It seems like the content industry has managed to score another hit in its 'fight' against piracy, and this time, it's a big fish. Announced a few weeks ago already, Google has started censoring its auto-complete and instant features for an arbitrary set of search terms - such as 'bittorrent', 'torrent', 'rapidshare', and any terms derived from those (e.g. 'ubuntu torrent' is censored as well).
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2009-07-30
Yeah, I almost miss the good old simple days, when Microsoft was evil and Google said it won't be. Well, I've been getting this sense for a while that big evil is not to be found in Redmond, WA any more (I still stay clear of their products, but it's mostly matter of personal preference and what enables me to be efficient/productive rather than fight against evil at this point). Well, I've switched my default search engine to Bing now, we'll see how that goes.
BTW. Thom, you're style might be hard to swallow for some (even though really that is probably just lack of perspective and sense of humor on receiving end), but over all, good job on dragging big contents and their plots to open daylight. Appreciated.
Member since:2007-12-26
I don't want to use Bing because of dogmatic view of the world, but are there actually any good alternatives?
I know many other search engines but they only seem useful if you'd like to find pictures of Britney Spears, want to know the recipe of cake or want to know if that lump is malignant while being to lazy to visit a doctor.
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2006-12-05
Member since:2006-10-28
"idsoftware torrent" won't give any suggestion either.
But the first result was:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com
and also correct my question to:
"id software torrent"
Zerowing is ID Software's Bittorrent Tracker.
Member since:2005-06-29
I tried the same test and had some interesting results.
Slackware = suggestions
Slackware b = suggestions
Slackware bi = suggestions
Slackware bit = "Google Instant is off due to connection speed. Press Enter to search."
Interestingly, my connection speed had not changed, and it's more than fast enough for autocomplete. Also I repeated this test numerous times and had the exact same results every time. If I typed "Slackware bittorrent" really fast I got the same connection speed error. If I typed it slowly, one character at a time I got suggestions after each letter until the "t", then it went to the error message.
Even stranger, "Ubuntu torrent" gave suggestions until I typed the first "t" on "torrent", and from that point the suggestion box simply didn't appear. There were no error messages. Once I had typed the full word "torrent" I started getting suggestions again, such as "Ubuntu torrent 9.04" etc.
Curiouser and curiouser.
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For reference, I live in the Southeastern United States, and I'm connected via T-mobile 3G with an average connection speed of 1.4Mbps, in Windows XP and using the latest Firefox release.
Member since:2009-07-30
I suppose:
a) this behavior might be geo specific.
b) they are still tweaking it.
At the moment: "Slackware bit" goes blank on suggestion and instant results for me. If I keep typing for instance bitrate, instant results resume to be displayed once I punch the "r" in, but not so suggestions.
If I dare and for instance try figuring out where to look for Slackware media distribution via bittorent. I get blank for suggestions and instant results "Slackware bit" through "Slackware bittorren". Funnily, once I hit "Bit torrent" I get some results displayed and few suggestions (client, package, firewall, howto).
I guess Google is still working on this and the goal would be to make censorship as seamless as possible. "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over."
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Member since:
2009-07-30
This is actually quite funny. For instance:
Slackware -> load of suggestions
Slackware b -> load of suggestions
Slackware bi -> load of suggestions
Slackware bit -> umm, blank.
Don't you dare to lookup how to setup your serial port bitrate. Your activities are monitored and will be reported. PIRATE!