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Chrome Blocks Major Torrent Sites Over "Harmful Programs"
- noobie 11y agoInstructions to turning the warning off can be found here[0]. 0.https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en
- yc1010 11y agoIf people start skipping and ignoring warnings then what is the point of warning them, google should provide an explanations as to why exactly this has happened otherwise THEY are going to harm their users and this will reflect badly on their brand down the road.
- fao_ 11y agoIf it's only one or two warnings that are skipped then it's fine. I regularily skip inventati.org's warning when I'm on another machine because they give a good reason for the warning (and a way to stop them occuring without disabling it (the warning))
- noobie 11y agoI think that the average non-tech savvy user would freak out and immediately leave the website when encountering the warning, which serves the purpose. If a user chooses to skip the warning, which isn't made intuitive, (i.e. no direct access to the "Skip" button) then they probably know what they're doing but Google should indeed offer explanation.
- higherpurpose 11y agoThen Google shouldn't be abusing the "security" excuse to stop other things themselves or their partners (MPAA) don't want to be used. I'm not saying that's what they did here, but it wouldn't be the first time either.
- rancur 11y ago> then what is the point of warning them using their fear to control them to reduce liability to the Google name in the form of zero-day browser exploits
- fallat 11y agoStep 1: Uninstall Chrome...
- silverwind 11y agoFirefox uses the same list by default, it's easily deactivated though.
- fallat 11y agoStep 2 was install Iceweasel. I've learned there is an actual difference between them.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoStep 2. Reinstall Chrome
- superasn 11y agoNot just Kick ass torrents, but almost all major torrent sites including Torrentz, ExtraTorrent and RARBG [1] [1] https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/ https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-o...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Joona 11y agoFrom the article: Update: ExtraTorrent says it successfully resolved the issue with Google through webmaster tools. RARBG is also unblocked.
- dang 11y agoThanks, we changed the url to that from http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http%3A%2F%2Fkat.cr%2F&client=chromium&hl=en-US http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost..., which doesn't have any context.
- yc1010 11y agoIs this due to these sites having a lot of advertising (probably serving malware) or is this a deliberate attack from the media industry by trying to scare people?
- Phil_Latio 11y agoI guess the latter... If you compare kat.cr results with sourceforge.net results, you would assume sourceforge is blocked as well, but it isn't (only individual sub-paths of some projects). kat.cr is even delisted @ google. Also while it's true that kat.cr is serving adware, it does not do so on the frontpage. http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://sourceforge.net&client=chromium&hl=en-US http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...
- mathgeek 11y ago> Also while it's true that kat.cr is serving adware, it does not do so on the frontpage. Unfortunately the warning has to appear on any page on the domain, since once you skip it you're essentially white listing the domain. That's why you don't get another warning on every page.
- kbatten 11y agoShouldn't google block youtube if they care about massive corporate supported copyright infringement?
- stingraycharles 11y agoWho says this is about copyright infringement?
- tomjen3 11y agoGiven that this is a torrent site, I think that malfeasance is a natural, and good, first assumption. Attributing things to ignorance over malice is only going to result in evil people getting away with it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- igravious 11y agoI'm as cynical as the next person but this appears to over ads that have a malware payload when clicked (maybe when even not clicked, is this possible??) -- not copyright infringement. Anyways this site: https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/ https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-o... says that the issue is already resolved so we don't need to run around screaming that the sky is falling and pointing fingers :) See the very end of the post. Update: Some people report that Firefox also started blocking access to several torrent sites. Update: ExtraTorrent says it successfully resolved the issue with Google through webmaster tools. RARBG is also unblocked. Update: Google didn’t comment on this specific situation and referred us to a recent blog post. --- link provided by superasn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869360
- kp25 11y agoSeems like they(3rd party) haven't found a way to stop piracy and started trying so hard to add malicious code, which may lead to blocking out these websites by all the major browser vendors and reduce piracy to some extent. The one behind this, You're gonna lose the war.!
- stingraycharles 11y agoThis sounds very conspiracy-theory-ish to me. The more likely explanation is that some ad network allowed malware ads to go through which triggered the block.
