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Martin Brinkmann at gHacks reports
When Google launched Google Instant Search back in 2010, the company called it a fundamental shift in search that would save searchers time when running searches on Google.
Instant Search displayed search results page to the user during the process of typing the actual search phrase the user was interested in.
In [the] best case, it would display the desired results earlier. In [the] worst case, it would throw a number of unrelated search results page at you while you tried to focus on typing your search query.
[...] I disabled Instant Search as soon as it came out. [It] was terribly annoying if you typed long queries quickly.
The feature could also jack up bandwidth [usage,] as more results pages may have had to be loaded during your typing of the search phrase you were interested in.
Starting [July 27], Google Instant Search is no more. The company has put the feature to rest, all thanks to the rise of mobile and the fact that Instant Search does not really work that well on mobile devices for a number of reasons.
Do any Soylentils still do searches from Google's landing page?
Once you get a Google result, have you then been typing into Google's page to refine your search?
I hated Mozilla's AwesomeBar and, when I encountered Instant Search (on the library's machine), I was irritated. (I do searches as URLs, from the Address Bar; it's one reason that I hate most Google "replacements", which are script-driven and don't show you a URL that you can repost.)
(Score: 1) by ataradov on Friday July 28 2017, @07:18AM (1 child)
This was the dumbest feature ever.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @08:36AM
They eventually fixed verbatim mode, but it was broken for months.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @07:18AM
Death to the Google bourgeoisie!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @08:31AM (5 children)
I was fine with it after I switched to https://duckduckgo.com/html/ [duckduckgo.com]
Next thing google needs to remove is the arrow key hijacking on google images. Arrows keys scroll the page up/down EXCEPT on their site where javascript interception makes them move a little arrow within page. The fix is https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5819-disable-website-keyboard-hooks [greasyfork.org] but not 100% effective.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:38PM
As if the whole "growing the page to infinity" isn't retarded enough. And people wonder whey their browsers munch up 9000 GB of ram. Interestingly, when I use image search in an older web browser, I get a proper paginated search.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Friday July 28 2017, @12:46PM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday July 28 2017, @03:10PM (2 children)
Which operating system? Combo boxes on Windows [microsoft.com], such as the search field in Notepad++'s Find (Ctrl+F) command, bind up and down to choosing an item from a list. And in Command Prompt on Windows and Bash on GNU/Linux, Up and Down scroll through my command history. Home and End still jump to the start and end of the input field. How is scrolling through your Google search history conceptually different from these?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:54AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @10:42PM
OS X is horrible about that. Maybe things were better back in the MacOS days, but now it seems every application has to be different, with a different look and feel and UI. A lot of Apple's own applications are pretty big offenders. Things like the Home and End keys (does Apple even put those on their computers anymore?) will do different things, including nothing at all, and the only way to know is to try it and find out what happens. In comparison Windows is actually pretty consistent (though not nearly as much as before), though some shitty software such as iTunes still likes to do its own thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @08:57AM (3 children)
I have firefox configured with the classic search box as I don't want my search history and URL history in the same field. I've also always disabled show suggestions in that search box and disabled javascript globally.
When using other machines, I always found the instant search feature to be pointless and annoying.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Friday July 28 2017, @04:02PM (2 children)
This. Except that I use Pale Moon, which has the classic search box. And set the default search engine to Ixquick, and use NoScript and a VPN.
So yes, if I use Google, I do use their search page (it's set as my home page, so it's one click to get there). Oddly, I don't remember ever seeing this Instant Search thingie, just the autocomplete (which is mildly annoying as it's unnecessary, I know how to type, but not so annoying that I've ever tried to do anything about it). It does sound like a tremendous bandwidth waste, especially for those of us doomed to slow DSL connections.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:30AM (1 child)
I remember when their autocomplete first came along... was annoying as all hell and got JS promptly disabled for Google, and so it remains to this day. Or would be if I hadn't long since switched first to IXQuick/Startpage, and then to the Duck.
And speaking of Fucking Google (which is now all one word) a couple days ago they seem to have completely disabled flash video on Youtube. (I have HTML5 disabled in my main browser because it's such a royal PITA and loses nearly all the features I use.) Had to scrape up a browser that doesn't speak HTML5 to be sure, but nope, no flash video anymore, at all.
Well, that will give me a lot more free time, as it'll cut my Youtube use down by 99%, and will completely zero out my random browsing. Offhand I can only think of three of my ~300 subs that I care enough about to put up with the stuttering and inability to downsample far enough or go fullscreen, and generally sluggish (or absent) controls that are HTML5 video (and controls are completely invisible with site colors off, as my eyes require). Anything else, I'll either download or ditch.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:31AM
Have you considered youtube-dl [github.com]?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @08:58AM
When Google introduced Instant Search, that was ultimately what drove me away from Google search. Initially, I didn't care much because it could be avoided by just disabling JavaScript for Google. But then, they changed the domain name for Google Maps from maps.google.com to be served from the same google.com domain as the search, which meant I no longer could at the same time enable JavaScript for maps (which doesn't work without JavaScript — and no, no need to tell me about OpenStreetMap; today I know about it, but back then I didn't) and disable it for search. Since I simply couldn't stand Instant Search (and there was no way that I'd get a Google account, which as far as I could see was the only other way to get rid of it), I finally did the step away from Google.
