poll GOOGLE WANTS TO KILL THE URL!!

[teper]

So i was just going through some tech new and found this one.
Definitely a big one for domaining.

https://www.wired.com/story/google-wants-to-kill-the-url/

What do you think? Will Google or any other company down the line replace the entire concept of URL or Domain Names?

 

[UncleBrand]

i would love to see what weapon Google will use to commit this crime

 

[namemarket]

i would love to see what weapon Google will use to commit this crime

Extremely easy by removing the address bar window from Chrome and making you use search instead.

 

[UncleBrand]

Extremely easy by removing the address bar window from Chrome and making you use search instead.

i stooped using Chrome, when it took 2 minutes just to login to check a debit card status
too buggy and slow these days,
and it's blocking tons of website for no reason

Chrome is turning to a terrible time waster
the good old Opera and Firefox work just fine for me

 

[creataweb]

Google pays Apple $9 Billion a year to keep them as the default search.

 

[namemarket]

i stooped using Chrome, when it took 2 minutes just to login to check a debit card status too buggy and slow these days, and it's blocking tons of website for no reason Chrome is turning to a terrible time waster the good old Opera and Firefox work just fine for me

However, so many others like it. Just read Chrome now has 83% of the search market!

 

[namemarket]

Google pays Apple $9 Billion a year to keep them as the default search.

Isn't Safari the iphone default search engine?

 

[address]

now you can't copy a domain/url from the search results in google chrome
what the heck?

 

[Arfy]

now you can't copy a domain/url from the search results in google chrome
what the heck?

I can... on mobile or desktop?

 

[address]

I can... on mobile or desktop?

desktop

 

[viniproject09]

I don't think so google try to kill a domain but if a abuse a lot that could be banned or blocked in their database until the issues is not resolved.

 

[Jay Ha]

I don't know if this is off topic or someone has already mentioned it somewhere, but some tv ads nowadays just ask the viewers to google specific keywords rather than show us the URL. I rarely watch tv unless it is football so I don't know if it is a new trend or not.

 

[topdom]

Google may want to kill competitor Urls. One of my domains parked at Sedo, and Google says it is a phishing attack site, which is nonsense unless whoever Sedo is working with does bad things.
In new browsers even in opensource ones whatever url you type is sent to Google first. There is an f word describing such situations, and it is something a little bit more than monopoly. I want to visit a web site , and Google says no no. Then I want revenge and I want to block Google, but I can't. I visit a normal site and I see some data is sent to Google and facebook. I don't want to visit those sites when I visit something else. I don't understand why everyone obeys such big companys' demands. They collect everyone's info. We can't view whois under gdrp, but they can view not only whois, but also know who is where and doing what at a givent moment.

 

[poweredbyme]

In new browsers even in opensource ones whatever url you type is sent to Google first.

I use firefox on a Linux OS. Firefox doesn't redirect me to anywhere even if I type url wrongly. I customized my firefox at about:config. There are lots of instructions on the internet on how to modify firefox. Also there are many firefox plugins.

I use duckduckgo for searches, stopped using google search and other google products long time ago, don't use chrome but have Chromium installed (linux version of Chrome) and use it sometimes. If I can't find what I search at duckduckgo (it's extremely rare), search it at google via VPN. I never let google store my true IP address in combination with what I search.

You can modify firefox to stop loading anything from google datacenters such as google fonts, google analytics, google ads, facebook (social media sharing buttons at websites force your browser to load data from social media sites, you can stop it with firefox plugins and/or by manually editing firefox codes), and other third party scripts that your browser is forced to load when visiting a random webpage. What I say is not about blocking third party cookies, you can stop loading anything (including cookies) that is hosted by a third party domain. Third party domain is the domain that is different than the domain you visited.

 

[poweredbyme]

In new browsers even in opensource ones whatever url you type is sent to Google first.

Even if firefox doesn't redirect to google search, there are too many google.com URL's within the default firefox codes. You can delete all these google URL's. Just type about:config at firefox address bar and type "google" in the search box, then delete those google URL's that is listed under "Value" column. That's it. Default firefox settings may inquire google if the url you want to visit or the files you want to download is safe. You can stop it by simply deleting google url's that you see in firefox codes.

