There are news stories that the Chinese have hacked Google and it is all IE's fault.
The Germans have been told not to use IE.
Apparantly the way to exploit the hack is now known to everybody who will now have a go. 
Poor old me is out of the loop yet again.
I have noticed very strange things doing Google searches since Christmas though 
, I am using Opera now just in case but it is on my nerves already.
I love Opera (though it is not without its faults) but my fav website whinge at the moment is about Wikipedia. I often type a search term into Google follwed by "Wikipedia" and lately get blooming WApedia hits instead. This is dreadfully annoying and sometimes it's impossible to battle through the WAPS to get to the WIKS
Well I've been googling Google to find out more. On the IE front I wouldn't use IE6 (and maybe not IE7/8) until there is a patch. You still have to go to a 'bad' website for it to be dangerous, but so many bad ones are disguised as good ones that's not much help.
It's a bit creepy to think of the Chinese Government/secret police attacking Google. They are only after information about their own people though and not us.
They should do what we are doing in the free and democratic UK. Force ISPs to spy directly on customers for the government.
I am still not sure who is supposed to have done what to whom and what they may do to me if anything.
Anyway the strange behaviour on Google is happening on Opera too, so it may be unconnected with the recent hoo har.
When I search for something , I get some relevant results and then hundreds of thousands (I think , I never actually looked at all the pages of results I admit) of irrelevant results with what looks like search terms people including me have searched on at google previously but which that site is not actually abut or including.
So if I search on "something" , it would bring up proper results about something, and also
hard--facts website
something, anything, nothing, someone, someday, pink things, hope, pope, cope , mope, ponies, pine needles, knitting needles,
No toasters?
I'm not entirely sure how this is done. To start with a site can fill pages (sometimes hidden) with random words. This would get them visitors who were actually trying to find some other site.
I 'think' when google sends you to a site it also gives the site the whole list of search terms. I suppose they might automatically add the remaining words in the list to their hidden words to attract more people.
Whatever the exact mechanism it means that you follow a link and find nothing useful. This is annoying.
the whole list of search terms
When you do a search for "Test Pilot" for example, as soon as you type Test... Google plays the Blankety Blank (does anyone remember that) game and suggests "Test Match" "Test Broadband" and other choices. But not random things like "Test Toasters".
It is as though all those sites have got hold of Googles Blankety Blank Brain and used them.
Or do you mean that when I search for "Test Pilot" and end up here, that google also tells you about "Test Match" which was nothing to do with me.
p.s. Dear Test Pilot , I have not been stalking you , honest. But obviously I do not want to type the real google search terms I used.
This has only happened since 27 Dec 2009, before that I got less than 100 hits when searching google with my search terms.
Well not sure about the first part. I do know that when you go to a site from Google it tells the site all of the search words that got you there so they can know what things attract people.
There are SEO sites (Search Engine Optimisation) sites that do nothing, but work out what words to use to get the most visitors. It's a business in itself and they constantly collect words that are popular.
Well IE is being fixed tomorrow and I still don't know what was supposed to be wrong with it and why it was so terrible France and Germany had to warn their people.
Well I don't know exactly how, but if you went now to a site that was set up in a certain way they could download and run a program on your PC.
This isn't the first time they have found holes in it though. It must have as many as a net curtain.
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