NetSurf google search

Since this morning impossible to use Google Search with !Netsurf or !Iris

Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests, and not a robot. Why did this happen?

I tested on ARMX6, RPi4 and Windows emulator.
Oddly enough it works well with !Browse.

If you have any idea!!! Thanks

!NetSurf still works here, you must have been naughty.

Wait a few hours and try again.

FYI !Netsurf Google search works again on ARMX6 after removing URL and Cookies files in Choices:Netsurf

On the other hand !NetSurf google search on RPi4 does not work even after applying the method above.

The problem seems to have occurred this morning after installing !Netsurf under Windows RpEmu!!!

I’m in France. Works with NetSurf here (3B+).

Sometimes the Googlebot can get confused and mistake normal activity for a bot. Which is ironic, really.

Anyway, the special checking page has all sorts of trickery designed to thwart machines, there’s not much hope of it working correctly on RISC OS. Wait a while, or try to get that page to appear on, say, Android.

Thanks to Googley collusion, Chrome will tell Google my Android account info so I rarely get these messages and the few times I do I just visit Google using Chrome and they magically go away.
I think it uses trickery because, these days, AI is better at solving (Re)Captcha than us meatsacks. It isn’t helped by the fact that the main test is broken on browsers that have more stringent settings (like disallowing third party cookies and whatnot). You’ll be agonising over which square may or may not contain bits of bicycles to no avail. After four or five failed attempts, it’ll switch to a different test that has really awful low quality images that fade away when clicked on. That works where the normal test doesn’t.

So, in my case, if the Captcha is solved correctly the first time, it’s clearly a bot. 😂

I would say “if Google doesn’t work, try DuckDuckGo”… but I’ve set DDG to the default on one of my phones and I find the results to be… eccentric and missing quite a lot. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a somewhat different problem when using NetSurf 3.11. I will admit I haven’t tried a Google search for several months.

• On entering a search term, the “cookies” page is displayed.
• After clicking the “Accept all” button, I get the message “In order to continue, please enable javascript on your web browser”.
• Enabling Javascript in Netsurf and repeating the search gives an (apparently) blank page, which on further investigation turns out to be 70 kilobytes of obfuscated Javascript.

By the looks of things, Google search now insists on Javascript, and Netsurf’s Javascript engine isn’t up to the job.

Enabling Javascript in Netsurf and repeating the search gives an (apparently) blank page, which on further investigation turns out to be 70 kilobytes of obfuscated Javascript.

By cleaning choices:www.netsurf, google search started working again, phew (ouf)!
But no way to make it work under Rpemu and there is still a problem with the RPi4…

you must have been naughty.

:-)

By the looks of things, Google search now insists on Javascript

What’s your URL? Just going to google.com works for me, and pops up a non-fancy page.

Granted, much of the rest of Google doesn’t work but you can get as far as basic search using NetSurf.

What’s your URL? Just going to google.com works for me, and pops up a non-fancy page.

google.com, google.co.uk and google.fr all produce the same results (i.e. the “cookie” page followed by “Enable Javascript” if not already enabled, then a blank page). I’ve tried running a Google search from another device on the same subnet (Firefox on macOS, in case that’s important) but it didn’t change Netsurf’s subsequent behaviour one iota.

Same here. Whether I go directly to Google’s site or use the search box on the NetSurf default home page, I get a “Turn on JavaScript to keep searching” page.

Enabling NetSurf’s rudimentary JavaScript support then gave the “unusual activity” message.

Calling Google insecurely, http not https, from Netsurf with Javascript enable looks to be initially more successful but not if the “unusual activity” message has been seen.

Looks like a wider issue, not just NetSurf. TechCrunch article

Yup. Just tried on Firefox disabling scripting. Google tells me to turn it on. Bing doesn’t appear to work.

DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, does work, nor does it give any indication of why (but then it’s probably that AI junk getting in the way).

