Google pronounces PalmSource unclean

SEARCH GIANT Google is flagging the remnants of a Palm OS software guide as "dangerous" for your computer.

The "This site may harm your computer" warning comes attached to almost all results on the applications.palmsource.com web site which is still indexed by Google despite the fact that Access software has stopped using that domain some time ago. We found this odd situation while looking for utilities for the Palm Centro smart phone, and as you might imagine, this doesn't give users a warm fuzzy feeling.

As thing stands right now, besides seeing this ominous warning attached to each Google search result, when you click on each URL you are sent to an interceptor web page like this one (http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://applications.palmsource.com/Software/Solutions.asp%3FEnt%3D%26PCID%3D29%26PSCID%3D121) which reads: "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!". It suggests two alternatives: returning to the previous page or doing another web search. It also warns you that if you proceed, you do so "at your own risk".

We suspect this is just a result of a honest mistake of Access failing to pull the plug on the zombie web site applications.palmsource.com domain name. Yet it's strange to see Google thinks that a web page with broken links immediately becomes a source for malware. Another option is someone abusing Google's "report malware" (http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/) web page.

In any case, it's quite pointless going ahead and clicking on the listed applications after all the Google warnings: the PalmOS applications guide at that domain shows broken images, and the application links end up in palmgear.com URLs which in turn show a pocketgear.com redirector (http://www.access-company.com/software/index.html?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&prodid=2856). A true mess if we've ever seen one.

PalmOS device users looking for software should ignore palmsource.com results altogether and are much better going directly to the software store at Palm.com over at http://partnerstore.palm.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=1179762 or the Palm OS applications section at PocketGear (http://www.pocketgear.com/en_US/html/all_titles_list.jsp?startCount=0&perPage=10&categoryId=cat3880102&sf=48190044&_requestid=165218&sf=48190044¤cy=). It should be noted that all *.palmsource.com URLs are intercepted by the firm's web site and redirected to access-company.com/ with the only exception of applications.palmsource.com.

We asked Access for comment on the zombie web site and this flagging by Google but we haven't received a reply yet. Palm Inc. of Centro fame also couldn't be very happy about this association of Palm OS applications and malware warnings.