Google: A “startpage” filled with ads | Hacker News Reader

Google: A “startpage” filled with ads

8 pointsz3t410 comments

Remember back in the 90:s when your browser "start page" was your favorite home-page, and that everyone wanted you to have "their" web-page as your start-page!?

Why is it now that whatever you type in the browser address bar, you get directed to one of those "start pages" filled with ads?

Why can't the browser automatically spider the web-pages I visit and take me to the one most relevant to my search? Without showing a bunch of ads and giving away my privacy?

I know Firefox, Opera, etc makes 99% of their income from these ad filled start-pages and by selling your privacy. But why do they get away with it?

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>Why is it now that whatever you type in the browser address bar, you get directed to one of those "start pages" filled with ads?

It's not your web browser, it's your ISP. It sounds like your ISP is hijacking NXDOMAIN to serve ads. If you have Tomato or DD-WRT you can fix this.

http://hackercodex.com/guide/how-to-stop-isp-dns-server-hija...

If that doesn't fix it, you probably have malware.

I'm leaning towards malware. Tons of applications install those oh-so-helpful "toolbars" that clamp into your browser and start hijacking pages and popping ads under and over your window.

Even the Java setup program tries to install these things now.

What start page filled with ads? Neither Chrome nor Firefox do this. Chrome's start page contains either my installed Chrome "apps", or frequently visited pages. I think Firefox's is just a Firefox-branded version of the Google search page, but I can't remember and am away from my desktop atm.

Because no one will work for free on the development side and no one will pay for search on the consumer side?

> I know Firefox, Opera, etc makes 99% of their income from these ad filled start-pages and by selling your privacy. But why do they get away with it?

You can just not use them if you dislike them.

My knee-jerk reaction is that adware has infected your machine, particularly your browser. Or are you saying that the Google SERP is analogous to a start-page filled with ads?

I'm confused.

I’m not sure I understand your problem? Or at least I can’t relate it to anything I’ve seen as a fairly heavy Firefox user.

What's wrong with setting your browser homepage to about:blank? It's worked fine for me for over a decade.

If you're worried about privacy, why not use duckduckgo?

isnt that the "im feeling lucky" feature?

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