Bitcoin Forum

Recently I have noticed one thing. Google ads are approving various ponzi Scheme ads. Which sounds very bad to me. Because when newbies come to the crypto world. They see such ads, thinking of doubling their money they lost money by investing in those sites, their crypto journey ends early. Which is not a good sign for crypto community. For example I am giving an google advertisement image.

https://i.ibb.co/C21rjBR/received-600460484079078.png

Before you trust any Google ads, you should search the advertiser's website and verify their activity. But newbies don't have the knowledge to verify all these things. Newbies are becoming easier victims of scammers.

We want more people to come to crypto and we should work towards getting a scammer-free crypto world. This requires creating awareness.

Following few things will prevent you from being a scam victim.

• Greed should be avoided.
• Thought of becoming rich overnight, should be discarded. It is not possible to make money without work, you have to understand.
• Where, the more they talk about profit. There will be bad intentions.
• Before investing any money you should verify who is behind this website.
• Use ads blocker. ;)

If you find a scam ad you can report it to Google: https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/vio_other_aw_policy (https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/vio_other_aw_policy)

Famous best quote for Newbies.
"If it's too good to be true, then it's probably not true (scam)"

This is why it's also important to use privacy leaning browsers and search engines like Duckduckgo (https://duckduckgo.com). If you search about crypto in privacy mode, google won't be able to know were your interest lies and therefore crypto ads some of which are scams and ponzi schemes won't be targeted to you.

You shouldn't rely on Google to protect you from scams, be it from ads, emails, their app store, whatever. They do very little due diligence in to the things they host or promote. They care about money and collecting your data. They have zero interest in your security. Your security is your responsibility.

First of all, why anyone browses without an ad blocker is beyond me. There is literally no good reason not to use one, it's free, and it takes all of 30 seconds to install. uBlock Origin is the only ad blocker you will ever need, and it will block all Google ads. There are links to download it for all major browsers on their GitHub here: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock.

Secondly, don't do a simple web search for any service, be that this forum, an exchange, a wallet (web or software download), etc. There is a high chance of ending up on a phishing or scam site. Bookmark the correct URL.

Thirdly, stop using Google. Use a search engine which will both respect your privacy and not assault you with ads for scams. DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com/) or Searx (https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/user/public_instances.html) are good alternatives.

I wondered that also for a while but the problem right now is that many browse the web from mobile and with chrome having over 60% of market share and no way to install extensions...
I personally use adguard for my mobile, not the best probably but it did its job even when I had the free version


Well, using duckduckgo and the fifth search for "bitcoin mining" is startminer, which has a dedicated topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1870027.0) here.
Funny that google is not listing it, at least not while I'm using an US IP via my VPN as I am doing it right now.
Ups and downs for every product.

As a comparison, ads at this forum do not protect people from scams. Are some people more careful when they know they are not being "protected? "Let the buyer beware and the free market play.

Chrome is spyware. More people need to be made aware of this. Firefox is the only browser you should be using (other than Tor) if you care at all about your privacy. Firefox for mobile is compatible with the majority of Firefox extensions, including uBlock Origin.

I want to be exposed to less Google ads but their search engine works really well for most topics. Perhaps it's time to give duck.com a try, aka (https://duckduckgo.com/)

What about Brave browser? I've been using it over a month now and it's definitely faster than Firefox and Chrome. And from what I've read about it, it looks pretty safe.  :)

They really don't care about the ads that they are delivering to their users. I think it's been discussed here many times and the only thing that we can do is to report every scam ads that we see.

Filtering should be done by them but as long as it pays for the ads, responsibility should be on us because when someone uses Chrome and searches anything that relates to crypto then ads like this will pop up.

As an alternative, if you prefer Google's search results, you can test out StartPage[1]. Pretty much Google-ish results, but without the tracking.

Also, if all your problems is the ads, then just install an adblock extension. But yea, for privacy reasons, definitely stay away from Google.

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[1] https://www.startpage.com/

It's legit, and I'm using it too.

Plus, we get money from viewing their ads. Not bad.

I actually like Brave browser(please don't crucify me, Bitcointalk) due to it's built in ad blocker and privacy features, and that their mobile app is seriously kick-ass, but I heavily don't suggest turning on the "earn money viewing ads" feature. To actually claim the money, you'd have to submit KYC/AML information to Uphold; whereas, as you may know, KYC is almost always a really really bad idea.

Yup, I saw that some time ago. But didn't Brave mention they're working on an alternate way to withdraw? Didn't keep up with the progress after that.

How about these ads showing here in this forum? There is an option to turn these off, right?

Anyway, OP is right. There is a high chance that newbies can be a victim of those crypto Ponzi schemes approved by Google ads cause a lack of knowledge. I've been victimized of those related sites before, luckily I'm not spending any money for them, just trying their freeways of earning...

Cloud mining is just one problem.
Google and its ads have a history of showing fake wallets too.

And with enough SEO skills it may be possible with other search engines too to also return those. So always be extra careful.

