The link to Ghacks in Google Search for instance should be http://www.ghacks.net/ and not http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ghacks&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ghacks.net%2F&ei=MooNT_vzE5GnsgaegJXbBA&usg=AFQjCNEbVP7B0UnFl1Q9J0q_Vbl9uYoYOw which it is when you copy the link to the clipboard.

Here are two options to display direct website links in Google Search:

Google Search link fix

The Firefox add-on modifies all link targets in the Google search results and all other Google properties where this behavior can be observed, so that they point to the direct web address.

Just install the extension in the Firefox web browser, a restart is not required. If you are on Google Search currently you need to reload the page or run a new search before the extension starts replacing the links.

Firefox users can download the extension from Mozilla’s official Add-ons repository for the browser.

Don’t track me Google

This is a userscript that does the exact same thing the Firefox extension does. It is compatible with Firefox and Google Chrome, and maybe other web browsers as well. The userscript in addition hides the referral link so that sites you visit do not know where you came from.

Chrome users can install the userscript right away, while Firefox users need to install the Greasemonkey or Scriptish add-on first before they can do the same thing.

The userscript can be downloaded and installed over at the official Userscripts website.

The menu looks like this when it is fully expanded on the screen. Core Google services like Google+, Google Search, YouTube and Gmail are linked in the main black menu. Secondary services such as Translate, Music, Finance or Wallet in the white menu that is displayed by hoovering the mouse over the More link.

The Even More link opens a page listing additional services. Part of Google’s userbase has criticized the new design, particularly that it now takes longer to access services that were displayed directly in the black bar, and that Google offers no customization options based on the user preferences.

That’s where the userscript Tweak Google Menu comes into play. The userscript adds reordering abilities to the Google menu.

The options are available with a click on the Even More link in the Google menu. The page lists the main and secondary menu entries, and other options that are not linked at all in the standard menu.

Google services can be moved around by dragging and dropping them to another position. It is for instance possible to remove the Google News link from the main menu to replace it with a link to Google Code. New items can be added without removing existing ones. The menu is automatically expanded to make room for the additional menu items.

Tweak Google Menu allows Google users to modify the Google menu to their liking. An option to add custom links, e.g. to Blogspot blogs, would be useful but is currently not available.

The userscript can be installed from the official UserScripts repository.

Data centers and location:

Google operates several data centers that serve Google search results. The main reasons for this are load balancing, access speed and better manageability of the infrastructure. Date centers are updated with new search algorithms and it can happen that some serve data based on the old algorithm while others already use the new algorithm to display data. The location of the data center in the world can also play a role in the search results that are displayed. It is also important to note that Google tries to serve country specific results to a user unless that user switches to another Google search engine (e.g. from co.uk to com).

Web History:

Users who are logged in while using the Google search engine will see different results than if they are logged out. This can be attributed to the fact that Google is monitoring search engine usage of logged in users. One purpose of this is to serve search results based on previous web searches by that user. This means that it is possible to see completely different search results if a user is logged in or not.

Recent searches:

Google may change the search results based on the searches conducted by a user in a period of 30 minutes. This feature is called recent searches. What it does is that searches are stored in a cookie for about 30 minutes giving Google access to recent searches. These recent searches may then be used to create custom search results pages based on these searches. These recent searches are displayed to both logged in and logged out users. Closing the web browser or clearing the cookies will remove the specific cookie so that Google will not have access to these recent searches if the user is not logged in.

We take into account whether a particular query followed on the heels of another query. Because recent search activity provides valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches, we use it to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you’re signed in or signed out. In order to customize your results and show you the customization details, we keep recent searches in a cookie on your browser for approximately 30 minutes. After approximately 30 minutes, this cookie is removed from your browser. Completely closing your browser will remove this cookie immediately.

On rare occasions, recent searches may be kept on your browser for a different time duration as Google experiments with improving quality. In all cases, recent searches are not kept on your browser for more than 24 hours and the link to the search customization page will not be accessible after approximately 30 minutes from the time of the search.

Verdict: Google tries to provide custom search results to users of their search engine whenever possible. This raises a few concerns and some problems for users and webmasters. Users might not like the fact that Google is recording their search behavior. It is possible to reduce the amount of information that Google can record by searching without being logged in and clearing cookies regularly. Webmasters on the other hand have a harder time evaluating their website’s position in the search engine.

