Most dangerous search terms

[zaphirer]

Linky

 

BEWARE! The most dangerous search terms, revealed!

 

THERE IS ONE phrase which, if you type into any search engine will expose your PC to shed-loads of spam, according to a new report.

 

Researchers Ben Edelman and Hannah Rosenbaum reckon that typing the phrase "Free Screensavers" into any search engine is the equivalent of lighting a blue touch paper and standing well back.

 

The writers of the report work for Site Advisor, recently acquired by AV firm McAfee, so might be said to have some self interest in all of this.

 

More than 64 per cent of sites that are linked to this phrase will cause you some trouble, either with spyware or adware. The report found 1,394 popular keywords searches found via Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask that were linked to spyware or adware and the list is quite amusing. Do not type in the following words into any search engine:

 

Bearshare

Screensavers

Winmx

Limewire

Download Yahoo messenger

Lime wire

Free ringtones

 

Site Advisor reckons that the search engines should do more to point people who might type these words into their search engines away from the dodgy sites.

 

The only search term I think I used was 'Limewire.' Those who took the Spyware quiz over in the SpyWare Hell already know that Bearshare is evil... as for the others, who ever searches for those?

 

by the way... can someone tell me what winmx is? I don't want to search for it

[Andavari]

WinMX was/is a P2P program for downloading audio and video files, although I haven't used it in years I don't know if it even exists anymore due to the legal issues with the RIAA. I basically stopped using it about a month before the RIAA was going to start suing people and haven't downloaded any audio files from a P2P program ever since now I download directly from artists websites or from the record company websites since that is considered a legal download.

 

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Oh yeah and about getting f'd up search results I had one of those a few hours ago when I was looking for Sonic RecordNow skins. There were allot of bulls**t links like adware/spyware/warez that SiteAdvisor flagged as bad, needless to say I didn't find what I was looking for due to all the bulls**t links.

[Eldmannen]

Andavari, there is a P2P called DC++, it is pretty good.

Also, the chance of you getting busted for filesharing is pretty minimal. Almost like getting caught for walking pass the street on red light.

 

Which artists/record-companies have songs available for free download on their sites?

 

Would be cool if SiteAdvisor/Scandoo could hide or shrink the results to sites flagged as bad...

[Andavari]

Which artists/record-companies have songs available for free download on their sites?

 

• Century Media Records - all mp3's most are 128kbps however there are a good number that are of higher bitrates. Hope you like metal music though. You have to click Save As otherwise they just play in your media player, and for some reason the downloads don't work with my installed version of Opera and it's a pain in the ass to download from using Firefox whilst Internet Explorer works without any hiccups.

• Machinae Supremacy - ogg's or mp3's, sort of like metal/game music, I like everything they have available for free. Go with the ogg's!

Allot of record companies have free music downloads, although Century Media Records is the only one I've seen with so many that are actually full songs and not at a god aweful unlistenable bitrate, e.g.; under 128kbps. If there's an artist you like it doesn't hurt to visit their official website since they could have free downloads.

[Andavari]

Another record company that has some free mp3 downloads is Mighty Music, of course they're metal also.

[Eldmannen]

Cool, someone ought to make a collection of links to such websites...