a hour surfing HN looking for fresh new Google jokes! On the other hand, nothing brings people from around the world together like a bug in Google.
- paraschopra 18y agoI wondering how much it's costing HN per second
- jonursenbach 18y ago17.3 cents
- apollo 18y agoIt may be earning them tons of money. The only links that actually work are the ad links.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- robg 18y agoFirst time I've ever used yahoo search.
- kenver 18y agoI even gave msn search a go!
- prakash 18y agowhat, no love for cuil?
- eisenkr 18y agoI don't think we'd ever get to see the data, but this outage created a beautifully structured natural experiment. It's almost impossible for companies to learn how well they would do if a market leader disappeared, but 30 minutes without Google probably told Microsoft, Yahoo, and even a place like Cuil what their best-case future looks like.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ralph 18y agoIt's .co.uk .de .fr and others too.
- magoghm 18y agoI was doing searches on Google and everything was OK. Then I did a search for "Bill of Rights" and I got all those nasty malware warnings. It really freaked me out until I realized Google was doing that with any search :)
- donkeyass 18y agofor the first time someone did ask me about google alternatives. live search and yahoo are having the most users sinse ages today..
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- z3r0p4r4d0x 18y agoI think it's the safety filter feature from Chrome that they're implementing site-wide, gone wrong.
- danw 18y agoWould be interesting to see stats in the aftermath on site traffic drops or if Yahoo traffic increases.
- mdasen 18y agoWell, the important part is that AdWords doesn't seem to be broken ;-). I can click through those links with no warning at all! Even when they're the same link as one of the malware links. New way to make money? On a realistic note, do you think Google will refund their advertisers' money during this problem (since I'm guessing there will be higher click rates for things like "apple" where Apple Computer is both the first "organic" result and has purchased ads, but now the organic results are "malware")?
- mmelin 18y agoI bet Omar Shahine at Microsoft is smiling right now: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10153165-2.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10153165-2.html "Cutts responded, in effect, that Google knows plenty about running big Web sites, thank you very much. 'Google runs Web services with many users and servers too and we launch changes weekly or faster,' he said."
- pc 18y agoIt's not even just English: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=news&btnG=Google-Suche&meta= http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=news&btnG=Google..., http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=乗り換え案内&btnG=Google+検索&lr=&aq=8r&oq=n http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=乗り換え案内&btnG=G...
- abless 18y agoOh dear, that'll hurt...
- sounddust 18y agoWow, I can't seem to get to StopBadware.org today, I wonder why?
- boris 18y agoFirst it was that Android root shell fiasco. Now this. I wonder if this whole "holier than thou" attitude towards Google will finally start to subside.
- mkuhn 18y agoIt's working again... at least for me
- mkuhn 18y agoand the false warning is back... edit: If I refresh I don't see the false warning every fifth time or so. This happens on the .com and .ch page. It seems they are pushing out an update that hasn't reached all servers yet.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- mixmax 18y agoSeems like it is fixed now. www.google.com
- jackowayed 18y agoGoogle doesn't quite think that everything may harm your computer. Neither wikipedia nor facebook will. Interestingly: http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.google.com/ http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.google.com... Google thinks Google may harm your computer.
- drenei 18y agoI actually had a wikipedia page give me the malware warning. Google: Trust no one! Me: Not even wikipedia? (Encyclopaedia Britannica laughs maniacally in the background)
- Jem 18y agoMy mum just called me to ask me if her computer was infected. I wonder how many people around the world are now panicking?
- steamboiler 18y agoLooks like it has been fixed.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoI'm not sure whether to be impressed or terrified that Google can -- and, apparently, does -- roll out updates across their entire server farm in a matter of a minute or two.
- eru 18y ago"Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes." from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-your-computer-on.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-yo...
- mechanical_fish 18y agoOkay, it sounds like it actually takes 13 to 15 minutes to roll out an update across the entire farm. That feels more like what I was expecting.
- eru 18y agoCompare: "How to 0wn the Internet in Your Spare Time" http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc-usenix-sec02/cdc.pdf http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc-usenix-sec02/cdc.pdf
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- parenthesis 18y agoThey've fixed it. That was quick.
- jncraton 18y agoFixed at 10:17 AM EST
- rockstar9 18y agonot all results gives me the malware check out searching "hello" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hello&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hello&btnG=Sear...
- pistoriusp 18y agoIt looks like it only effects you if you're logged in.
- physcab 18y agoI just searched YAHOO for "Google malware problem". Oh wow, I never thought this day would come.
- jackowayed 18y agolooks like it's fixed. even trying to go to the old link this thread linked to gets a 403 Forbidden, and some basic searches show fixage
- pclark 18y agoThis is an enormous bug - its similar to Microsoft Office not working for half an hour. I can't fathom how much this will have cost google - in terms of $$$ and reputation -- millions of people will now be unsure to trust googles "this site may be unsafe" It'll be fascinating to see if Yahoo/MSN get a noticeable spike in searches.
- Nassrat 18y agoYEAH WTF, I hated google for half an hour there.
- bmelton 18y agoActually, I think the problem was misreported. It seemed as though google flagged its own interstitial page as malware, as all the search result links showed as http://google.com/search?interstitial=<URL> http://google.com/search?interstitial=<URL>, and THAT page was malware -- unless I'm overlooking something obvious, like the interstitial page is only shown when adware is detected. Regardless, the search engine worked perfectly, it was just the links that weren't working. Simply removing the 'google' part of the URL allowed me to get to the sites just fine.
- sfk 18y agoI don't understand why Google is dabbling in all sorts of areas while neglecting their core business. The Usenet search and the groups interface were truly wonderful a couple of years ago. Now the interface is a web 2.0 abomination and the search is completely broken. The web search is still o.k., but not astonishing compared to other search engines. Google is really showing signs of becoming a fat company. I would not be surprised if in a couple of years their calculator returns 77.1*850 = 100000.
- WhiteHawk 18y agoI wonder if all the big corporations could sue Google for defamation now..? o_O I find it amusing that Google warned me away from the Microsoft website as it might harm my computer! Small things...
- acangiano 18y agoAntivirus producers will rejoice at this. Many end-users will think they got infected.
- jneal 18y agoI was doing research this morning for a radio show I host, and Amazon came up as malware. I was like what??? Malware on Amazon? Then I went back, and noticed every website was malware. I had to laugh, but it is interesting that Google doesn't have some sort of testing process before rolling out updates live.
- steamboiler 18y agoHere is the official explanation from Google: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-your-computer-on.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-yo...
- timf 18y ago"StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs" "Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs." Sounds like an opportunity to add a new acceptance test on items in that list :-)
- timf 18y agoTurns out they do not get a lits of URLs from there. cf. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460426 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460426
- prakash 18y agodid google also tweak their spam filter? anyone seeing more emails that would not normally go to spam being sent to spam?
- braindead_in 18y agoi sympathize with the 'human' who made that error. it might be the lowest point of his life. or his greatest!
- jonursenbach 18y agoI feel sorry for the poor sap who's going to get fired for this.
- sven 18y agoI'm not, if that person is the idiot that made a filter mandatory. But I fear the little technician, that reasoned against filtering in the first place, will get the boot.