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Searching and other security thoughts (101)

You must be very, very careful these days with anything online.

While Google, Bing, etc., are trying to eliminate rogue search results, so far their efforts are not very effective. 

Searching for anything "free" welcomes problems!  Very few things are free, we all learned that when we were young.  Sites offering free things more than likely opens the door for not just one, but multiple (unwanted) applications and/or ad driven software and/or worse!

Even things (apparently safe) found in Windows, Google, Android, etc., "stores" should be suspect.  Example: phone apps.  Read the information about the app carefully!  Even if a purchased version, many apps may be looking at information on your device it has no business looking at, contacts, messages, etc.. 

Here are a couple examples of misleading search results:

Searching for HP Support - none are HP!

Looking for the manufacturer's sites?  Use our list instead.

NEVER search for drivers, instead go to the manufacturer's site

In fact, the first results (driversupport) loads an application that is simply crapware in our opinion
and the bottom red box indicates Norton has detected an actual virus or dangerous web page!
Instead of searching, use Windows Updates to check for drivers.

Always look at the "domain" you are about to click on!