Block Download.com From Google Search Results

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 23, 2011
Updated • Dec 16, 2014
Internet
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My story on Cnet's Download.com installer that the company added to many downloads on their website has sparked the interest of other websites and software developers.

Users who download software from download.com now download an installer first that comes bundled with adware offers.

This web installer then offers to download the program, be it portable or in form of a setup file, that the user wanted to download initially.

Users basically download an installer that downloads an installer to install the software they wanted to download.

Update: Direct downloads seem to be offered now for all download.com downloads as well on the site, but the most visible option on it is still the web installer.

I have spoken to some software developers who made the decision to pull their software from Download.com, or at least contacted Cnet to remove their application from the software repository.

I'd like to introduce a few options for those users to remove download.com results from the Google search engine.

Google Account

Google users who are logged in when they use the search engine can block up to 500 different domains in the account options. All they need to do is to open the following link to add or remove domains from their blocklist.

block cnet download.com

Blocked domains are displayed on the very same page. A search on Google removes all domain references. Google still displays ten results, which basically means that results from the second or third page are moved to the first page to fill up the slots.

download.com blocked

Not all users want to be logged in to their Google account though when they search on the site.

Third Party Tools

Third party tools have the advantage that you do not need to be logged into your Google account to block domains in the search results. Their disadvantage is that the blocked domains are removed but not replaced with other results. This could in worst case mean that not a single result is displayed on a search results page.

Here are a few extensions and tools to block domains in the Google search engine:

You may have heard of other tools or extensions to block domains from the search results in Google. Please let me know about them in the comments.

Summary
Block Download.com From Google Search Results
Article Name
Block Download.com From Google Search Results
Description
How to block results from the website download.com on Google Search.
Author
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Comments

  1. 0man said on September 25, 2011 at 12:06 am
    Reply

    I think the ideea with manually blocking a site from Google searches is better than plugins, windows hosts file, or other ways…

  2. HR said on August 29, 2011 at 8:50 pm
    Reply

    here is a firefox addon to block

    1. single result for specific search query
    or
    2. single result for any search query
    or
    3.block subdomain.domain.ending eg blocking http://www.ghacks.net would not block ghacks.net

    1. HR said on August 29, 2011 at 8:51 pm
      Reply
  3. Hammad said on August 27, 2011 at 2:41 pm
    Reply

    Thnks for the guide martin. I am using Personal Blocklist from sometime now and i dont have to go through different procedures if i use that extension.

  4. bill m said on August 24, 2011 at 8:51 pm
    Reply

    or use the the windows hosts file..

  5. hal9000 said on August 24, 2011 at 4:27 pm
    Reply

    also i just tried it and it doesnt work.
    after adding it to the list i tried to search for download.cnet.com and i got a whole load of results. not very effective blocking

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 24, 2011 at 4:32 pm
      Reply

      Which method did you try?

      1. hal9000 said on August 24, 2011 at 4:42 pm
        Reply

        yup very much so logged into the right account.
        I am using chrome stable (13) but i do have things like searchas you type turned on.
        I just blocked download.com and it still works for me.
        Will give it a bit more of a try later

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on August 24, 2011 at 4:52 pm
        Reply

        It worked in firefox. I blocked the following domains

        download.com
        http://www.download.com
        download.cnet.com

      3. hal9000 said on August 24, 2011 at 4:35 pm
        Reply

        it was the google block list method.I added to the right account ( i have 3 google account that i use daily).
        I did fire up google search and then typed download.cnet.com though.

      4. Martin Brinkmann said on August 24, 2011 at 4:38 pm
        Reply

        Were you logged into the right account? You may need to block download.com as well.

  6. hal9000 said on August 24, 2011 at 4:23 pm
    Reply

    you need to add the http:// at the start of the rul or else it comes back malformed

  7. Kilobyte said on August 24, 2011 at 11:06 am
    Reply

    Use this little script to sock it to download.com: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111137

  8. Transcontinental said on August 24, 2011 at 9:22 am
    Reply

    Banned with Google’s Blocked Sites Manager and with HOSTS file. To see such a behavior in 2011 is relevant of more stupidity even than of ethics: you cannot be more idiot than to believe others are.

  9. Chris said on August 24, 2011 at 8:16 am
    Reply

    CNET has let me down lately, with two Trojans picked up from that site when downloading software.

  10. DanTe said on August 24, 2011 at 6:26 am
    Reply

    Based on personal experience with the lack of ethics by CNET, I had long long ago banned CNET and all it’s affiliates from my browsers. I wouldn’t trust them further than I can throw their one sided articles and endorsements for bad products.

    It was actually when I was looking for an alternative to CNET for tech news that I found Ghacks.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNET

  11. JK said on August 24, 2011 at 5:03 am
    Reply

    Is it necessary to remove download.com search results? The story is enough for people to think an alternative. Anyway, thanks for it.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 24, 2011 at 7:21 am
      Reply

      JK that’s up for everyone to decide. Most users will probably just ignore their listings, while others may prefer a more drastic approach.

  12. Meena Bassem said on August 24, 2011 at 4:06 am
    Reply

    well, that site started to work like software informer. even software informer doesn’t always ask to download its software
    i guess i’ll move to filehippo and softpedia

    1. A&L said on August 24, 2011 at 5:20 pm
      Reply

      I hate software informer sites

  13. sky2nite said on August 23, 2011 at 10:55 pm
    Reply

    I have something simple, nothing new but handy, just put this in your host file and simply block connection between website an your PC.Of course you can put anything after 127.0.0.1 and make your own blacklist.This trick have nothing to do with search engines but at least you can disable connection with certain sites.

    127.0.0.1 http://www.download.com

    1. Rick said on August 24, 2011 at 2:54 am
      Reply

      Unfortunately the hosts file doesn’t stop the site from coming up on google search. This would only stop you from accidentally going to the site :)

  14. john futor said on August 23, 2011 at 10:06 pm
    Reply

    CNET should have asked software developers first if it was alright to have the CNET installer. Otherwise, I can understand CNET’s position – they have to pay the bills. Bandwidth and storage cost money.

  15. Rick said on August 23, 2011 at 9:57 pm
    Reply

    blocksites works – you have to make sure you have the exact url. So if you want to block softonics, you have to block http://www.softonics.com and http://en.softtonics.com (for english). Just blocking one doesn’t stop the other!

    or in German:

    blocksites funktioniert – Sie müssen sicherstellen, dass Sie die genaue URL. Also, wenn Sie softonics blockieren möchten, müssen Sie http://www.softonics.com und http://en.softtonics.com (für Englisch) zu blockieren. Nur blockiert man nicht stoppen die anderen!

  16. Carsten Knobloch said on August 23, 2011 at 9:14 pm
    Reply

    funzt bei mir nicht. eben mit chip.de und anderen getestet, die bleiben trotzdem in den suchergebnissen sichtbar.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 23, 2011 at 10:09 pm
      Reply

      Welche Methode funktioniert nicht?

  17. Roman ShaRP said on August 23, 2011 at 8:50 pm
    Reply

    Read this today:

    http://twitter.com/#!/palemoonbrowser/status/105895501060259842
    Twitter / @palemoonbrowser: Download.com has been cont …

    Download.com has been contacted about their wrapper/installer stub around Pale Moon. It’s in violation of the redistribution policy!

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