Google Search on Netsurf

Is just me who has lost Google Search on Netsurf 3.3?

Any attempt to do this just results in rapidly cycling pages where the last part of the URL such as “sei=vc1MVZuIKOa57garxoHABw” is constantly changing, with the instruction…

Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds.

Clicking here makes no difference, until after a short while it challenges me to prove I’m not a robot since Google has detected “unusual traffic”.

This has been going on for a few days now.

If Netsurf can no longer access Google Search, how would I change !NetSurf.Resources.en.welcome/html to make it use Bing instead?

Confirmed on 3.2 and 3.3. Without JavaScript enabled, Google results will be a never-ending pile of redirections, which is weird given that the necessary page content is present (View Source).

I think the NetSurf devs will need to trap this¹ and abort the refresh if it is Google in this condition, as a Google-less browser is not so useful. As a short term fix, turn on JavaScript (but that can have its own problems, some sites work much better without any scripting than partial scripting).

I guess it is just one of the ***tty changes Google have been making recently. I’m surprised it doesn’t try to redirect to https while it’s at it…
…and no, using the https version doesn’t change anything.

¹ A damn sight more likely to happen than Google fixing their newfound brokenness.

Barstools!

From View Source in a Google search for “Fatal Frame”:

<noscript><meta content=“0;url=/search?q=fatal+frame&amp;sa=G&amp;hl=fr&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;gbv=1&amp;sei=l9hMVYOXM8X2UoS8gdgJ” http-equiv=“refresh”><style>table,div,span,p{display:none}</style><div style=“display:block”>Cliquez <a href=“/search?q=fatal+frame&amp;sa=G&amp;hl=fr&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;gbv=1&amp;sei=l9hMVYOXM8X2UoS8gdgJ”>ici</a> si, d’ici quelques secondes, vous n’avez pas été redirigé.</div></noscript

So in the noscript section, they hide everything using CSS and then set an immediate refresh (that never correctly works).

Good news: Shouldn’t be too hard for NetSurf to detect this and ignore it.

Bad news: That they did this in the first place.
But, then, you’ll notice it is speaking to me in French. Yes. I’m in France. With a browser that says HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en, *;q=0.1 so if they can’t get that right…

Totally agree, but your good news is welcome.

In the meanwhile, could someone please explain how to change !NetSurf.Resources.en.welcome/html to make it use Bing instead?

My welcome page is ROOL’s Recent Posts. ;-)
But, okay, to exorcise Google, you do this:

Find this code (about halfway down, before all the links):

<form method="get" action="http://www.google.co.uk/search">
<div class="websearch">
<input type="text" name="q" size="42" maxlength="255">
<input type="submit" value="Google Search" name="btnG">
</div>
</form>

Change it as follows:

<form method="get" action="http://www.bing.com/search">
<div class="websearch">
<input type="text" name="q" size="42" maxlength="255">
<input type="submit" value="Bing Search">
</div>
</form>

Yes – basically “google.co.uk” → “bing.com” and you change Google → Bing in the button name. I have also removed the button name, you don’t need to send that.
Pretty easy. ;-)

I’ve been using duckduckgo for ages. Seems sensible to me to avoid google.

Jim

Or you could use this?

<form method="post" action="https://duckduckgo.com/html" name="x">
<div class="websearch">
<input type="text" name="q" size="42" maxlength="255">
<input type="submit" value="DuckDuckGo Search">
</div>
</form>

(note – the https is important)

Edit: I see QuackQuackFweee! has already been mentioned. Here’s the code to do it. ;-)

For what it is worth, the festering mouldy remains of the once mighty AltaVista is here:

<form method="get" action="https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search" name="s">
<div class="websearch">
<input type="text" name="p" size="42" maxlength="255">
<input type="submit" value="Yahoo! Search!">
</div>
</form>

It renders badly in NetSurf (and older Firefox, and…) and my “Fatal Frame” search begins with a large Amazon advert. Two good reasons to ignore Yahoo! and fondly remember AltaVista when the web was a nice place and SEO was unheard of and the worst we had to deal with was AOL. <sigh>

The fourth most common search engine is Ask. Given the <expletive> that they like to push on to PCs (toolbars and stuff that hijacks the browser so you can’t not have Ask without uninstalling some stuff by hand), you’ll get HTML code to go to Ask.com over my dead body. In fact, not even then. My ghost will spit in your general direction should you dare ask for such a thing. You will be haunted by a ghost that will make the wires in all your USB leads fray, so they’ll only work intermittantly and only if you hold them just right, even if they’re brand new. And, randomly, on public holidays, your monitor will be missing the blue component. Because annoyed ghosts can do stuff like that. So, get the hint. Ask.com is not happening, okay?

you’ll get HTML code to go to Ask.com over my dead body. In fact, not even then. My ghost will spit in your general direction should you dare ask for such a thing.