 

[topdom]

@ poweredbyme Good to see someone who knows about evil side of technology.

I'd like to know your opinion about laptops without removable batteries. Almost all new laptops have embedded batteries which can't be removed. So we can never know it can be completely shut down. It can remotely be controlled , used for spying or cause fire when we are away. Any solution to this? Or is this something which we don't need to worry about.

New cars can be controlled remotely. I heard accidents can be created artificially.. happened to a slow driving whistleblower. Ok maybe this is "fake news".. But if a car buyer skips montlhy payment, seller can lock it remotely from another country and make it useless. This thing happened to ordinary people.

 

[poweredbyme]

@ poweredbyme Good to see someone who knows about evil side of technology.

I'd like to know your opinion about laptops without removable batteries. Almost all new laptops have embedded batteries which can't be removed. So we can never know it can be completely shut down. It can remotely be controlled , used for spying or cause fire when we are away. Any solution to this? Or is this something which we don't need to worry about.

@topdom Similar things were being said by technology experts about mobile phones. Long time ago I heard that even if a mobile phone is turned off its location can still be tracked if its battery is not physically removed. These were saying for the first primitive mobile phones made and used during 1990's and 2000's. You pay money to buy a thing and it does something without your knowledge, is controlled by someone else. This is scary.

There is a concious effort on surveilance. You may want to read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

You can't be sure if a laptop with compact irremovable battery is running or not. I agree with you on this. If you have such a laptop make sure if it has no active network connection. This is difficult to make sure as much as making sure if the laptop is running or not.

An electronic device with lack of an active network connection is safe as much as a glass of beer you drink. "cold wallet" is a perfect example on how much a device without network connection is safe and how much people trust an offline device. People and companies keep large amount of money in those cold wallets. You can imagine the security level of offline systems. Cold wallet topic is like an introduction to laptops with compact battery because I will talk about unique features of Linux OS. Making cold wallets is easy. You install Debian (Debian is one of most popular Linux OS or Linux distro in other words) on a USB stick and have your computer to boot first from USB stick (whenever a USB stick is plugged in) and install a desktop wallet preferably Electrum on that USB stick. Or you can install debian on a different partition of your harddisk and can start your computer with that debian installation from Grub menu while networking is absouletly disabled. But I would recommend booting from USB stick as it would leave no trace on your computer and can be run on any computer whenever BIOS lets you boot from USB. If you don't have USB stick you may boot from DVD but DVD can be broken easier than USB sticks. You may boot from an external harddisk but you don't need such a big space as most linux distros need no more than 10 GB space if you will not install too many software and files. I managed to run a cold wallet on Lubuntu on a 4 GB USB stick. This may sound unreal but I did. That USB stick can boot any computer as it has an operating system. Literally you don't need to carry the same computer with you to access and process data in it. Linux is a system exactly like this.

