Google Ads Fail

So whenever I use a browser without adblock, I get piles upon piles of ads asking me to download Google's Chrome browser. I have no clue why Google has the obsession with which browser I use (since it's not like they get any extra ad revenue from Chrome; maybe it has built-in spyware to track my browsing habits?) but they seemed extremely adamant.

So having seen months of constant ads begging me to try Google Chrome, I finally clicked one of the ads.

At which point, Google declared: "Click here to download the Chrome browser for Mac! System requirements: OSX 10.6 or later."

OK.

I'd been seeing these ads for awhile, so I looked up the system requirements for the earliest versions of Chrome, in case they had only just changed.

System requirements for Mac: "OSX 10.5 or higher, Intel only."

So this entire time, Google has spent untold sums of its ad money or its ad space or its clients' ad money/space, in a massive and perpetual effort to convince me to download a browser that would never, at any point, run on my computer.

Obviously, I never got rich starting up or getting hired as CEO for a massive international company, but if you asked me, I'm pretty sure it's not a particularly good use of Google's marketing budget trying to convince me to download a piece of software just so I can look at a message that says: "You can't open the application 'Chrome' because it is not supported on this architecture."

And the most ridiculous thing is that even without any privacy-invading profiling and without any cookies, Google's ad server can tell that my computer won't run Chrome; I'm pretty sure I can download a user agent switcher for TenFourFox, but I haven't.

Now I have to install Chrome on the laptop just to see if I get ads for Chrome whilst actually using Chrome. Assuming it doesn't require Add Minn privileges to install, since there's no way Google's getting those out of me even if I could give them.

Vital stats:

Browser: TenFourFox
Date: Today
Current Mood: Ironic
Sleep Status: Wrong
Word of the Day: Architecture
Platform: Mac
Operating System: Mac OSX 10.5.8
Processor: Dual 1 Ghz PowerPC G4
RAM: Broken and tends to cause kernel panics.
RAM: Replaced
Redundancy: There is some redundancy here in that this item is redundant.
Redundancy: Yes
Redundancy: Triply so for added security
IBM: No, Motorola
Mobile: Also Motorola
Computer: 10 years old.
Intactness: It still runs.
Computer Store: A bin.

Youtube Video Suggestions

I just watched one of Stuart Ashen's videos on Youtube. For those unfamiliar with Stuart Ashen, he has a series of videos called "Terrible Old Games You Probably Never Heard Of" and also reviews electronic tat dolled up to look like popular items.

As I watched said video, I took a look at the sidebar containing ostensibly related videos that Youtube's algorithm decided I might be interested in watching next. Can you spot the one that doesn't belong?

(Well the image file got et, probably when I killed my Yahoo account. I'll try to get around to re-uploading it if I can find it, but basically it was a long list of Ashen's other videos with a single incongruous My Little Pony vid wedged in the middle. The title text for the image was: "I think my little sister used my computer once and now my Google profile is permanently contaminated with whatever she looked at." Also, the alt text, which is meant to appear when the image can't load but appears on mouseover instead of the title text in Internet Exploder said: "Apparently, My Little Pony is now in some way related to electronic tat. And if this appeared when you pointed your cursor at the image, then upgrade to Firefox you wally.")

I knew you could!