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Hacking Google Print - Easily View Whole Books

books.google.com — Using this simple search term, you can view (nearly) every page in a whole book. I wanted to read the book "Hacking the XBOX" by Bunnie, so this is how I did it. Is this legal?

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 6, 2005

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  • rolandog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2tgraham... that's why you use Firefox to open the results in a new tab.
  • tommis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@rolandog, I also tought Google limits the number of pages you can view. This is from their FAQ:

    Why do I have to log in to see certain pages?

    Because many of the books in Google Book Search are still under copyright, we limit the amount of a book that a user can see. In order to enforce these limits, we make some pages available only after you log in to an existing Google Account (such as a Gmail account) or create a new one. If you prefer not to log in but still want to see a few pages, click the "view an unrestricted page" link. Remember, the aim of Google Book Search is to help you discover books, not read them cover to cover, so you may not be able to see every page you're interested in.
  • dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sorry for postin my comment so fast(no edit button), but, you may wanna include | also | in that right above.. So,
    a | the | and | but | of | on | from | it | if | it | is | also
  • martinus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1when you search for of|on you get all pages
  • kday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dude3609 ~
    Wow, of|on does seem to work better! Seems to get every page.
  • dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ah i see what this does.

    This might work better though.
    a | the | and | but | of | on | from | also | if |it | is
  • Roger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not this crap again. This is nothing new. Google still imposes an account view limit and completely blocks some pages.
  • raindog469, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you're gonna do something illegal anyway, why not just find the whole book in electronic form on Usenet or ed2k? At least then you'd get a PDF which isn't incredibly tedious to read.

    I've tried the ebook thing a number of times and I think I'll stick to buying my books in paper form.
  • tgraham, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This doesn't actually work as well as you'd think - Google limit you to 7 pages viewing per epsiode.
  • damightyzug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Add vowels for even better results

    |a|e|i|o|u| the | and | but | of | on | from | it | if | it | is | also
  • dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ofjon seems even better.. Thanks :D
  • baltakatei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, certain books you can read the entire thing, but most books have a limit on how many pages you can view. However, you might be able to get away with setting up multiple Google accounts but then buying the book would probably be easier.
  • kday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You can view most of the missing pages by clicking the "next page" button on previous pages.
  • rolandog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@tommis: indeed...

    But hey,... everybody! The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about Fight club. In other words,... stop making this 'flaw' a big issue or else Google will get in trouble and we'll all get pwnd.
  • dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Tested,
    a | the | and | but | of | on | from | it | if | it | is
    seems to give me more results..
    USE THAT
  • littmild, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What about public libraries? Who the ***** want's to read a book at google?
  • furdine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The most simple and effective term is probably: and | the

    This works because words like "and" and "the" are stoplist words - they're ignoreed from most searches. But with the |, you get around the stoplist by how Google programmed this. You can list almost all the pages this way, but you still need to get past the "# of pages to show per IP" limitation they have.
  • flea2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Page 57 of digital fortress - can't view. Good thing I have already listened to the book from audible.
  • slim7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this doesn't really work, it keeps limiting me, and opening a new firefox tab does about nothing ...
  • droxy429, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0pretty cool, didnt think of it... could be useful one day.. even though i dont read...
    but digged
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0shift +
  • dan4prez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How do you type the | operator with the keyboard? I just copy and pasted it.
  • Keruo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you cannot see some page in search results, just check if the page is listed in the index, and try any words mentioned there, like page 4 on that book: About Hackers and Hacking
    Add | hackers and you get the page on results
  • gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Now all we need is an unrestricter.
  • rolandog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0lol @ damightyzug: seems like you want all the images with yellow marks.
  • LeFrenzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nice
  • buss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0brilliant!
  • kday, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0don't use spaces between the | operator and you get more results :P
  • sheldonator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this is awesome.
  • t0ny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0add | xbox then there is every page :)
  • GlassMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0regular expressions also work. this returned all pages except those with just pictures:

    a.*|e.*|i.*|o.*|u.*

    They do filter .* as too general a query.

    Google won't fix this. If someone automates book copying, google will just break that system instead.
  • mypape, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Defiantly Dugg+ but is it just me or does anyone else feel like we just ruined this for ourselves?
  • DamnedEyez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Along with giving the secrets away, doesn't this basically come down to exactly why Google was under fire concerning this idea to begin with?
  • a1programmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You could buy the book for less than the worth of all the time it would take you to copy all the pages.

    But of course I guess you could read it directly offline.
  • secretivecoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds like a good way for uncle sam to get your ebay id and spy on you.
  • a1programmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0er, online I meant. heh
  • MikeCampo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah this is very old news...
  • VijayK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it will not work in a stretch. You have to re-query it all the time and almost always you will miss a page. Ive tried it before just by typing in page numbers in the search.
  • NippleNutz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0LOL Read the first sentence. Google is not a library.

    http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=ht004Eg8AC4C&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=a+%7C+the+%7C+and+%7C+but+%7C+of+%7C+on+%7C+from&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3DOreilly&sig=kBzs9oMt4z82vT1eUEyhsQgCJOU
  • jimg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm on the Google Book Search team and just wanted to let you guys know that although a (sufficiently clever) search within a book may list many of the book's pages in your search results, you can't actually see all those pages (for books that aren't in the public domain). This is because most of the books in Google Book Search today are from the Partner Program where publishers give us permission only to show some pages. So, there are total-page-view limits, scrolling restrictions (2 pages each way), restricted pages (requiring login), and blocked pages (to all users) – and no, opening multiple browser windows doesn't allow you to view the complete book. Thanks.
  • BlueLaser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To echo the voices above:

    Google LIMITS your page views per book. Even if you can query every page, you can only view 20 or so pages before Google begins displaying a message telling you to buy the book.

    So, if you query every page, choose the ones you want to view carefully. Google WILL cut you off (unless you create a new account...but that's a serious waste of time).
  • xHero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm surprised you can't bypass the the login... Which makes me wonder...

    /off_to_the_lab
  • mrgomel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0dudes, trust in Google to do the right thing.
  • crapiolio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You can do the samething on Amazon.com, they both have restriction on your page views. After a certain amount, you'll be getting a page that tells you to BUY THE DAMN BOOK, you bastard! Nothing much new here.
  • futoshi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0excellent! my first Digg post!
  • dearreid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is that because you spelled it "hackign"?
  • tomskag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0no, this is cool.
    when iu searched for "hackign the xbox"
    i got alot of the pages removed
  • N3LDAN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Restricted pages suck :(


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