No. These ads are not displayed in the Bitcointalk forum. You will find these ads on popular Crypto related websites. Such as coinmarketcap.Ads come in the way of those who don't know about such scams, they are easy victims.


Yes. But most people use Google. Many people do not know about the rest of the search engine. It's time to ignore Google. Think about your privacy.

I ignore all ads that Google sends to me. Well sometimes |I click on the limks to run up their bill with Google, but I wouldn't buy anything through a Google ad.

I've been using the Brave browser fr a few months now, and I'm a verified publisher. This helps to pay for projects like the Fit to Ralk English project (https://fittotalk.com/english-talk/). There is also a Tor window built into it, and that can be useful when on public WiFi.

At the risk of derailing the topic, Firefox actually broke compatibility with many legacy and useful addons in Firefox 57. No adblockers dead yet, but Mozilla is known to accidentally break the addons installation process in the past so Waterfox is a better option for those people.

Or don't trust any ads until it's proven to be true :P


Apparently Startpage was bought by advertising company, so personally i doubt it doesn't have any tracking or honor user's privacy.

Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_is_now_owned_by_an_advertising_company/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_is_now_owned_by_an_advertising_company/)

You are right that Google ads are misleading people and victims are new That is why we should be careful about working In addition to Google there are many other sites that emphasize using them and act consciously so it is possible to avoid these scams. Before getting scammed you should check the websites and then see the ads.

I have no idea, but I surely hope so. It was really really surprising that with the current system, you'd have to go with a custodial. Hopefully they're trying to do it in a way that you can withdraw the funds the same way how you re-claim funds on other smart contract platforms. Having to submit KYC to receive crypto is just really counter intuitive to say the least.

Brave is superior to Chrome, but inferior to a properly configured Firefox. It is faster than base Firefox because it has ad and third party content blockers built in. Once you install add ons in Firefox for these, Firefox is just as fast, if not faster.

Startpage was bought over by an advertising company with a suspect privacy policy a few months ago. I've stopped using it. If you really need Google results, then use Searx and configure it to just search Google on your behalf.

Ads on the forum are not screened nor endorsed, as the warning underneath them shows. Hero and Legendary users get an option to disable them.

Waterfox is a security risk. It is maintained by one person, and his updates are often two to three weeks behind those of Firefox. This becomes a risk in instances of serious bugs or exploits being found.

It's usually the problem with newbies these days, they tend to trust and believe something without analyzing how it will made an impact on their personal information and funds. They did not realized that they are getting derived by it's words which is completely full of sweet lies, it's just means that sometimes we're also the reason why we are ending up losing everything because of one mistake. Greediness can change someone's perception on everything particularly when it comes to money, people will surely grab an opportunity if it seems beneficial bu they don't think the possible outcomes of their own decisions. Newbies should always remember that quote because it will serve as guide on them, it will help them be cautious and attentive.

Google becomes monopoly of web search engines but still they don't care about users by promoting such ads without researching enough about their intention so google is not the right place to search anything related to cryptos.

And also recently I can see lot of binary option trading from google ads which is not entirely a scam but most likely it should be called as since they claim you can double your money in no time.

We must be careful when it comes to privacy, and Google has a lot of publicity that can affect us, and not only the advertising, also the page or the fact that it observes everything we do... I started using Duckduckgo because it seems safer Since Its main features is that it is based on Nginx, that is, low memory usage and high concurrency. In addition, they will not collect information from you when you search... It is very easy to be attacked by a virus or someone who observes everything you do, so I think it is better to be careful what we open and change your browser.

@o_e_l_e_o you're absolutely correct about googles intentions, because all they care is about getting rich and they keep changing their policies to suit themselves. Also I’m using the bookmark tool for all my important sites, and I’m using an antivirus which often tells me when the site is not safe hence I recommend people to use antivirus for their devices. DuckDuckGo is indeed one of the best alternatives to google, but what I don’t like about them is that they’re an affiliate search engine.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/advertising-and-affiliates/

Never assume that someone will protect you because you are the one who can save yourself from any trouble.


You can use an ad blocker to avoid this kind of trouble.

..and with this you just assumed the ad blocker will save you always (meaning it will work perfectly every time)
This can be seen as quite a contradiction  :)

I don't deny the usefulness of a good browser and a good ad blocker. But the users also have to learn to keep their eyes open.
(Hence I find useful to have eye opener threads like this now and then.)

Purpose of such posts is to inform those who do not know these things. Since I posted there has been a lot of discussion, about how everyone can keep themselves safe.If the right information doesn't reach anyone, they won't know it. Maybe you know how to protect yourself, but not everyone. Many newbies don't know about this. Now if any newbies read this thread, they will know how to keep themselves safe.

That's true last year I found out that google ads are showing Trezor fake ads if you search it on google, I don't know why google allow that without reviewing it. Looks like they are only concerns about money. So we need to be careful to check the url always, google is not safe anymore, they might be the one spreading phishing links by allowing scammers. I added ublock origin extension to block those fake ads.

I gave that advice! And I am not even saying that this post is useless, yes, it is good.
And believe me, it is not a big deal. Anyone can commit his crime through AdSense, Because it's a world of money.