Google Chrome Blocks Major Torrent Websites from July 10, 2015

From today Google Chrome is blocking direct access to many torrent websites including KickassTorrents, Torrentz, ExtraTorent and RARBG. According to Google, these websites contain "harmful programs" but the website owners are clueless as to what they have done wrong.

There is a slight panic breaking out among Google Chrome users. Over the past few hours the browser has started to block access to several of the most popular torrent websites including KickassTorrents, Torrentz, ExtraTorrent and RARBG.

Instead of a page filled with the latest torrents, visitors are presented with an ominous red warning banner.

“The site ahead contains harmful programs,” Google Chrome informs its users.

Google Chrome Bloks Torrent Websites

Google doesn’t specify what the issue is with the websites in question. The “Safe Browsing” diagnostics pages only list the sites as “suspicious” and note that “third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites.” in some cases.

The owners of the websites in question are clueless about the source of the problem.

Interestingly, several proxy sites, such as torrentz-proxy.com, still work fine and don’t show the warning screen in Google Chrome.

Since Google doesn’t mention “malicious software” as the reason for the warning, it was most likely triggered by the “unsafe” ads many torrent sites run. These are typically linked to toolbar software or other unwanted programs.

Chrome users who want to bypass the warning can do so by clicking the details link, or disable Chrome’s malware warnings altogether.


Update:

The issue is resolved. The alert was false positive. Google removed Chrome alert.

Google+ vs Facebook

Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page seems to be flinging his handbag at Facebook. During the recent interview, he was asked why the search giant was bothering trying to compete with the largest social network in the world. Larry Page explained that while Facebook remained strong in that space, the company was still doing a bad job on its products.

Google CEO didn’t say exactly why Facebook was doing a bad job or which particular products he thought suffered. Previously, Larry Page has slammed the social networking giant for being closed with its information. His comments might have been motivated by the recent launch of a smarter search engine named Graph Search by Facebook. As such, the latter is stepping directly on Google’s turf.

However, Google CEO explained that his company doesn’t want Facebook to fail as a business in order for it to succeed in that particular area. Page pointed out that Google was doing something different in the networking field, so it wasn’t right to say that there was only space for one firm.

Google CEO claimed he was very happy with his own social network so far and admitted that it had already been copied by its competitors. Larry Page was also talking about the need to keeping their ambitious with “moon shot” ideas and teased the possibility that Google could eventually employ million people. Finally, he scoffed at the patron saint of Apple, Steve Jobs, for trying to wage a so-called thermonuclear war against Android. At the very least, many can agree that Jobs’ nuclear weapons didn’t turn to be working very well.

Google Released Chrome Version for Windows 8

Google Inc. has recently released a version of its Chrome browser for Windows 8, but the experts point out that the developers ignored many Microsoft requirements. Surprisingly enough, this made the browser very attractive for users.

Currently, both Google and Mozilla are developing their versions of Chrome and Firefox browsers for Windows 8. However, the Metro-style Chrome attracted more attention from the reviewers, as it appears to be too different from IE 10, a default browser in the operating system. The most important part here is that Chrome browser ignored a few Metro design ideas which Microsoft has been actively pushing.

The software giant demands that when the users right-click or press “Windows key + Z”, an app bar should pop up at the bottom of the screen. However, Google decided to keep a traditional menu bar in the top right corner which the user can click for settings and app changes. In addition, it also uses standard tabbed browsing.

Just as Internet Explorer 10, Chrome browser also includes Flash Player built into the browser to allow users view all kinds of Flash content. In the meantime, Google stuffs up Microsoft’s cunning plan and ignores an approved list of websites and Flash content. In other words, Chrome plays the lot.

The industry experts point out that there’s something that can make Chrome more popular on Metro. The matter is that the browser is standing in a half way house between the new approach pushed by Windows 8, which is driving users towards, and the older approach that most people are used to and comfortable with. According to the experts’ estimation, this could make Chrome popular in the short term while users work their way around Metro.