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Right, but goog is weighing malware + cash vs not helping exploit their users and coming down on the side of malware. I'm sure the cash is incidental to this d
by x0x0 12y ago
Right, but goog is weighing malware + cash vs not helping exploit their users and coming down on the side of malware. I'm sure the cash is incidental to this decision. It's really disappointing.
Yet another reason to tell your parents to buy iphones.
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoGoogle made this decision a long time ago. Try searching Google for "flash player". The top two links are malware. Google knows their AdWords are used to slip malware at the top of download searches for major products, but has never done anything about it, like say, disabling AdWords on a term like "flash player" where any paid ad is basically guaranteed to be malicious. This is a twofold benefit for the sleezy company: Google gets paid directly by malware developers, and the added malware on people's computers helps drive consumers to switch to Chromebooks. The "rampant malware on Windows" problem is largely a Google creation, and of course, Google advocates their product as the solution.
- TylerJay 12y agoWow. That just really changed my model of paid search results... and I'm not quite sure yet how to put it back together. I clicked both results for "flash player" and nothing on my computer (Mac) or in the browser (Chrome) warned me, whereas I have received warnings on other sites for "phishing attempts". I never would have downloaded anything from those sites, but my parents sure would have. Who knows, if I were in a hurry and it was a program I wasn't familiar with or that I was trying to get for free? And if the site was more polished or a full html/css clone of the real site? It honestly might have worked on me. What kind of malware do these bogus paid results contain? What would have happened if I'd installed them? What can you do to defend against that besides being a savvy web user? Thanks for this. I learned something.
- comex 12y agoWhat? How is making it easier for developers to distribute apps on the open web "malware + cash"? It's more like balancing the risk of malware against the benefits of openness and encouraging web app development.
- jfoster 12y agoIt sounds like you might be misunderstanding the feature. Can you explain precisely how you envisage it being used by malware?