WebMe - Website Design & Development

We've all experienced it; you search Google for an answer to your question and there in the top couple of results is the answer! "Oh joy" you think, someone has asked the exact question that I have asked. You click through only to be presented with:

"View the Solution FREE for 30 Days - after that you're gonna have to pay!"

This sort of thing is most commonly associated with a very good resource (experts-exchange.com).

What they've done is allow the search engine to index the answer but they deny the browser the answer.
So how do you get the answer you want without registering?
Simple - become the search engine.
If you use Firefox/Flock/Seamonkey/Songbird then you can get a great extension called "User Agent Switcher" by Chris Pederick.
With this extension installed simply go to Tools->User Agent->Search robots->Googlebot With this set as your User Agent you can now click on the Experts Exchange link and view the answer.

Change your User Agent back to the default when you've finished.

You can get User Agent switcher from here: http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/

There was an article published on the BBC news site today about the number of co.uk websites that are setup by Chinese organisations to con UK surfers into buying non-existant goods. The Beeb suggest a few things to prevent the unwary surfer from being caught out by these sites: They advised people to reduce the risks of being duped by:

• Searching for any user reviews of the site;
• Double clicking on the padlock symbol in the corner to reveal details about the company that registered the site; and
• Trying to connect the site to the real world by finding phone numbers or UK addresses.

Another great method is to use FlagFox (http://flagfox.net/). This plugin for FireFox gives you a little flag icon in your search bar letting you know where in the world the site is hosted. Great for finding the true geographical location of a website.

Original article here.

Labels: firefox, general info, security