The hosts file is a wonderful thing in some circumstances – this is one of those 127.0.0.1 circumstances.
Although my favourite at work is Packetshaper and a bandwidth so low that things time out.¹

Blocking it? No sir, look the (nice small) ping packet goes through and back…

¹ That was my former boss being subtle.

If you still want Google results you can also use Startpage:

<form method="get" action="https://startpage.com/do/search">
<div class="websearch">
<input type="text" name="q" size="42" maxlength="255">
<input type="submit" value="Startpage Search" name="btnG">
</div>
</form>

Thanks to everyone for their help, and I’ve been trying out the various engines (even one which I’ll diplomatically refer to as Jeeves).

My reason for doing so was that initially I just tried StartPage since it’s “enhanced by Google”, but unfortunately it is CRAP! Unless I very explicitly state what I’m searching for, StartPage starts its results page with a long list of adverts which, it turns out, Bing & Duck²Go do not.

I’m still hoping that Netsurf will be fixed to handle Google again, though.

I may have missed the point (which seems to happen more and more), but my version of NetSurf (always the latest build) still lets me google whatever I want. Is it because I’m in The Netherlands (where everything happens 50 years later), or…?

my version of NetSurf (always the latest build) still lets me google whatever I want. Is it because I’m in The Netherlands (where everything happens 50 years later), or…?

You have JavaScript turned on! If you didn’t, you would see the problem.

I have devised a utility to make switching JS on and off more easy.

It’s not terribly sophisticated, but can be downloaded from here

The additional problem for the UK is that the very-useful StreetMap only works with JS turned off!

Hence my “hack”!

Thanks John for the link are any of the bleading edge builds working?

http://ci.netsurf-browser.org/builds/riscos/

Thanks John for the link are any of the bleading edge builds working?

They all work; with Google if you turn JS on, with StreetMap if you turn JS off.

The hack I referred to simplifies this process. Try the download.

Thanks John, I’ve downloaded JS but when I tried to use it there was something about Keystroke and then then it seemed to fall over.

Surprisingly, it’s installed itself on the icon bar, but it does all weird things click-click-click across the screen, and I can’t quit it. I can remove the icon, but I think it’s still there.

I’ve had a look at the JS Help file, but that doesn’t really explain to me what is actually going on – even though the whole piece of text is repeated.

But on the plus side, Google is now working!!!!

You have JavaScript turned on! If you didn’t, you would see the problem.

Ah! So JavaScript is doing something in NetSurf after all!
Very glad to hear. I never use any form of Streetmap other than on my phone, so that niggle won’t bother me, but if Google would have gone useless on our system, then… the entire system would more or less have gone useless, I’d think. Isn’t the ability to find whatever information you want the main benefit of computers nowadays? (rhetoric question)

Unfortunately some sites stall the browser for ages with javascript turned on; it’s swings and roundabouts.

but if Google would have gone useless on our system, then… the entire system would more or less have gone useless, I’d think.

Why? Use Bing? Or see if any enterprising php/ruby coder could put together an interface for Google that strips down mobile view or somesuch?
Looking at what the Google page is doing, it seems like they’re either halfassed (to redirect non script to a page that redirects non script to a page that…) or they’re doing this on purpose to be annoying. It’s almost enough to make me want to try setting up my own build environment so I can hardwire in an exception to override this – but I’m too lazy and have too many other things that need doing…

The thing to remember is that Google isn’t the only player. They are the best at the moment with a wide range of features . . . but once upon a time people might have said that about MySpace and where is that now? ;-)

I think the three things that bug me most about Google are:

• data collection; many people have done this to death so I won’t bother
• their habit of dropping products that they are no longer interested in – to the point where I would think somebody is crazy if they build some sort of business/solution reliant upon any Google service.
• way back when, Google used to take time and effort to make themselves compatible with everything. I can understand that some features like the on line Docs might work best with a recent browser, but even in cases where there is no specific reason does Google reject older and/or less capable browsers. When I was younger and the net was new we had all the “Best viewed on MSIE 3 !!!” nonsense. Google might as well just stick “Best viewed with the latest Chrome” labels on stuff the way they’re carrying on…

tl;dr: Google broke? Use something else…