- Yokohiii 11y agoYup. On top of that it could be a false positive in the malware detection algorithm. Not defeding anyone, ad business is highly volatile, especially in grey areas of the web.
- legulere 11y agoEspecially when you consider that the ad networks those sites are using are rather sketchy. Many of the ads there try to trick you into believing they're the actual download link
- Mikushi 11y agoYup. Though if you keep the tinfoil hat on, nothing stop a malicious entity to use those network to funnel malware to those websites through targeting, the security of these ad networks is usually subpar, not too hard to imagine an entity determined enough to figure out an sure way to slip in malware.
- Wizzard666 11y agojust like most adword ads for software, the only sane solution is adblock
- anon1385 11y ago>the ad networks those sites are using are rather sketchy. Many of the ads there try to trick you into believing they're the actual download link If that's your definition of a sketchy ad network then there aren't many that aren't sketchy. Google serves ads that do that all the time. It only took me a few seconds to find this misleading fake download link ad being served by Google on one of the download pages of download.com: http://i.imgur.com/wYAfr7z.png http://i.imgur.com/wYAfr7z.png Would Google blacklist download.com for serving malicious google ads? Somehow I doubt it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- scottmcdot 11y agoThis alternative link [1] to KAT doesn't have the security error. [1] http://thekatroxy.net/ http://thekatroxy.net/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- chippy 11y agoTorrentFreak Article about this: https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/ https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-o...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- oneubauer 11y agoFWIW this isn't just affecting torrent sites. Some software repos have also been affected recently.
- gp7 11y agoGiven the average user's ability to figure out that blue download buttons are not in fact download buttons, just ad sites that offer you your download by name but in fact give you malware, this is the correct decision
- neotek 11y agoAdSense delivers a veritable shitload of ads with big blue download buttons.
- jokoon 11y agoI remember that i was getting popups on many torrent sites just by clicking on the search input field or selecting text, even on tpb and kat. Not very surprised. The ads they get are pretty bad, and i wonder if the mpaa or riaa don't have some cog in there.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- neotek 11y agoPretty sure it'll be because of the semi-shady ad networks that service torrent sites and various other filehosts. The networks themselves aren't shady, per se, but they don't have the resources of Google to adequately police all of the ads that run through their networks. As a result, they end up serving malicious ads that link to dodgy installers or even straight up 0-day browser exploits.
- the8472 11y agothen why block/replace the top-level page instead of the embedded content like an adblocker would?
- zetafunction 11y agoThe interstitial for blocked content is implemented on a per-page level. You can test this yourself by creating a test page with an iframe to http://ianfette.org http://ianfette.org. Suppose that Chrome just tried to replace the malicious embedded content. What happens when that embedded content is styled with CSS properties to make it hidden from the user?
- the8472 11y agoThey could overlay the message or have an information bar or whatever. UI design is not an argument against more measured blocking. I don't see a technical necessity to block a whole top-level page when the security model of a browser consists of many different origins.
- leereeves 11y agoErring on the side of caution. If a page has included known exploits, it might also include unknown exploits.
- cjensen 11y agoBecause a site that is willing to host these kinds of ads may use more than one ad service, and Google may not have detected all the bad ad services. The fault here lies squarely with the websites. They choose to work with scum. Let them fix the mess instead of blaming Google.
- joesmo 11y agoAt this point, the only think keeping me on Chrome/Chromium is their dev tools. After the 'Ok Google' binary blob and now this shit, I've just about had it. At the very least, there should be an option to unblock sites permanently to fix this. There is absolutely no reason why I should have to turn off all Phishing & malware alerts just because Google suddenly got a paycheck from the MPAA/RIAA. Whatever their reason is, it doesn't matter, as it leads to unsafe browsing regardless. Way to go Google!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mgraczyk 11y agoCould you elaborate on what upset you about the OK Google blob? Assuming you're using Chrome rather than Chromium, the whole thing was a literal non-event (nothing new had happened, nothing changed).
- joesmo 11y agoIt bothered me because I can't use Chromium to get away from such a stupid feature and the huge security hole / risk that is its implementation despite the fact that that is the whole point of Chromium's existence and OSS status. It also bothered me because while the stated purpose of the blob was atrocious, there's no way to know that it didn't do any other malicious tasks.
