[HN Gopher] Google removes Sci-Hub domains from U.S. search resu...
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Google removes Sci-Hub domains from U.S. search results due to
dated court order
Author : t-3
Score : 251 points
Date : 2025-12-13 03:21 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| ur-whale wrote:
| There are alternative search engines to Google, in particular
| some where base censorship is not so easily enforced:
|
| https://yandex.com/search/?text=sci-hub
| fao_ wrote:
| I really like yep.com, as per https://www.searchenginemap.com/
| it's one of only four search engines that run their own web
| crawlers. Results are slow but _incredibly_ high-quality.
| homeless_engi wrote:
| Yandex is also yellow on that map. It lists five search
| engines that run their own crawlers -- Google, Bing, Yandex,
| Mojeek, and Yep
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| its crazy that russian search engine is more "open" compared to
| US search engine
| ch4s3 wrote:
| On this one particular issue. There are certainly things
| blocked by Russian search engines which have to comply with a
| rather lengthy list of banned sites since about 2012.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| If by more open you mean not easily censored by anybody but
| Putin. But it's hard to imagine that it's actually more open
| by any reasonable definition of that word.
| anonym29 wrote:
| By open, they mean fewer results censored. The west censors
| more results overall than Russia, kind of like how more UK
| citizens are arrested for speech crimes than Russians, or
| kind of like how abortion is more legal in Russia than it
| is in half of the USA.
|
| Which isn't to say Russia is a bastion of free speech, it's
| not, you still can't go hold an LGBTQIA2s+ pride parade or
| publicly march demanding you be given the right to hold the
| parade in the future without being thrown in prison, but
| they're a poor case study for authoritarianism when the
| west is rapidly turning more authoritarian than Russia is,
| while Russia hasn't really changed much in that regard in
| the last quarter century or so.
| gfdvgfffv wrote:
| "Practical freedom" is a very important measure of
| freedom. If you are generally more free to do what you
| want, how much does it matter that you live in a
| dictatorship? If I live in a democracy with 10,000 laws I
| can't meaningful affect with 1 vote, am I free?
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| Get off it, Russia is arresting people for a single web
| search: https://zona.media/news/2025/12/10/glukhikh
|
| If you think the West is becoming more authoritarian than
| Russia, you're either misinformed or lying.
| user205738 wrote:
| When did a 3,000[?] ($37) fine for searching for nazi
| symbols turn into an arrest? Your source doesn't say
| anything about this.
| alterom wrote:
| >its crazy that russian search engine is more "open" compared
| to US search engine
|
| It's crazy that you think there's only one search engine in
| the US.
|
| Try this one: https://www.bing.com/search?q=sci-hub
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| That's not the case.
|
| https://ft.com/content/8a71052d-d26d-4d71-95d8-c8886ca4fdea
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Paywall
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Oops, sorry about that!
|
| mirror: https://archive.ph/GTnS3
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Just realized "archive.ph" is inappropriate for this
| topic...
|
| https://hackread.com/fbi-wants-to-know-who-runs-archive-
| ph
|
| Today is not my day.
| red_Seashell_32 wrote:
| It's most definitely not.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| There are countless websites and topics removed from
| Google. It's impossible to say.
| alterom wrote:
| >There are alternative search engines to Google,
|
| ..and of those, I really wouldn't be giving the one under the
| direct control of Russia's FSB as my top recommendation.
|
| A little-known _American_ search engine known as Bing[1] lists
| Sci-Hub just fine though.
|
| [1] https://www.bing.com/search?q=sci-hub
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| You are recommending a search engine that is operating from
| Russia under one of the most oppressive regimes in the world.
| The Russian state monitors usage and is definitely censoring
| all sorts of stuff on it.
|
| Of course Sci Hub was developed by a Russian, which is probably
| why Yandex is not censoring it. Also, I don't think the Russian
| government cares much for intellectual property rights of
| companies in NATO countries, for obvious reasons. But they are
| definitely censoring a wide range of other topics.
|
| Check this reports for some details on the types of things that
| Yandex censors:
| https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/07/30/disrupted-throttled-an...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| If I was looking for something that is against the interests
| of Russian oligarchs I wouldn't use yandex.
