back to article Scroogle: Dear Google, we're not bots, we're HUMAN

A not-for-profit search engine that serves up a privacy-friendly version of Google has been out of action for much of today. Scroogle, which has routinely been scraping the Chocolate Factory's search results since 2002 in very workmanlike fashion, sported an error message announcing that it was down for most of the day. " …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quack

    Why bother even mucking about with anything connected to Google anymore, just use DuckDuckGo.

    Moved over and don't think I'll be going back.

    1. Old Handle
      Thumb Down

      Only trouble is, DuckDuckGo sucks. It relies too much on scripts, doens't work properly on older browsers, and defaults to obnoxiously heavy censorship (try searching for "sex").

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        'try searching for "sex"'

        Erm, works fine once you turn off safe search? (which they suggest you do when you search for "sex")

        Also you can do it via the (great) control panel: http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html

        This lets you customise most things, including turning off the few ads they run (and they suggest an alternative way of supporting the site). Google could learn quite a bit about "personalisation" from that alone.

        So no, it doesn't suck.. really. What older browsers are you using anyway?

        1. TeeCee Gold badge
          Coat

          How does it preserve those settings changes between sessions?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @TeeCee

            "This page requires JavaScript and cookies to function properly. However, neither are required to change settings. You can use URL parameters instead of this page. Just set your homepage like this to use your current settings:

            You can also load settings from a URL parameter string. Or reset all settings. If you want to turn off JavaScript altogether, try out our HTML and lite versions."

            Seems they have everything thought out and you have a choice of using a cookie for settings or not.

        2. Old Handle
          Thumb Down

          Re: 'try searching for "sex"'

          First of all, searching for "sex" turns up absolutely nothing. Not not sex education sites, not the Wikipedia article, not a dictionary definition, nothing. Which frankly, is just stupid. I could forgive that if it wasn't the default, or even if the censorship was easy to turn off. But no...

          Needless to say, the settings page one one of the parts that doesn't work without javascript. And apparently it was too much effort to include this basic functionality in the html/lite versions.

          Yes it's possible force it with a URL parameter, but that's already getting kind of ridiculous, and to top it off it won't even remember that setting from one search to the next.

          So yeah, it sucks.

      2. Doug Glass
        Go

        Your learning curve is a bit flat mate.

    2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Or use..

      startpage.com. It works with Google, but keeps your details from them.

  2. Anomalous Cowturd
    Holmes

    News?

    I emailed your news-desk about this over a week ago!

    Obvious icon is obvious.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wouldn't be much easier for Scroogle

    to build their own search engine and offer those results without having to rely on Google infrastructure ? Why be afraid, Google started small, in a garage and look where they are now. Scroogle could then design and impose their own privacy policies and other stuff like that.

    Alternatively, why not pay Google in exchange for the permission to do just that, repackage their search results.

    1. Paul RND*1000

      I guess the whole point is to deliver the same results as Google without all the crap.

      Though lately I'm having a hell of a time thinking of reasons why delivering the same results as Google is even a good idea.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "build their own search engine"

      Any budding search engine will find it immensely hard to compete with Google's vast amount of users across all their products essentially crowd-picking the most relevant links.

      So many crowdsourced metrics for the picking: most clicked link in search results, most +1'ed, most starred in Google reader, most shared in Gmail/Gtalk just to name the most obvious....Plus they have direct Internet peering across most parts of the world.

      Let's be honest, short of changing search itself no garage company is going to improve on this. If one merely hints they could do so, Google would buy them up anyway - as reported, they are buying a company a week these days.

      Facebook could, but I guess they're not going to release some half baked "beta"solution, when they do release it it'll be straight to the jugular. This thought must keep some Googlers awake at night, hence the whole "put them into Google+ whether they like it or not" approach.

    3. stanimir

      b/c creating a search engine and having the resources, incl. hardware is very far from trivial job.

      Google processes images, javascript and what not.

      Working as proxy is absolutely trivial and embarrassingly easy to scale type of job.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @stanimir - So you suggest pirating Google's search

        is the way to go ? Can this be sustainable ?

        1. stanimir

          pirate?!

          @AC - Feb 14, 21:11GMT

          --

          Why call it pirate? The search result is free of charge and publicly available, it's just a representation difference + anonymity.

          The former can be addressed by a client modification and it's quite an easy job, disable ads, skim what part of the interface you deem superfluous etc. I practically do not see any ads, blocking ad sites is simple.

          The latter, however, is a hard nut to crack, mostly b/c google can keep you tracking w/ or w/o your consent - cookies, IP, "clicks", view. Cookies can be mended just as well, but the IP requires an external proxy and/or large scale organization to cover multiple persons/users under a single (or multiple) IPs.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @much easier for Scroogle to build their own search engine....

      but they strip out all sponsored results and advertising...

      so you goan send them 10 cents for every search you conduct?

