Spiders with printers?

[J. McKenna]

I noted just now that there were some 6-7 Google Spiders on the forum and three of them were shown to be "printing" topics???   To what end, and doesn't that encroach on the rights of the FS owners, e.g., copyright??? How odd. .. . . . . . . . . . . .

[Wonky Badger]

I noted just now that there were some 6-7 Google Spiders on the forum and three of them were shown to be "printing" topics???   To what end, and doesn't that encroach on the rights of the FS owners, e.g., copyright??? How odd. .. . . . . . . . . . . .

I think they're just following the "print" link from the topic pages. Once I saw a Google Spider registering an account.

[dhammaseeker51]

I've yet to see a google spider.
My Grandaughter has a Chilean Rose Tarantula, which is quite nice.
I held it for the first time the other night (the spider).
Don't suppose there are any similarities though. 

with Metta

[J. McKenna]

I think they're just following the "print" link from the topic pages. Once I saw a Google Spider registering an account.

Can alien probes be far ................. behind?        

[dhammaseeker51]

Seriously though,
Whats the difference between a "spider" and a "bot",  and where does one "see" them?

with Metta

[Wonky Badger]

Seriously though,
Whats the difference between a "spider" and a "bot",  and where does one "see" them?

with Metta

I guess spiders are a kind of bot. They "crawl" web pages, following any links they find and index it for Google or other search engines. At the bottom of the forum page there is a section showing users online. It also show spiders if any are around.

If you click the link saying something like "X Guests, X Users" you can see what any online users are doing, like reading or replying to a specific topic or writing a PM (although some actions are not visible). Spiders might show up as guests if the forum software doesn't recognize them, but a fairly certain way to separate bot guest from sentient guests is that most sentient guests show with a short browser name after (IE, Firefox, Safari...) while bots have longer browser names like "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)". <-- This example is a spider from Microsoft's Bing search engine.

[dhammaseeker51]

Cheers Wonky.
Now I know!

 

with Metta

[Monkey Mind]

Or maybe the spiders are sentient cyber-beings, loyal to the evil Empire... (Insert dramatic music here.)

[dhammaseeker51]

Finally found the spiders!
(under "members online" )
Today 7 Google
           1 Yahoo

Regular little  vivarium? we've got going here!

Metta

[dhammaseeker51]

Be afraid, be very afraid!

Today at 11am UK time only three people online...
But 16 Google spiders!
I think I'm starting to develope arachnophobia. 

with Metta

[Caz]

[J. McKenna]

Reminds one of a classic SF thriller; "Them." Given my location, perhaps I should go ......... and ....... check ................ the ............ doors ............ and .......... 

[dhammaseeker51]

I don't think "them" was shown in the UK.
We used to get "The outer limits" in the UK (Do not adjust your sets!)
and my all time favourite, "Quatermass", which did have some large scary spider creatures in it ("Quatermass and the pit").
I still remember sitting on my mums knee, watching it (no, I was much younger than 15!) as a giant spider fell and I jumped out of my skin.
These Google spiders, they're not like the Quatermass ones are they?
 

with Metta   

[J. McKenna]

These Google spiders, they're not like the Quatermass ones are they?
 

 
No ........ of course not ............