|
| In the same way it has become obvious that you should not use
| Google if you are looking for something that is against the
| interests of American oligarchs.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| If I go to a particular Sci-Hub mirror and it's down, I often go
| to the Wiki page to see the different TLD options. Same for
| checking some of my favorite Torrent trackers. I don't use Google
| for any controversial searches anymore, but if Wiki continues to
| degrade in quality, I'll really be SOL.
| alterom wrote:
| >If I go to a particular Sci-Hub mirror and it's down, I often
| go to the Wiki page to see the different TLD options
|
| You can still Google Sci-Hub, and find plenty of pages listing
| active mirrors.
|
| Notably, https://www.sci-hub.pub is the top hit for me, and is
| reliable enough.
| tdeck wrote:
| The only thing that consistently works for me is the Telegram
| bot.
| alterom wrote:
| Why does it matter though?
|
| I'd wager few people would use Google to search content on Sci-
| Hub. The normal usage is simply entering the DOI of the paper you
| want on Sci-Hub's front page.
|
| _Note:_ you can still search for Sci-Hub itself on Google, and
| find plenty of pages listing active mirrors.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They could censor that in Chrome as well, in multiple ways.
| That's one reason why having your DNS services provider,
| browser provider and search provider as the same entity is an
| extra risk.
| roguh wrote:
| Hail the corporate overlords!!!
| freefaler wrote:
| Check https://open-slum.org/ what's up in the shadow libraries
| world.
|
| Anna's archive & Z-lib has mirrored all of Sci-hub and are indeed
| a viable alternative.
| mptest wrote:
| if only i had a machine with a petabyte or two to spare to help
| seed the whole library
| politelemon wrote:
| Why does it show all red for all zlibs?
| HKH2 wrote:
| There is a big green box at the top of the page explaining
| that.
| davely wrote:
| Hah. I wonder how someone could miss that, but it does kind
| of look like one of those "sign up for our newsletter"
| types of elements.
|
| Maybe many of us are just subconsciously blocking those
| types of things out now because it's so pervasive.
| greendestiny_re wrote:
| It's called "banner blindness."
|
| https://www.nngroup.com/articles/banner-blindness-
| original-e...
| senderista wrote:
| This changes absolutely nothing about how I use sci-hub. As long
| as I can find the front page and search for a DOI, I don't care
| how many search results Google censors.
| renegat0x0 wrote:
| I use my own library of domains exactly for scenarios like that
|
| https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database
| 6510 wrote:
| needs a simple p2p desktop client
| misnome wrote:
| Is Sci-Hub still relevant? Haven't they been frozen for like 5+
| years at this point?
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| More like: "is Google still relevant?" Specially for the kind
| of people that browses Sci-Hub. It's been months since I've
| done a search in ad-ridden Google.
| misnome wrote:
| I know lots of people who still use google.
|
| Sci-hub has ceased to be mentioned or considered when
| scientists/grads I know look for papers. Everything has gone
| back do "Does your institution have a subscription for X?".
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I still use sci-hub because the newer the article, the less
| I trust it.
|
| I am not a student anymore, though.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| There is a successor to SciHub which relies on IPFS
| mmooss wrote:
| What country are you in, if you don't mind saying?
| adrian_b wrote:
| The research papers from 10, 20 or 50 years ago are at least as
| valuable and frequently more valuable than the papers from this
| year.
|
| A lot of "new" discoveries are rediscoveries of old things,
| which may have been not important at the time of their initial
| discovery, because in order to be useful they depended on
| advances in other domains, but when those advances happen,
| suddenly they become important and they can be the base of
| state-of-the-art techniques.
|
| Therefore Sci-Hub remains very relevant, as a repository
| containing a very large number of historically-important
| research papers, including many research papers from the 19th
| century or early 20th century, which should have been in the
| public domain, but which can still be found behind paywalls
| elsewhere.
| amelius wrote:
| So we give Russia and China free access to science, while we
| block our own people? Smart move ... /s
| jmclnx wrote:
| Interesting, did not think if it that way. I guess why not,
| with this admin the US is handing China what is left of our
| scientific lead on a silver platter. Just look at the de-
| funding of mRNA vaccine research in the US for an example.
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(page generated 2025-12-13 23:02 UTC)