      They live off donations

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is there some kind of hidden agenda going on here, with regards to DuckDckGo? Every time El Reg prints an article which references search engines, two or three people always pipe up to claim they've switched to DuckDuckGo and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I find it strange, because I've only ever heard of DDG or heard people mention DDG on here.

    I'm not saying DDG is a bad search engine. It seems to work OK. But there are dozens of other search engines, which aren't Google either and which also work OK. The honest truth is that most search engines seem to throw up pretty much the same results, give or take a bit of ranking shuffling. The cynic in me thinks that they're all scraping the same database for their results. Someone enlighten me as to why DDG seems to have become the poster child for ad-free and tracking-free searching?

    1. Doug Glass
      Go

      Maybe people are just sick and tired of Google.

      1. TerryParker

        SICK TO DEATH OF GOOGLE

        I second this post!!! I am so sick of Google I could PUKE!!!! Their loser hackers hack our business from two houses down. Apparently the OBLAHBLAH administration, along with Chase Bank, put them there to run us out.

        OBLAH has already put a friend of mine out of business. She owned a small convenience store/gas station in Austin, TX. Put her out of business in a matter of months so they could turn the company over to a USED TIRE GHETTO SHOP!!!! MAkes me SICK!

        Get this freak out of office and GET GOOGLE OUT OF MY BUSINESS....

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: SICK TO DEATH OF GOOGLE

          Pretty sure you're supposed to take those pills TWICE a day.

    2. Kevin Johnston

      Pointer

      I got my pointer to DDG from Linux Mint. They changed to make it one of their intial list search engines and then promoted it to pole position bacause they liked the philosophy behind it.

      It's just possible that it gets mentioned so often because it does the job it needs to without any fanfare or tracking. The other front-runners are either stuffed with ads/Sponsored results (yes I know those are the same thing) or else track everything you do 'to help you search better'. Even I don't know what I am going to be looking for next and if it is similar to something I have already looked for then why would I want the same results pushed back at me 'to be helpful'.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Don't think there is an hidden agenda.

      I started using DuckDuckGo and genuinely like it, especially all the integration with things like Wolfram Alpha, Wikipedia, etc.

      With Google's recent turn for the worse I was looking at other search engines and to be honest only got along with DDG.

      The results seem positively better than Bing (and Google) and the bang syntax let's me quickly try out other sources without leaving the same screen. What's not to like, really.

      I guess if you like something it's only natural you recommend it? It's also similar to how Google got started.

    4. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Word of mouth, innit

      How Google originally spread

      And there aren't too many options when it comes to tracking-free searching, as far as I know your choices are Scroogle (broken), Startpage, and DDG.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    you can get all the search you need

    from Cuil

    1. Wensleydale Cheese

      Cuil?

      I blocked Cuil from crawling all the websites I manage yonks ago.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Cuil-ed

      It's no more, and went down in the shittiest of ways too: "PC Magazine reported that on the morning of September 17, 2010 "employees were told about Cuil's demise [...] and the servers were taken offline five hours later." Laid-off employees were told they would not be paid. The shutdown reportedly came after an acquisition agreement fell through earlier in the week."

      Biggest hype turned shit that ever was. What else would one expect from an alternative search engine built by two ex-Googlers anyway: once a Googler always a Googler - sheltered pompous lot they are.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the thin end of the wedge

    I find it alarming that Google has made scroogle.org disappear from search results. Try a search for 'scroogle'. Nothing. Google's job is to provide search results, not alter reality to suit its business. What will we see next? Will Adblock Plus one day silently disappear from search results because it makes a dent in Google's ad revenue?

    Google is already pissing around with search terms, offering up what it thinks you probably meant, such that you have to click the Verbatim link to search for what you *actually* typed. It's becoming a bit too much like hard work to get what you want from it, and now this.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Next..

      Next they'll show Adblock Plus to you, because they know if fits your profile and you'd be angry if they didn't.

      But they won't show it to the average non-techy Joe, with the excuse that it doesn't fit within his interests.

      Welcome to Google Search 2.0, now with added evilness, already here today.

      Make sure you at least have opted out of targeted profiling via

      http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/view or just use a more consistent search engine.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Don't be evil

      Making "scroogle" blatently not show up in the search results is "Evil" by any definition I can think of. A lot of what they have been doing has been "well, not actually Evil, but certainly not honorable", but failing to list Scroogle when directly searched for is clearly over the line.

