Hidden knowledge

Hint 1: advanced google searching

Search will easily show you all those ebooks that are hanging out there for free!

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” +(“/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip)

What does all of this mean? The -inurl htm and -inul html is attempting to get rid of regular webpages and show just index pages. Looking for index of in the title is doing the same. Using the pipe (|) tells google to look for something OR something else. Here we are telling google to look for book or ebook directories… and we have listed several common ebook formats (zip, pdf, chf).

If you would like to look for a particular author or title just tack it to the end of your search.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” +(“/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip) +”o’reilly”

This uses the same idea but attempts to focus on directories that contain O’Reilly stuff. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than paying.

If you properly query google, you can find open indexes of music files easily. Here are some hints to get you started.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” “Last modified” mp3

Using this string we are using the “index of” and the inurl commands to attempt to isolate directories only. The mp3 tag on the end tells google to look for mp3s in these open directories. You can change this to wma or ogg if you wish.


You can add additional search criteria to focus your search more.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” mp3 “pearl jam”

This command will find open directories with mp3 files with Pearl Jam. Obviously you can change the band name or file type to better define your search.