If you have such a new laptop, strictly run debian on it, preferably "debian stable". Ubuntu and ubuntu based linux distros come with proprietary drivers (non-free linux packages) If you have to run windows (though I don't see a reason) install and run windows strictly on a virtual box. Don't install windows on a different partition along with debian. If windows runs on a virtual box it runs within a small box inside the debian, can read only the files within its box, can never reach every parts of your laptop. It's a big difference, you don't let windows conquer your laptop. You may encrypt your debian to prevent something in windows reading debian files but you can't make sure if something in windows can edit Grub or another file after you booted the laptop with windows. Use only debian if you don't specifically need windows. When you want to shut down and if you don't trust debian too, uninstall wireless driver or never install it if you don't go outside with laptop. Don't use wireless at home as you don't have to. Use cable connection at home and at work. Cable is safer, healthier and faster than wireless communication. Wireless drivers for linux is usually in non-free packages. In linux jargon, non-free package means closed source code. Closed source code is the opposite of open source code. Noone can read or edit closed source codes. Those include unknown hidden codes. Hidden codes may include anything. Then, restart your laptop, press F1 (or F10, F11 or another F depending on your laptop model) while booting to go to its BIOS setting. If you could open BIOS, disable all network devices (wireless & ethernet) from BIOS, disable virtualization at BIOS settings if there is a windows installation in virtual box and if there is a such a BIOS setting. Disable bluetooth device from BIOS and debian settings. Search and learn about all the BIOS options you see, disable the ones you don't really need. Save the BIOS and quit, it will reboot. Then shut down the laptop. When you need any of those devices to run, you will need to revert back to settings, so write down on a paper which settings you changed. If you don't write and if you aren't familiar with BIOS settings you will surely forget which settings you changed and can't figure out what needs to be done to have something run when needed. Plug out power cables of the modems/routers that your laptop can connect via wireless. Plug out network cables, printer cables, headphone/speaker cable, all the cables. You may ask why you should remove irrelevant cables such as headphone cable. If you suspect your laptop will send data to an unknown receiver, it must find a wireless network. If it can't connect to your own modem/router which should be the nearest one, the laptop will try to connect to more distant wireless signals or if it's capable it may try to connect to the nearest base station of a mobile phone service provider like mobile phones do. Copper wires within cables can function like antenna to strengthen weak signals, to make the signal range extended to reach wireless devices in more distant locations. So, if you remove all the cables, metal wires inside the cables can not be used like like antenna. Remove usb sticks, DVD, CD, memory card and other things. Plug out power cable and/or remove battery of the devices that can connect your laptop via bluetooth. Removing harddisk would be the ultimate solution but if you are not allowed to remove battery most likely you are not allowed to remove harddisk too.

New cars can be controlled remotely. I heard accidents can be created artificially.. happened to a slow driving whistleblower. Ok maybe this is "fake news".. But if a car buyer skips montlhy payment, seller can lock it remotely from another country and make it useless. This thing happened to ordinary people.

An expert said on TV that cars and planes can be controlled remotely with satellite signals, said that if someone takes over the control of a car or plane, he/she can create accident, said that all the machines, vehicles, devices can be hacked if they have radio signals sending/receiving capability. It shouldn't be so easy I think. For instance, forget for a moment about hacking something remotely with radio signals, just think about how hard to hack something that's encrypted, such as private key of a bitcoin address, an encrypted laptop in your hand (you don't need radio signals to reach, you are already touching), an encrypted USB stick or harddisk in hand, even reading an encrypted web page with SSL. If access is restricted to a system or file by passwords or tokens for each permission levels (administrator/user/guest level with reading/writing/executing privileges) and if the critical parts are protected with encryption, what can radio signals do? Nothing. If an operating system is secure, remotely controlling something inside that system is not possible in my opinion. Because operating system manages everything inside the system including radio signal receiving/sending activities (however as I wrote above wireless device drivers for linux are usually closed source codes, so the wireless device isn't fully controlled by Linux. There might be a hidden purpose behind this like making wireless devices more vulnerable to get hacked so the intruder may enter from a device that's partially out of control by the OS). So if an OS is secure it will not let anything controlled by an unauthorized third party. Debian, when used as a web server, is fully open to internet. Normally anything with internet connection should able be to hack a debian server as it is fully open to the World. But it doesn't happen. Being open to the World via signals or cables can slow down that system for the extra workload compared to offline systems but being open to the World does not make hacking guaranteed, though it raises the possibility for the obvious reasons (everyone who wants can freely access to the system as visitor).

Debian webserver doesn't need wireless device driver installed. Those are the minimal debian installations with nothing extra like desktop environment. So maybe because of the lack of wireless device/driver, debian servers can't be hacked easily. But a laptop sometimes will need and actually has that device even if its driver isn't installed. So the expert may be right if talked specifically about vulnerability of wireless devices/drivers.

 

[john888]

Airbnb scam with fake URL. Maybe instead of Google killing URL's, Google can warn users of dodgy URLs.

https://www.goatsontheroad.com/airbnb-scam/