forum taking ages to load

[C_Claycomb]

Wow, good call Match! :You_Rock_



For interest, here is an article I read in the Times some while ago which promptly put me off Google altogether. I now use another search engine and do not have that bar anywhere.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2688404.ece

Google - "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

 

[sandbender]

That works for me, thanks Match

Yep, google are quite terrifying

 

[Toddy]

Okay, I'm convinced ; but what / who do I use for a search engine if not Google?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Bernie Garland]

If not google who do we use.

Bernie

 

[Wayland]

http://83.170.96.58/

this server is down and blocking the site loading. I've confirmed this by putting a block in on the page load in Firefox so it skips all references to this server - this causes the page to load instantly.

So how do I do that?

 

[andy_e]

Edit: Suggestion removed : it won't work in this case ... sorry

 

[Wayland]

Sorry... Firefox.

 

[DoctorSpoon]

yes, how do you do that? I'm on Firefox for mac 2.0.0.12. Thanks!

 

[DoctorSpoon]

Got it! If you're on Firefox load the "blocksite" add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145 put this as a blocked site http://83.170.96.58/ and you're away
Thanks folks!

 

[Wayland]

OK Google adblock firefox and load the extention.

When bcuk loads click adblock at bottom right of page and choose the

http://83.170.96.58/

to block it.


Works great. Good call Match.

 

[andy_e]

Hahaha! Beaten to it

 

[DoctorSpoon]

two minutes faster than you wayland!!

 

[Wayland]

Must learn to type faster.

I'm working five forums (Forii ?) here....

 

[DoctorSpoon]

I'm only working three forums and, as a woman, I'm much better at multi-tasking

 

[Wayland]

Won't argue with you there.

Went to see the Bodyworlds exhibition at the weekend and left with the impression that whoever designed male bodies had a cruel sense of humour.

 

[demographic]

Okay, I'm convinced ; but what / who do I use for a search engine if not Google?

cheers,
Toddy

Beats me, I just downloaded something that zaps the everlasting Google cookie, it's not that I feel like I have much to hide anyway but thats not the point I still don't like having Big Brother looking over my shoulder looking out for thoughtcrime.
It's the principle of the matter.

It's doubleplus bad that they even think that it would be OK to do it. Meh.

 

[andy_e]

It's doubleplus bad that they even think that it would be OK to do it. Meh.

That would be doubleplus ungood brother, please be so good as to report for educational enhancement

 

[C_Claycomb]

I have been using Altavista... I don't think they are affiliated with Google though I am never sure these days who own what behind the scenes.

I used to use them, then they added loads of rubbish to their main page with just a tiny search box in the corner, which was why/when I went to Google, now Altavista have a clean interface much like that of Google. The search results are very similar too.

 

[TheGreenMan]

I feel I’d like to write a few words about this privacy thing. There is much that is misunderstood about this subject, and that’s quite understandable. What we don’t understand can quite often frighten us, but that doesn’t always mean that we have to remain in a state of ignorance, and so we can reduce our level of, sometimes, understandable anxiety. And to that end I’d like to help a little if you would be so kind as to indulge me.

This is no negative criticism of demographic, I’m sure the text that was posted was with the best of intentions. However, I’d like to bring a little analysis to the text, and hopefully bust a few myths in the process, and give us all pause for thought about the assumptions we can often make when presented with information that feeds our anxieties and bypasses our rational thought processes.

The points I make below are by no means the only ones that I feel deserve scrutiny, but to address every aspect of the text would, I feel, be exhaustive for both me and the reader.

It’s interesting to note that we do not know who the author of the text is, and the author makes a number of claims that would take the reader a considerable amount of private research (using Google perhaps) to verify. And the author makes no attempt to provide the reader with the sources of their information so that we ourselves may review those sources and form our own conclusions and opinions.

Let’s begin:

‘1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.’

Does anyone know what a ‘federal website’ is? And does anybody know how these, so called, federal websites, relate to the Google company at all?

The cookie may place a unique ID number in a file somewhere on your computer’s hard drive (your Web Browser will know where), but it doesn’t assign a number to the drive hardware itself (it already has one of its own).

And the Google site won’t place a cookie in the Web Browser’s temporary files if you have the Browser set to not accept cookies. The search engine works just fine without a cookie – there’s a surprise for you. You know, these bad guys aren’t as clever as they think they are.

'2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."'

Well, this baby swings both ways. If you look at the sponsored Links at the right of the Google screen you’ll notice that they are often companies that are in the same country that the machine you are using is located. This can help to save on the amount of carbon that is put into the atmosphere when you buy goods from a retailer abroad. It’s not as if the bad guys know that you live in Acacia Avenue, or anything.

'3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.'

According to Elliot Schrage of Google is quoted as saying (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk...e_web/article2688404.ece?token=null&offset=24

'5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.'

So, Mr Cutts is actually an ex-spook then <ahem>? And the assertion that Google is therefore passing on information about the individual citizen yo governmnet is nothing more than gossip that can’t be substantiated, at least not by the author, apparently.

'6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.'

Google does not have complete access to your hard disk. And I’d love to read an explanation of how software that is set to update automatically, presents a ‘massive security risk’.

'7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."'

‘Google’s cache copy is illegal;’ and then ‘Google’s cache copy appears to be illegal’ – seems the author likes to have their cake and eat it. It’s one or the other, it can’t be both.