- mgraczyk 11y agoOpt-in hotword detection is "atrocious"? I'm confused by your use of that word. Also it has been removed from Chromium now, so in fact you can use Chromium to get away from the feature...
- belgianguy 11y agoDo a Google search on "Jim Hood vs Google", see who he colluded with, and then come read your own post here again. In short: The MPAA/RIAA hates Google. To top it off, you name Chrome/Chromium as if it's the same product, and then go off on a tangent about a binary blob (voice recognition) that was included. Other comments would have gotten away with that, was it not that the whole issue here _is_ the distinction between Chrome and Chromium, the latter being an FOSS project, which has no place for closed source binary blobs. (And that was the underlying issue, not its functionality.) Some people need to be protected against themselves, for some this protection is a site block, for others it's reading more before writing drivel in the HN comment section. Link for the lazy: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/04/11/jim-hood-attorney-general-google/25638823/ http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/04/11/jim-hood-... The block was put in place because of malware being served by those domains, blocking them is by far the easiest response and _also_ the most motivating for its hosts to undertake action. Occam's Razor seems to agree that this was a bad advertising being blocked rather than "ebil guggle conspirucy".
- anonbanker 11y agoThis is some pretty hillarious bureaucracy we're seeing here. First, the world was noticed [0] that google would begin blocking "Unwanted Software", and included a link [1] to their "unwanted software policy". This means that they can claim they gave all the torrent sites good faith notice since february, and even though none of them realized that they would be considered unwanted software, the time ran out, and google quietly swept these sites under the rug. They don't seem to be retracting this, either, which means this is business as usual. I consider this action to be further proof that "Don't Be Evil" died with Eric Schmidt coming on board. This is stuff I'd expect out of Microsoft, but it still surprises me when Google does it. 0. http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.nl/2015/02/more-protection-from-unwanted-software.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.nl/2015/02/more-protect... 1. https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/unwanted-software-policy.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/unwanted-softwa...
- rancur 11y ago> Don't be evil heavy load to carry financially and liably speaking
- glimmung 11y agoSure - but Google chose that mantra themselves. As you suggest, it may not be something we can reasonably expect, all things being equal. However, that's not the case here - in this case the commenter is comparing their actual behaviour to their stated policy, which is perfectly reasonable.
- neotek 11y agoWhat evidence do you have that Google is trying to block torrent sites specifically? It would seem to me, given the way the safe browsing report is worded, that it isn't the torrent sites themselves that are considered malicious, it's the content being delivered via third parties (i.e., ad networks) that Google's flagging. You're basically implying a conspiracy by Google to police the internet by limiting access to sites that enable piracy, but I don't understand why you think they'd choose this route rather than just de-indexing torrent sites completely, which they could easily and justifiably do.
- Houshalter 11y agoIt's probably a false positive from an ad or user content linking to malware. It's already been fixed.
- cwyers 11y agoHow is that a false positive, as opposed to just a positive?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 7952 11y agoI wonder if politicians have started to notice how much power a few browser makers have? Protecting Mozilla is so important for the future of the web.
- dimino 11y agoAll the sites listed were unblocked on Chrome 43.0.2357.132 (64-bit) for OS X.
- wnevets 11y agohalf of the links on these pages (not the torrents) lead to malware, surprised its taken this long.
- pessimizer 11y agoIt's probably a single sketchy ad network if not a single sketchy ad. Most torrent sites use the same few networks; there aren't a lot of choices if you're a torrent site. I don't understand the commotion - the warnings look typical, I'm glad google provides them, and they're easy enough to bypass (at your own peril esp. if you use Windows.) I resent this story for forcing me to say something nice about google. There's a multitude of better reasons not to use Chrome.
- ksk 11y agoRather amusing to see an advertising company like Google protecting Chrome users from these "extra ads". I wonder if an OS could block Google's software for vacuuming your information to Google's servers, never to be deleted.
- jayperez9011 11y agoHey guys, if you have problems with Chrome block or some errors like myself earlier try www.filespook.com and you will be able to use the popular torrent and streaming sites no matter of your location ...enjoy!