Google giving Malware Warning on all search results (now fixed)

http://i44.tinypic.com/2qbub9j.png

by danw • 17 years ago

73 72 17 years ago

i44.tinypic.com

astrid• 17 years ago

Honor to the first submission with a correct title, I deleted mine. It's official, Google is broken. It was so unexpected that I wondered if I hadn't a malware.

daleharvey• 17 years ago

heh we posted these at the same time, deleted mine since it would be best if there wasnt a hundred OMG google is broken on the front page

I bet whoever just deployed the upgrade is kicking themselves right now though

sabat• 17 years ago

... while standing in the unemploymment line, yeah.

rgrieselhuber• 17 years ago

I just saw this - glad it's not just me.

danw2• 17 years ago

Seems to be affecting everyone: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22may+harm+your+computer...

Jem2• 17 years ago

Went from 37 results to over 300 in the space of a minute.

angstrom• 17 years ago

The best part is, I thought it was Chrome at first since there is a malware option in the configuration settings.

That sucks. It's going to take twice as long to fix since the engineers fixing it have to edit the URL on all the googled results for "How to fix Google".

ktharavaad• 17 years ago

Deleted mine too, here's a screenshot in case they fix it

http://tinyurl.com/b4k25q

Its really LOL that they mark google.com as "may harm your computer"

physcab2• 17 years ago

I know. Even when I search for google properties, everything comes up with that same error. Interesting.

akd• 17 years ago

"in case they fix it"?

patio112• 17 years ago

Its like the Internet just stopped.

It is midnight in Japan and here I am writing emails to customers saying "No no, don't worry, I haven't infected your computer... it is Google that has the problem."

gravitycop2• 17 years ago

Its like the Internet just stopped.

A la The Source of Magic. One day, all of the magic in Xanth was turned off. For awhile, Xanth was like Mundania. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_of_Magic

mechanical_fish4• 17 years ago

Oh crap, Google broke the Orb! Now we're in for a four-hundred-year Interregnum! I'd better start studying witchcraft!

patio112• 17 years ago

Apropos of nothing, my friends have suggested Xanth to me on and off again for over a decade now. I know nothing about it except that Amazon will deliver it to my doorstep. What three books should I be buying?

mikeyur• 17 years ago

Time for a class action?

sam• 17 years ago

Wow. Since clicking on any search result brings up the warning page, Google is unusable. Everywhere. I never thought I'd see this.

I wonder how much this is costing the global economy per second...

robg2• 17 years ago

I wonder how much it's costing Google per second...

mechanical_fish4• 17 years ago

I wonder how much it's costing me per second. I was right in the middle of some research! Now I'm going to spend a hour surfing HN looking for fresh new Google jokes!

On the other hand, nothing brings people from around the world together like a bug in Google.

apollo• 17 years ago

It may be earning them tons of money. The only links that actually work are the ad links.

robg2• 17 years ago

First time I've ever used yahoo search.

kenver• 17 years ago

I even gave msn search a go!

prakash2• 17 years ago

what, no love for cuil?

eisenkr• 17 years ago

I don't think we'd ever get to see the data, but this outage created a beautifully structured natural experiment. It's almost impossible for companies to learn how well they would do if a market leader disappeared, but 30 minutes without Google probably told Microsoft, Yahoo, and even a place like Cuil what their best-case future looks like.

ralph• 17 years ago

It's .co.uk .de .fr and others too.

mkuhn3• 17 years ago

it's also google.com

If you enter google.com/ncr anywhere around the world you get to the google.com Version, which often sports more features. By adding the ncr (no country redirect) you don't get forwarded to country specific sites.

wmli• 17 years ago

and .se

magoghm• 17 years ago

I was doing searches on Google and everything was OK. Then I did a search for "Bill of Rights" and I got all those nasty malware warnings. It really freaked me out until I realized Google was doing that with any search :)

donkeyass• 17 years ago

for the first time someone did ask me about google alternatives. live search and yahoo are having the most users sinse ages today..

z3r0p4r4d0x• 17 years ago

I think it's the safety filter feature from Chrome that they're implementing site-wide, gone wrong.

danw2• 17 years ago

Would be interesting to see stats in the aftermath on site traffic drops or if Yahoo traffic increases.

mdasen• 17 years ago

Well, the important part is that AdWords doesn't seem to be broken ;-). I can click through those links with no warning at all! Even when they're the same link as one of the malware links. New way to make money?