And I’m delighted to hear that a Webmaster can prevent Google caching the site content, and hasn’t been presented with no choice in the matter. With Cascading Style Sheets that should be as easy as pie to implement. And why would any respectable Webmaster have anything that is ‘questionable’ on the site in the first place?

'8. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.'

No Webmaster that wants their site to be found can't avoid registering it with a Search Engine, it doesn’t have to be Google, though. The use of the term ‘semi-secret’ is intriguing, but I guess that’s what was intended.

'9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.'

The whole of the technology is a potential ‘privacy time bomb’, it’s not something that is unique to Google. And so long as government is only dreaming of ‘slick efficiency’ we haven’t got much to worry about, there’s still time to ‘go off grid’, and if we choose to be that bold, and cease worrying what we might be missing out on.

I’m no IT wizard, but I hope I’ve won a small victory for the common sense of the common man.

And they call me crazy.

Kind regards,
Paul.

PS: And let’s save the aluminium for what it’s meant for – stove windshields and the BBQ.

 

[demographic]

I feel I’d like to write a few words about this privacy thing. There is much that is misunderstood about this subject, and that’s quite understandable. What we don’t understand can quite often frighten us, but that doesn’t always mean that we have to remain in a state of ignorance, and so we can reduce our level of, sometimes, understandable anxiety. And to that end I’d like to help a little if you would be so kind as to indulge me.

This is no negative criticism of demographic, I’m sure the text that was posted was with the best of intentions. However, I’d like to bring a little analysis to the text, and hopefully bust a few myths in the process, and give us all pause for thought about the assumptions we can often make when presented with information that feeds our anxieties and bypasses our rational thought processes.

The points I make below are by no means the only ones that I feel deserve scrutiny, but to address every aspect of the text would, I feel, be exhaustive for both me and the reader.

It’s interesting to note that we do not know who the author of the text is, and the author makes a number of claims that would take the reader a considerable amount of private research (using Google perhaps) to verify. And the author makes no attempt to provide the reader with the sources of their information so that we ourselves may review those sources and form our own conclusions and opinions.

Let’s begin:

‘1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.’

Does anyone know what a ‘federal website’ is? And does anybody know how these, so called, federal websites, relate to the Google company at all?

The cookie may place a unique ID number in a file somewhere on your computer’s hard drive (your Web Browser will know where), but it doesn’t assign a number to the drive hardware itself (it already has one of its own).

And the Google site won’t place a cookie in the Web Browser’s temporary files if you have the Browser set to not accept cookies. The search engine works just fine without a cookie – there’s a surprise for you. You know, these bad guys aren’t as clever as they think they are.

'2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."'

Well, this baby swings both ways. If you look at the sponsored Links at the right of the Google screen you’ll notice that they are often companies that are in the same country that the machine you are using is located. This can help to save on the amount of carbon that is put into the atmosphere when you buy goods from a retailer abroad. It’s not as if the bad guys know that you live in Acacia Avenue, or anything.

'3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.'

According to Elliot Schrage of Google is quoted as saying (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk...e_web/article2688404.ece?token=null&offset=24

'5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.'

So, Mr Cutts is actually an ex-spook then <ahem>? And the assertion that Google is therefore passing on information about the individual citizen yo governmnet is nothing more than gossip that can’t be substantiated, at least not by the author, apparently.

'6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.'

Google does not have complete access to your hard disk. And I’d love to read an explanation of how software that is set to update automatically, presents a ‘massive security risk’.

'7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."'

‘Google’s cache copy is illegal;’ and then ‘Google’s cache copy appears to be illegal’ – seems the author likes to have their cake and eat it. It’s one or the other, it can’t be both.

And I’m delighted to hear that a Webmaster can prevent Google caching the site content, and hasn’t been presented with no choice in the matter. With Cascading Style Sheets that should be as easy as pie to implement. And why would any respectable Webmaster have anything that is ‘questionable’ on the site in the first place?

'8. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.'

No Webmaster that wants their site to be found can't avoid registering it with a Search Engine, it doesn’t have to be Google, though. The use of the term ‘semi-secret’ is intriguing, but I guess that’s what was intended.

'9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.'

The whole of the technology is a potential ‘privacy time bomb’, it’s not something that is unique to Google. And so long as government is only dreaming of ‘slick efficiency’ we haven’t got much to worry about, there’s still time to ‘go off grid’, and if we choose to be that bold, and cease worrying what we might be missing out on.

I’m no IT wizard, but I hope I’ve won a small victory for the common sense of the common man.

And they call me crazy.

Kind regards,
Paul.

PS: And let’s save the aluminium for what it’s meant for – stove windshields and the BBQ.

Thanks for the well written and thought out post, Personally I don't know a massive amount about it all either, I don't really care about if they cache sites or not but I do however care that they seem to be trying to build up enough information to sell us things we didn't really want.

Theres a bit more info about it HERE

Not going to boost the sales of bacofoil just yet and I still use Google, its just that I saw a thread on a motorcycle forum I use and although the language of the quote I copied out is a bit scaremongering there is enough of a basis of truth in it for me to bother with something that gets shot of the everlasting ccookie.

For the most part is anyone did know my full computer history they would be bored to tears but that doesn't mean I am keen on giving my details out on a platter.
Most of the complaints the first quote I copied out don't rate at all on my Giveatossometer.

Cheers, Scott.