[asimops]

I don't get it. The putty website has always been https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

This has never changed.

Just because someone likes to use short circuit routing in their head doesn't make putty.org the official site for putty.

That is the same attitude as telling the Keepass folks that https://keepass.info/ is wrong...

edit:

Maybe also have a look at the putty FAQ, especially 9.3

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/faq.html#...

[ColinWright]

Point of information.

From that doc:

A.9.3 Would you like me to register you a nicer domain name?

No, thank you. Even if you can find one (most of them seem to have been registered already, by people who didn't ask whether we actually wanted it before they applied), we're happy with the PuTTY web site being exactly where it is. It's not hard to find (just type ‘putty’ into google.com and we're the first link returned) ...

Searching for "putty ssh" on both DDG and Google now return putty.org as their top result.

[whywhywhywhy]

It's not even on the screen for me when searching "putty"

1: putty.org

2: "People also ask, What is putty and why is it used?" then 4 other questions about the material putty taking up most of the page

3: Videos "How to use Putty to SSH on Windows"

----- Fold -----

4. Video "How to Use Putty?"

5: Video "How to SSH Without a Password with Putty"

6: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ the actual site

[asimops]

This is definitely something that should be raised to the putty team. But with how the rest of the text is worded, I doubt that will change their mind.

[peanut-walrus]

Huh weird, usually top 3 results are "sponsored" links serving malware.

[asimops]

Might be one of those weirdos using an ad blocker ;)

[const_cast]

Really? You're telling me you weren't looking for softwaredownload.com free download software today?

[GoblinSlayer]

Mojeek and brave return 1) putty.org, 2) official site; and additionally a snippet from wikipedia in a sidebar with a correct address.

[signal11]

How do we report disappointing search results to Google? (Does anyone know please?)

[ozgrakkurt]

They don’t care if results are disappointing for you, they just want you to click more ads

[beefnugs]

haha i swear for a super brief period of time they actually did have a little link if you ever travelled back to search results where you could feedback or filter the dumb sites... then someone was forced to re-read the company mandate and had to sign HR paperwork that now only evil

[mschuster91]

... and when the results are junk, you go back to Google and so the KPI "time spent on Google" rises.

That's the problem when the metrics are focused on how the company is doing and not how the user is doing, but when there is barely any competition that is not dogshit you don't have to care about how the customer feels because they can't go anywhere anyway so you can feel free to extract the maximum profit from them.

That's also why Google, Facebook, Microsoft and OpenAI are all so hellbent on AI: they all want to be the one and only place that you interact with to get answers to your questions so that as much of your "eyeball time" as possible (and with it, ad income) stays in their respective walled gardens.

[ColinWright]

Here's a framing of the problem.

There's software called PuTTY, and non-technical or less technical people, or even technical people who are running on autopilot, might reasonably expect that it's hosted on putty.org.

They just need to be more careful.

Here's an analogy.

Even capable programmers keep screwing up when using C and end up with memory leaks and security vulnerabilities. But that's no reason to stop using it ... people should just be more careful.

No analogy is perfect, every example has problems and loopholes, but this seems a reasonable one. Just as people should use programming languages that make it harder to make mistakes, so companies should not behave in deceptive manners, and when they do, they should be called out on it.

[112233]

It is good analogy.

Similarly, telcos keep accepting and showing any cooked up caller ID over their SS7, and when someone gets scammed because they trusted the caller ID, the messaging I hear always actually is "people should just be more careful."

Same as banks requiring only card number to give someone money from the account. "you shoul be more careful with your card number."

It is sad to hear the level of victim blaming from the big industry.

[GoblinSlayer]

Nontechnical people afraid of a scary console window use putty?

[meepmorp]

Yes. Unfortunately.

[asimops]

I don't think the issue really stems from putty.org being there. It stems from a "trusted" third-party, the search engine, suggesting you the wrong place.

Therefore I think you are missing the point with your analogy.

[richrichardsson]

Except Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing all return putty.org as the top result. The "official" PuTTY website appears as either the 2nd or 3rd result.

putty.org has this on their page:

> On July 13, 2025, Bitvise was contacted by a political interrogator posing as a journalist.

They are doing a great job of making themselves look like assholes.

[asimops]

IMHO neither of the two showed exactly nice behavior. But I don't think that this is particularly relevant.

[sdflhasjd]

Google (not saying it's a good search engine, but people use it) puts putty.org at the top of search results.

The results shows as:

  Download PuTTY - a free SSH and telnet client for Windows.
  PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. PuTTY is open source software that is available with source...

[TonyTrapp]

How does your example relate? keepass.info is the official Keepass website, owned by the Keepass developer.

[asimops]

As is https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ to Putty.

Still there were multiple requests to the Keepass project to change that domain to "a proper" domain like keepass.com

[stavros]

I, too, took your comment to mean that keepass.info is to KeePass as putty.org is to PuTTY.

[asimops]

Well, classic sender receiver mismatch I guess :D

Is my intent more clear with that second try to explain? If not, I'm more then welcome to talk about a better way to phrase it :)

[mtlynch]

I was confused as well and panicked that I'd been installing KeePass from a fake site all these years. But keepass.info is indeed the official site.

Suggest: That is the same attitude as critics telling the Keepass maintainer to migrate the (official) keepass.info domain to a .com...

[GoblinSlayer]

For some reason there's no .official tld, there's .app, .codes, .dev, .download, .kosher

[asimops]

Yes, that captures my intent :) Sadly, I cannot edit the post anymore.