what's the deal with the "url4short.info" when navigating to the site from Google?

[Puppeteer]

Surely I'm not the only person who gets this? Sometimes when you click on a link to a thread here from Google, you wind up on a page like this: http://url4short.info/d59c6708 with some add for wireless routers. You can go back and click the same link and actually wind up on the site. What's the deal?

[onedayillsailagain]

Probably some malware.. Do a virus scan, make a back-up, ditch Windows and install Linux (like Ubuntu), install ClamTK, install Firefox, and use DuckDuckGo.com as your default search engine. Google tracks virtually everything, so does Chrome. For more privacy, install the Tor Browser Bundle (don't need to link that I think, we've all snooped out SR I think).
Let us know how that works for you.

edit: if that's too much of a hassle; Control Panel -> Software -> check if there's anything weird and delete accordingly. Then re-install browser (seriously though, switch to FF).

[Puppeteer]

Done the Ubuntu thing before and the difficulty with gaming (Wine on a shitty laptop ain't great) was a dealbreaker, hah. Plus I was/am too lazy to learn2bash. Windows is where it's at for me, I'm afraid!

 

And it seems odd that it would be malware given that it only happens when navigating to HPPDonline from Google. Why would that be the case? I seem to recall encountering it on other PCs as well but, of course, memory's foggy. I ran a complete scan with Microsoft Security Essentials and didn't find anything that might be responsible (caught a couple other things though, so thanks for the reminder!). It'd be great if more people could chime in to confirm whether or not it's a server-side issue. 

 

Funny story - undoubtedly assisted by HPPD absent-mindedness, I managed to accidentally switch from Firefox to Chrome without noticing at first because one day the Firefox icon just vanished from my taskbar and I guess I just automatically went for the browser that was still there. Eventually I just kind of got used to it and tracked down all my old extensions for Chrome instead of going through the hassle of readjusting to FF, hah. I have since managed to acquire a few of those lovely "taskbar/video saver/purchase-assisting" adware extensions that latch on to all of your browsers, god knows how, and while I've nerfed them in Chrome, whenever I open up FF for whatever reason a bunch of them are still there and it makes it pretty unpleasant to use. I should probably just bite the bullet and go through the minute effort of sorting it out. Anyhow, with maximum privacy settings, I don't see why Chrome should really be so bad?

 

This has prompted me to look into alternative, privacy-conscious browsers - I used to use SRware Iron - and in doing so I've stumbled upon Comodo IceDragon, which seems brilliant - I'm making the switch to it currently. You might be interested: http://download.cnet.com/Comodo-IceDragon/3000-2356_4-75856204.html