There are two easy ways to fix that, to select Google.com – or any other Google domain – as your main Google domain. If you are currently redirected to a Google country domain you can click on the “Go to Google.com” link below the search mask. The link is translated in the countries language. When you click that link you are redirected to Google.com and a cookie is set that will load Google.com for as long as the cookie is set.

The second possibility is to bookmark the Google Web HP website which gives users access to Google.com without redirecting them to their country domain. Please note that setting the language to English in the preferences does not mean that you are automatically taken to Google.com from then on.

The sheets also include a list of all advanced operators, information about basic calculations, services that let you search by numbers (ups codes for example), fun google services and even more. It´s actually to much to list, take a look if you want those handy sheets, they are ready to be printed.

[tags]google, gmail, orkut, google services, advanced operators, search engines[/tags]

Our goal now is to give you a wider understanding of a thing called “google hacking”. This time we will give you a basic understanding of whats possible and how to achieve this.

Before we start with the essay I want you to make sure that you understand that every move you make on the internet leaves traces that can be used to identify you. I will write a tutorial about “anonymous surfing” soon. This article encourages no one to hack into servers that you don´t own or have the permission to hack.

Lets start by asking some questions. Besides Google and the knowledge of search commands – what do you need to do some hacking with google ?

The answer is simple, you need a vulnerability that you can search for. There are lots of sites that posts vulnerabilities, also known as exploits. I will name two that you can use as a start, you know how to use google to find more.

Packetstormsecurity.org
Securiteam.com

Lets use the packetstorm site as an example. When you open it you see lots of tables starting with filename ending with MD5 Checksum. Whats interesting to us is a) the filename and b) the description.

The description gives a short exerpt of what this exploit is about. Interessing for google hacking are only eploits that are web based or web connected. That means the first exploit for winrar 3.5 is not what we are looking for. The second in the list is more of our liking.

The description read “e107 content management system versions 0.617, 0.6171, 0.6172 resetcore.php utility SQL Injection, login bypass, remote code execution, and cross site scripting exploit.”

When we click the filename we see a textfile with lots of information about this exploit. I won´t give you information about the type of exploit (sql injection) because this time I only explain how you find new exploits and search for them using google.

The interesting line for us atm is “move to http://[target]/[path]/e107/e107_files/resetcore.php” and “e107 0.617 stable/ 0.6171 / 0.6172″

we see a filename and some folder names. in the first one and release numbers in the second one.

Using this information we open up google and enter one of the following strings, think of more if you like.

inurl:resetcore.php
“e107 powered website v0.617″

If you search for the first line make sure you check the version of the script first, second line automatically looks for the script that is vulnerable, you will have to navigate manually to the resetcore.php file

Thats all there is to do, you know now where to look for new vulnerabilities and how to use google to find vulnerable files.

There are other ways of looking for exploits, but those are for the advanced users, they find their own, for example by looking at the source code files.

If you really want to learn more try to find some sites with other exploits using google. You can also lookup what SQL Injection for instance means.

let me know if you have any problems following this article or comments about it.

To get started you will need a torrent client like Bitcomet and / or an Emule client

Torrent search

1. Google: The basic search would be to simply use the filetype:torrent string to find all indexed torrent files in the google cache. Unfortunatly this is no longer working, google needs at least one other keyword to display results. To achieve this you do the torrent search this way: “name you are looking for” filetype:torrent

2. Yahoo: Yahoo still lets you search for the filetype:torrent string without the need to an additional keyword. Of course, the results are to many to be specific so be advised to also use another keyword with the filetype command.

3. Msn: the filetype:torrent command is not working with Msn, until now I have not found out why that is the case. Maybe they restrict the filetypes you can search for to some common ones. That means torrent search is not working for msn this way.

Another possibility would be to restrict your search to one of the known torrent sites, I won´t name them in the article, because most of them have mostly copyrighted torrent links on their sites. The command to search a specific site would simply be site:url filetype:torrent keyword(s)

Emule / Edonkey files:

Thats a tricky one, you can´t search for filetypes because there are none, edonkey / emule uses its own protocol, which looks something like this ed2k:// aso.

What we will have to do is search for this string (ed2k) and we will find sites that use this in their websites. I recieved the best results with google but yahoo and msn should work as well, you probably will have to tweak your keywords a bit.

keyword(s) ed2k

thats a pretty basic search though.

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