    3. Wensleydale Cheese

      Google messing around with search terms

      @Chris 68: "Google is already pissing around with search terms, offering up what it thinks you probably meant..."

      They've been doing that with my family name for a year or two now.

      It's bloody annoying to be told that you don't really mean your own name.

      And this morning Gmail started giving me personalised ads:

      "This ad is based on emails from your mailbox. Visit Google's Ads Preferences Manager to learn more, block specific advertisers or opt out of personalised ads".

      Er, they've based that on a total of 4 outgoing emails, all to the same person :-)

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Coat

        "They've been doing that with my family name for a year or two now."

        Let me guess, loads of results for a well-known dairy product made in Yorkshire?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I remember now! :)

    "Its traffic is nearly always boosted when there's a public outcry about Mountain View's handling of data and privacy online..."

    I heard something along the same lines a looooong time ago, when Google was that small search engine trying to challenge.... what was it.. Yahoo probably... w

    hey, what did people use before google to find stuff?! I honestly don't remember for sure! :(

    "Funny", how google can embed itself as THE search engine.

    Scroogle, huh?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Really? We used Altavista, Excite, Lycos, HotBot, Yahoo and my favourite Alltheweb.

      At first Google's results were as - or more - shitty as the others, but a lot of people started moving because the UI was very clean and the ads were very light..

      In the meantime Google forgot to keep it that way.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "a lot of people started moving because the UI was very clean"

        Don't forget the enormous advertising campaign. I think that was the first time I ever saw a pure internet technology advertised at a bus stop.

        And when I say "a bus stop", I mean "every bus stop".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      BG

      "...hey, what did people use before google to find stuff?! I honestly don't remember for sure!..."

      I used to use Alta Vista, back in the years BG [before Google]. One of the reasons I switched to Google was that [back then] Google offered a simple, no-nonsense search; one search box, with advanced options, if you needed them. A lot of the other search engines were, at that time moving towards the DMOZ [i think it was called] model of "human curated" search directories, which I always found a complete pain in the arse, as you had to hoke through a zillion categories and sub-categories to find anything.

      The irony is that nowadays, having seen off the competition, Google's search results are becoming almost as unhelpful. This time requiring me to wade through zillions of ads, sponsored results, "did you means..."?, link farms and other crap.

      Hidden agenda, or no, it might be time to give the duck a whirl.

  8. chrisl
    Stop

    So Google is blocking a site that scraps it's content, removes it's sources of revenue and then makes it available? What's the problem with that? Google is a profit making company not a charity.

    1. TheRealRoland

      what we need...

      Is a system that filter's out the incorrect apostrophe's.

      ;-)

      (Wonder what effect that will have on the use of emoticons, though)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "a site that scraps it's content, removes it's sources of revenue and then makes it available"

      Sounds a lot like what Google also does, except Google even puts their own ads on top.

      When it's done to them suddenly it's wrong? Do no evil, indeed.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ixquick

    .... works just fine.

    Startpage.com - Ixquick Google scraper also seems to work fine. Never could get on with DDG.

    1. Nebulo
      Big Brother

      Yep, Ixquick

      Following a comment on this very site a week or two ago, I verified that Startpage poos a Google cookie onto your machine when you visit it. Ixquick doesn't. Startpage is no longer welcome on my pc after such misbehaviour, and google.com is now blacklisted on my cookie filter.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        @Nebulo

        Can't reproduce it. It's either been fixed or it's a problem restricted to one server.

        1. Nebulo

          @Dan

          Thanks for that - it definitely did happen when I tried at the time. That's the trouble with casting sites into the outer darkness for ever - you never know when they repent.

    2. Drew V.

      Ixquick doesn't scrape anyone, AC

      Ixquick is simply an alternative search engine based in the Netherlands who gathers its own results.

  10. sueme2
    Pint

    oh noes

    Strange, i just flipped over to the great satan of search, and got over 644000 results for "scroogle"

    Then I flipped back to seeks search

    However, the "google hates us" message has been there on scroogle for about a week.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed, but what you won't be seeing (at least in the first few pages I checked) is a link to scroogle.org (even if you actually search specifically for that).

      Odd, no?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: oh noes

      So did I.

      However, none of those results are actually for scroogle...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Worse

        Even searching for scroogle.org or site:scroogle.org doesnt show anything, not so much a search engine as an advertising platform.

        What you mean you didnt realise this?

        Google is your friend.

        Google loves you.

        Google is doing it for you.

        Google keeps you safe.

        Almost reminds me of 1984...

        1. graeme leggett Silver badge

          Fortunately

          I "Binged" it, and found the site.

          My enemies enemy and all that?

    3. stanimir

      try "scroogle.org"

      Do you see a link to the site? Well, you don't.... now you know.