So, good job, Google, you've lost an user over your misfeature.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday July 28 2017, @08:59AM (5 children)
It's scary to see what they know about you. They know what you searched for before, even on different devices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @09:42AM (4 children)
Do you have a Google account? Then it's no surprise.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday July 28 2017, @10:15AM (3 children)
No Google but Youtube (==Google), which I have never used from my Android(==Google) phone. I use them from the same IP address, but so do the wife and kids, who each get their own suggestions from Google.
Come to think of it, we all have gmail accounts, so that's probably one vector they're using to keep us apart.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday July 28 2017, @12:48PM (1 child)
They can track by IP address too. I have a pretty good idea what some of the searches my boss at work does thanks to this feature :)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 29 2017, @08:48PM
They can? They do. They've always done it. They just revealed the ability gradually so as to not freak their users out, as well as to safely determine the "creepiness level" their users will tolerate.
They're not the only ones who have always been doing it, either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @01:16PM
If you must use gmail then use a separate browser. Never search in google while logged into google.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Friday July 28 2017, @09:06AM (2 children)
I stopped using Google long ago. I switched to http://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com]. The only reason I have a google account is for my android phone, but I never log on to any of the google services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:59PM (1 child)
Use the html only version: https://duckduckgo.com/html/ [duckduckgo.com]
Then you won't be affected when they decide to upgrade your experience every couple of weeks with javascript-heavy enhancements.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday July 28 2017, @07:24PM
Even better, use the lite version
ddg.gg/lite [ddg.gg]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 28 2017, @09:24AM (1 child)
I'm glad it's gone. It was presumptuous and irritating. I think it also on a larger level furthers a discursive reductionism whereby everybody is or ought to be thinking the same thoughts in the same keywords at the same time. Umm, no, Google, I do not communicate in Justin Bieber promulgated sound bites and I don't appreciate your pre-supposing that's what I'm searching for.
I have generally given Google much more of the benefit of the doubt because they have brought so much more positive things to the world than, say, Microsoft, but they have rather overstepped themselves in the past decade and really ought to spend some quality time re-connecting with their original ethos of "Don't be evil."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:06AM
You're giving them too much credit. They love to steer people as best they can, and boy is it well-known what their agenda is. Read the following timeline to see why Google really gave it up:
1. Google based their instant search on everybody else's searches. This lead to the infamous Michelle Obama Monkey [cnn.com] controversy.
2. Google removed that one case but refused to give a shit about other cases, merely providing the disclaimer blaming the people of the world rather than their search algorithms.
3. Years later, it became more publicly known that the top displayed results for "Jews are..." and "Blacks are..." were very unflattering to the groups in question, so they tweeked the algorithms to hide the negative results.
4. Shortly after that, people discovered that the displayed results for "Jews are very..." and "Blacks are very..." yielded unflattering results.
5. After further tweaking, the displayed results shown for "Jews are..." and "Blacks are..." nothing. Not even anything positive.
6. They use the nomination of Hillary Clinton as an excuse to remove all negative search suggestions "about anybody (note: Except Donald Trump), because we're not mean," but it was obvious why.
7. Meanwhile, complicated searches involving Jews, Blacks, and Hillary Clinton still provided overwhelmingly negative suggestions.
8. Google decides that people who use Google search are too mean, kills the autosuggest feature altogether.
9. Typing "Ooga Booga Looga" into Google Translate still auto-translates to Somalian.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RamiK on Friday July 28 2017, @10:55AM (6 children)
I probably misspell almost anything at, or above, 3 syllables. Not to mention then vs. than and the Concord rules... My penmanship actually developed into a sloppy looking defensive form of cursive that obscures the distinguishing features of vowels. Only one collage professor caught up to it but he just laughed and said he doesn't care while all the rest ended up deducting 5-10 pts on average so I got away with it :D
compiling...
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday July 28 2017, @10:58AM (4 children)
Collage versus college gets me every time.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday July 28 2017, @03:13PM (1 child)
Dew knot truss yore spill checker!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:43AM
Y/o/u/r/ You're right. I tried trussing my coffee cup so it wouldn't spill, but that durn dew knot didn't hold...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
One I've been seeing a lot lately in the corporate world is principle vs. principal.
You'd think people with business degrees would be able to write basic English.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:26AM
Yeah that one would get me too.
It would be nice if the spell-checkers would prioritize common mistakes instead of just following alphabetical order. Like, you'd right click "princeple" and get:
principle: n, fundamental truth or...
principal: n, person with the highest...
princeling: ...
princely: ...
.
.
.
And when you'd hover over the context menu entry, the full definition would expand.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Pino P on Friday July 28 2017, @03:13PM
Let me guess: your visual art professor.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:19AM
/ducks
I just go up to the URL and start typing the website I want. It searches my browser cache and bookmarks and and usually within a few keystrokes, I have exactly what I was looking for even if I don't really remember the URL.
The Unity lense thingy is nice like that once you disable the amazon shit. To bad Ubuntu has nixed Unity. Perhaps Mate or XFCE can port the lense?
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