So, sayonara Google. I do have to laugh at the rapacious bastards pilfering everything in sight to train their AI getting upset that somebody else might be scraping them. We, as a species, are clearly on the fast track to mediocre irrelevance.

See also this: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/17/not-second-screen-enough-is-netflix-deliberately-dumbing-down-tv-so-people-can-watch-while-scrolling

You know, the movie Idiocracy wasn’t supposed to be a prophecy.

Looks like a wider issue, not just NetSurf. TechCrunch article

That article is actually rather “funny”.

that the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam

Spamming requires posting things. Doing a search ≠ posting things. Requiring JavaScript to perform a search does not protect against spam.

The spokesperson noted that, without JavaScript […] the quality of search results tends to be degraded.

If that’s true then it’s due to Google’s own design. There is no reason that HTML search results couldn’t contain the same data as the JavaScript-based results.

and to provide the most relevant and up-to-date information

Again, there’s no reason this couldn’t be provided via HTML. It’s not like one data format is magically more “stale” than another.

I suspect this is actually another step in the “let’s ram AI down people’s throats” mission that seems to be prevalent in large technology companies. The (often-useless) AI summaries, as currently implemented, do require JavaScript. Without JS, you don’t see them, and of course we can’t possibly have that!

The (often-useless) AI summaries

I looked up a movie that I saw on Netflix the other day, I don’t recall the name, and the so summary was about as useful as being hit in the face with a wet fish.

(this is paraphrased from memory)

• Viewers liked the believable characters and the intriguing plot.
• Viewers disliked the one-dimensional characters and the incoherent plot.

Very useful. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Side note: duckduckgo with my LaunchPad and NS works fine (even with JS disabled in NetSurf), I haven’t been using a search engine directly in a long time thought.

As for Google, yes, they now require JavaScript because the modern world is all about creating bots that try to extract data from websites. JavaScript helps Google to detect such bots. The situation is so bad that I created one to help reduce the load on websites. However, some people are so misguided that they insist on writing poorly designed scrapers in Python and JavaScript to bombard websites, instead of using something that simulates a real human in every aspect. They avoid proper simulation because it makes the process slower, and apparently, they can’t wait.

Enabling NetSurf’s rudimentary JavaScript support then gave the “unusual activity” message.

I would not recommend to enable JS in NS. While the engine works, it doesn’t seem to support any of the checks Google JS tries to do, so yes it will result google identifying the browser as a bot and send you back the page for the bots.

The amount of checks they make is substatial, so I would expect aso Iris to fail the test, given I have seen it failing the test with ChatGPT already.

I would say “if Google doesn’t work, try DuckDuckGo”… but I’ve set DDG to the default on one of my phones and I find the results to be… eccentric and missing quite a lot. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s either DDG or another minor engine, but it won’t be google anymore, sorry.

This is just to clarify DuckDuckGo’s Javascript usage options, something I was not aware of. (Or had forgotten.)

DuckDuckGo does offer Non-JavaScript Versions of DuckDuckGo Search

A plain HTML search is at https://html.duckduckgo.com/html and the full fat search is https://duckduckgo.com

With Javascript enabled Netsurf fails to start with the Javascript version of DuckDuckGo but with Javascript disabled it is redirected to the Javascript free search. Calling the HTML search works just fine.

Iris’s homepage DuckDuckGo search calls the HTML version and attempting to call the Javascript search goes to a Captcha which it passes.

HTH.

If you’re suffering from Google withdrawal symptoms, it’s mildly amusing to note that the Javascript enabled Browse is accepted, and also passes the usual cookie confirmation check. Maybe a former Acorn developer now works at Alphabet and has put in a special test for old times’ sake?

Hi,
access to Google search, tests:
with ARMX6 and javascript enabled it works (version 3.11(28th dec 2023)
On my RPi4, with the ePic version it doesn’t work, I copied !Netsurf from my ARMX6 and the google search is ok.
I also installed !Browse on both machines and no problem…

Being able to search the web without advertising is great.

By the way, thanks Google for making changes without warning users…