      1. El Richard Thomas

        Of course, there is a tiny possibility that its non-appearance in Google could be something to do with its robots.txt file:

        User-agent: *

        Disallow: /

        http://www.scroogle.org/robots.txt

        I'm no fan of Google, but in this case they might not be at fault.

        1. multipharious

          The scraper doesn't want to be scraped

          Nice find btw. Their robots.txt conforms to web standards if you want to keep all crawlers off.

  11. Matthew 3

    Curious

    I only discovered Scroogle in the past week or so, from an article discussing Google's new policy and how to hide from their ever-widening reach.

    My guess is that others have done the same which has tipped the balance a little too far for Google to ignore. The funny thing is that I cheerfully abandoned AltaVista, Webcrawler, Hotbot, Yahoo and the rest in favour of Google because I liked their honest and fair approach.

    What I struggle to understand is why they'd piss away their hard-earned reputation quite so easily. Sure, I can see that Scroogle would be a nuisance but, seriously, does it really hit their profits for a few privacy-conscious folks to hide? When your corporate motto is seen as a joke (at best) and a lie (by others assessing your actions) you're in danger of burning bridges.

    Such a shame.

  12. squilookle
    Thumb Up

    I have also started using DuckDuckGo. The best thing about it is that you can easily direct your search to Google or Bing if you do not find what you are looking for.

    I also like the info box that appears above the results, and the integration with Wikipedia.

  13. AceRimmer1980
    Go

    it's easy to find scroogle

    blekko for it.

  14. andy 45
    Big Brother

    There is no Scroogle in Google search results because...

    ...Google says they are FINISHED....

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why Wikipedia Watch and Scroogle are down

    http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/File:DanielBrandtFriendsOfRyanCleary.jpg

    This screenshot taken from the Wikipedia Review shows why Scroogle search is unavailable, and it shows why Wikipedia Watch is down as well.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only bloody nutters use scroogle

    What a load of bollocks. They are a "charity" huh? These people should be forced to do hard labour, stupid lazy freetards. All they contribute is their oh so clever idea of ripping off someone else's search engine. Why don't they build an engine themselves? Probably because they are allergic to hard work. I shit 'em. Next?

    1. Drew V.
      Thumb Down

      Only bloody nutters are content with the current google

      I remember another search engine who didn't do aggressive tracking, did not make huge profits or go on the stock exchange, and had a very minimalistic interface. And it's hippy-like philosophy seemed to be more than a mere facade.

      It was Google in its early years.

      Frankly I don't understand why Google has since been allowed to occupy the near-monopolistic, constantly expanding, abusive and socially irresponsible position that it does now. If I can do something to detract from that, either by using a totally different engine like Ixquick or a scraper like Scroogle, then I definitely will.

  17. Fatty Eglon
    Mushroom

    Scroogle totally down

    Seems as if the guys at Scroogle have taken down their site. Firstly when I tried to contect to the site I got some wierd message sayint that the domain was possibly up for sale in really bad English and there was some really badly formatted Chinese text below it. Really wierd. So I thought hey I'll try that again and it just timed out on Bing.

    Google are total scum. Take a look at Sergey Brin's Stanford homepage circa 1997 ish, the plan for world domination was already in motion. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ I really like the way his picture morph's wierdly with some kinda 90's animation stylie. Pathetic weasel.

    Hoping Scroogle comes back on line. At the end of the day I respect theit non-profit ethic. Whereas Duck is good but all about profit.

    Not amused.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't Post Thanks to GOOGLE FREAKS

    I'm trying once again, but looks like the google hacks are stopping me from posting here. BIG SHOCK. Googlosers

  19. Fatty Eglon
    Megaphone

    Actually ...

    Some are suggesting that Daniel Brandt's Scroogle has been hacked via a Ddos attack. Seems he has a lot of haters out there and he himself has an inflated ego. We all know how petty and infantile these hacker groups can be, like children jealous over whose got the best toys.

    Even so Scroogle provided a good service which Google has surpressed in their search rankings. But I guess we can all vote with our feet or clicks regardless of Scroogles seeming demise. Bear in mind DuckDuckGo has it's servers linked to Amazon and Stratpage is a profit making business. Maybe there's no such thing as a free lunch people.

    If the worst comes to the worst we could all stop using the internet!! ;-)

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Update from Betabeat

    http://www.betabeat.com/2012/02/15/scroogle-may-have-been-a-victim-of-hackers-not-google/

    http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/File:DanielBrandtFriendsOfRyanCleary.jpg

  21. BarkingMad

    Scroogle still down

    Any news on what has happened to Scroogle?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like