Scroogle has been blocked and may be retired

[halfmanhalfamazing]

This was useful. I wonder what google's problem is?

http://slashdot.org/submission/12345...may-be-retired

https://ssl.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbwssl.cgi

<BLOCKQUOTE>We regret to announce that our Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google. It depends on whether Google is willing to restore the simple interface that we've been scraping since Scroogle started five years ago. Actually, we've been using that interface for scraping since Google-Watch.org began in 2002.

This interface (here's a sample from years ago) was remarkably stable all that time. During those eight years there were only about five changes that required some programming adjustments. Also, this interface was available at every Google data center in exactly the same form, which allowed us to use 700 IP addresses for Google.</BLOCKQUOTE>

[yotambien]

Yep, I was greeted with that message this morning. Considering alternatives now, such as TrackMeNot, but it's not the same thing.

[nanonyme]

Just in case people might be interested, Google usage policy forbids using their search for meta-search engines. (which I'd strongly think Scroogle is)

[curaga]

Wouldn't a meta-search engine need to have more than one source? At least this is what I think of the definition...

[yotambien]

Scroogle is up and running again. Meanwhile, I discovered Ixquick, which isn't bad, but it could be faster. I haven't used it enough to decide about the quality of the search results, which are gathered from several engines.