WHEN GOOGLE IS POSSESSED BY PROFIT

[donho]

Several Notepad++ users have reported fake Notepad++ website via Google Ads when they search Download Notepad++:

Obviously the fake website www.noetepad.com in question has been taken down. However, it’s possible that there are still other fake sites provided by Google AD.

Please help us to test it from your side, in order to make sure there’s no more fake Notepad++ website when people googling download Notepad++.

Thank you.

[zeta orionis]

my mom once fell for that

[Alan Kilborn]

@donho

If I google Download Notepad++ I don’t see any fake website links in the first page of results.

[Lycan Thrope]

@Alan-Kilborn ,
Yeah, I just tried it and it gave me normal non-ad results, all legit, but of course, this could be because it’s a US based server? Maybe the different overseas servers are getting hit locally without propagation because it gets caught and filtered here? Or maybe, Mozilla’s Firefox with adblock prevents it. When I use Firefox with adblock AND DuckDuckGo, I guess I never see anything, but then again, I bail out if something tries opening IE/Edge instead. :)

Heck, just using this forum on Firefox shows 2 blocked ads. :)

[guy038]

Hi, All,

From France, with Microsoft Edge version 108.0.1462.76 (Official 64 bits version) :

• Typing the sentence télécharger Notepad++ gives this page :

where the official site is the 2nd result

• Typing the sentence download Notepad++ gives this page :

Where the official site is the 1st result !

Best Regards,

guy038

[donho]

@Lycan-Thrope said in WHEN GOOGLE IS POSSESSED BY PROFIT:

Heck, just using this forum on Firefox shows 2 blocked ads. :)

It shouldn’t. I don’t have adblock installed, and I don’t see any AD in this forum.

[Lycan Thrope]

@donho ,

Just so you don’t think I’m imagining it <g>, here’s a screenshot I took on this page before responding to you.

If you’ll notice up in the right hand part of the window, is a stop sign behind the popup…that shows the number 2, that’s how I know something is being blocked, regardless of what it is, and the popup confirms it’s blocking something here on this site. Unfortunately, I don’t have dark mode set on the browser yet.

[DomOBU]

Perhaps an explanation:

[Lycan Thrope]

@DomOBU ,
I can’t read French, but that’s also why I see things in French in the code, but I suspect you’re showing him what my Ad-Blocker is finding worth blocking. I mean, it could even just be the Google Tracking, that is being blocked for all I know. I only know that I like Ad-Block doing it’s job, period. :)

When a site insists I shutdown the Ad-Block, I close the site, instead. :)

[gerdb42]

When googling for download notepad++ I stumbled upon the following result:

It is not a top-ranking entry but the site looks quite different from the original so it seems unrelated to me. I didn’t dig any deeper so I can’t tell if it spreads crapware but I thought you should know about it.

[Mark Olson]

In USA.

Tried “Notepad+” and every possible combination of “Notepad++” with (“free”, “download”, “help”, or “install”) on Google from Firefox. In every case, official sites were the top two results.