On a realistic note, do you think Google will refund their advertisers' money during this problem (since I'm guessing there will be higher click rates for things like "apple" where Apple Computer is both the first "organic" result and has purchased ads, but now the organic results are "malware")?

mmelin• 17 years ago

I bet Omar Shahine at Microsoft is smiling right now: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10153165-2.html

"Cutts responded, in effect, that Google knows plenty about running big Web sites, thank you very much. 'Google runs Web services with many users and servers too and we launch changes weekly or faster,' he said."

pc• 17 years ago

It's not even just English: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=news&btnG=Google..., http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=乗り換え案内&btnG=G...

abless• 17 years ago

Oh dear, that'll hurt...

sounddust• 17 years ago

Wow, I can't seem to get to StopBadware.org today, I wonder why?

boris• 17 years ago

First it was that Android root shell fiasco. Now this. I wonder if this whole "holier than thou" attitude towards Google will finally start to subside.

mkuhn3• 17 years ago

It's working again... at least for me

mkuhn3• 17 years ago

and the false warning is back...

edit: If I refresh I don't see the false warning every fifth time or so. This happens on the .com and .ch page. It seems they are pushing out an update that hasn't reached all servers yet.

mixmax• 17 years ago

Seems like it is fixed now. www.google.com

jackowayed2• 17 years ago

Google doesn't quite think that everything may harm your computer. Neither wikipedia nor facebook will.

Interestingly:

http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.google.com...

Google thinks Google may harm your computer.

drenei• 17 years ago

I actually had a wikipedia page give me the malware warning.

Google: Trust no one!

Me: Not even wikipedia?

(Encyclopaedia Britannica laughs maniacally in the background)

Jem2• 17 years ago

My mum just called me to ask me if her computer was infected.

I wonder how many people around the world are now panicking?

steamboiler2• 17 years ago

Looks like it has been fixed.

mechanical_fish4• 17 years ago

I'm not sure whether to be impressed or terrified that Google can -- and, apparently, does -- roll out updates across their entire server farm in a matter of a minute or two.

eru2• 17 years ago

"Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes." from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-yo...

parenthesis• 17 years ago

They've fixed it. That was quick.

jncraton• 17 years ago

Fixed at 10:17 AM EST

rockstar9• 17 years ago

not all results gives me the malware

check out searching "hello" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hello&btnG=Sear...

pistoriusp• 17 years ago

It looks like it only effects you if you're logged in.

physcab2• 17 years ago

I just searched YAHOO for "Google malware problem". Oh wow, I never thought this day would come.

jackowayed2• 17 years ago

looks like it's fixed. even trying to go to the old link this thread linked to gets a 403 Forbidden, and some basic searches show fixage

pclark• 17 years ago

This is an enormous bug - its similar to Microsoft Office not working for half an hour.

I can't fathom how much this will have cost google - in terms of $$$ and reputation -- millions of people will now be unsure to trust googles "this site may be unsafe"

It'll be fascinating to see if Yahoo/MSN get a noticeable spike in searches.

Nassrat• 17 years ago

YEAH WTF, I hated google for half an hour there.

bmelton• 17 years ago

Actually, I think the problem was misreported. It seemed as though google flagged its own interstitial page as malware, as all the search result links showed as http://google.com/search?interstitial=<URL>, and THAT page was malware -- unless I'm overlooking something obvious, like the interstitial page is only shown when adware is detected.

Regardless, the search engine worked perfectly, it was just the links that weren't working. Simply removing the 'google' part of the URL allowed me to get to the sites just fine.

sfk• 17 years ago

I don't understand why Google is dabbling in all sorts of areas while neglecting their core business.

The Usenet search and the groups interface were truly wonderful a couple of years ago. Now the interface is a web 2.0 abomination and the search is completely broken.

The web search is still o.k., but not astonishing compared to other search engines. Google is really showing signs of becoming a fat company. I would not be surprised if in a couple of years their calculator returns 77.1*850 = 100000.

WhiteHawk• 17 years ago

I wonder if all the big corporations could sue Google for defamation now..? o_O

I find it amusing that Google warned me away from the Microsoft website as it might harm my computer!

Small things...

acangiano• 17 years ago

Antivirus producers will rejoice at this. Many end-users will think they got infected.

jneal• 17 years ago

I was doing research this morning for a radio show I host, and Amazon came up as malware. I was like what??? Malware on Amazon? Then I went back, and noticed every website was malware. I had to laugh, but it is interesting that Google doesn't have some sort of testing process before rolling out updates live.

steamboiler2• 17 years ago

Here is the official explanation from Google: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-yo...

timf2• 17 years ago

"StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs"

"Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs."

Sounds like an opportunity to add a new acceptance test on items in that list :-)

timf2• 17 years ago

Turns out they do not get a lits of URLs from there.

cf. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460426

prakash2• 17 years ago

did google also tweak their spam filter? anyone seeing more emails that would not normally go to spam being sent to spam?

braindead_in• 17 years ago

i sympathize with the 'human' who made that error. it might be the lowest point of his life. or his greatest!

jonursenbach2• 17 years ago

I feel sorry for the poor sap who's going to get fired for this.

sven• 17 years ago

I'm not, if that person is the idiot that made a filter mandatory. But I fear the little technician, that reasoned against filtering in the first place, will get the boot.

Google giving Malware Warning on all search results (now fixed)

Related Stories