Comments on: Chrome Blocked by Google

By: Syrian

Syrian — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:21:39 +0000

He’s right, you can’t download Google Talk, Google Chrome, or any other Google programs using a Syrian IP address. I used to be able to download Chrome using Tor, but now even that isn’t possible. They seem to have been able to change the installer so as to check the local IP address of the computer and ignoring the proxy address.

Right now the only web browser I can use AND update is Firefox. Opera is available but I prefer both Chrome and Firefox over Opera. As for Chromium, because it is on the Google Code website, I can’t download it.

By: Mohamed Siddeeq

Mohamed Siddeeq — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:55:22 +0000

Thanx for (14) M.Y FOR LEADING ME TO IRON … Iam leaving in Sudan.. How silly is google, come to Sudan and u will find PEPSI and COCA COLA in every grocery or even small shops.. They r just cheating when they say sanctions.. people here can simply say ” GOOGLE GO to HELL” !!!! my dears Hav a nice time !

By: fonzali

fonzali — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:23:17 +0000

I live in iran and I hate google for not letting us download their programs so for the internet I am using firefox and for a search engine I switched to bing

By: Amir

Amir — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:35:48 +0000

I live in Iran and I confirm the blockage of the applications or services you mentioned above.

But guess what would happen if Google would also decide to take back our Gmail accounts. That would be a tyranny; a contribution to the established dictatorship in Iran!

By: shervin

shervin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:41:14 +0000

we are so sorry for Google Because we cannot download and use chrome and google earth in iran.
we are sorry for google. poor google

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:24:01 +0000

I had a chance to work with some of the Syrian IT guys.. From them, I could know that, though there is a ban, all priated software programs are available freely in that market. When there is a restriction, people will have more interest in those. I could find many good guys in software related subjects. They know in and out of Microsoft Technologies, as they get it all for $1 in the market. No one to control such pirated market there.

By: Nilo

Nilo — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:49:04 +0000

Look for a freeware app called Ultrasurf. That will make any site you visit think you are in the United States and you will be able to download Chrome.

By: Reflectionist

Reflectionist — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:22:39 +0000

Don’t you see, guys? If we let Iranians download Google Chrome they could use it to make nuclear weapons, and we just can’t have that.

By: Praveen Premchandran

Praveen Premchandran — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:37:33 +0000

As far as I am concerned, Google is doing a pretty good job as far as dealing with the US Government is concerned… I should remind everyone that has or plans to bash Google for this that a year or two ago, when the US feds wanted user search information, companies such as Yahoo! and MSN gave up that information, it was only google who persisted against and refused totally any user statistics to the feds, thereby “saving” privacy of sorts…
If blocking the browser has to be done, then so it is, and as someone pointed out, just go for the open source Chromium which is pretty much the same, and benefit out of that…

By: Owen Blacker

Owen Blacker — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:56:30 +0000

Yeah, it’s the export restrictions on “dual use technologies” (so tech that can have both a military and a civilian use) — such as the “strong cryptography” in SSL.

If Microsoft and Firefox are available in those states, then I can only assume the servers providing those downloads are outside US jurisdiction.

I’d never thought about the trading with Cuba bit with AdWords and stuff before, which is really interesting, I think @StareClips.com is right about all of that part.

But that list has been around, in almost precisely that form, since an amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) on 16 February 1996, which relaxed the export restrictions on strong cryptography. Bill Clinton asked the State Department’s Bureau of Political Military Affairs to review the rules shortly after gaining office.

Before then, Netscape and Microsoft (for IE) couldn’t export full-strength SSL from the US, and we foreigners had to make do with 48-bit (or was it 56-bit?) SSL, unless we used Opera (written in Norway) or a German-written app that upgraded the SSL in Netscape. Fun days )