Bl--dy Google Imperialism

The BBQ Pit
1

Used to be that a web site told the semantic value of elements, like “headline” or “bold”, it was up to you how you choose to display that.

But no, Google wants you to use Chrome, their own browser, and outcast are you if want to use an “unsupported” browser.

So the browser you’ve been using for years, that still still displays web pages, and even parses javascript and supports frames and cascading style sheets, is verboten. “Unsupported”. And you know what we do when you use an unsupported browser? We redirect you to “about:blank”.

I’m an adult. You give me HTML, and I can read it as text if my browser won’t display it correctly. You tell me what browser I’m allowed to use, and I dream powerless dreams of revenge, like pitting you on TSD message board.

2

You’re self-censoring “bloody” ?
I mean, I recognize that you may be encountering some annoying technical hurdles but… you’re self-censoring “bloody” ?

3

I’m not 100% on what your issue is. You’re using google… search? And it’s telling you to switch to Chrome, because of an “unsupported” browser problem?

Are you using Netscape Navigator 3.0? For best results, use Infoseek or Altavista.

4

That shit’s all fucked up.

5

What are you referring to? As far as I know the only Chrome-restricted feature is 60FPS Youtube videos, and you can still watch them in 30 on other browsers, and that’s only while the feature is in beta.

Edit: Other sites can, of course, refuse to serve HTML to the wrong browser, but that’s not Google’s fault.

6

It’s worse than you realize. The company’s blight is so widespread and has inflicted itself upon so many aspects of internet life that they’ve managed to suck the fun of saying “I told you so”.

That said, you’re far from helpless. There are other browsers, other search engines, other email clients, and other pretty much everything provided by that misspelled Abomination In The Eyes Of Me. Break the chain of dependency now, and you’ll be a lot happier later on.

7

I have THREE different browsers open right now: Chrome, Firefox and Firefox under Tor. Due to various issues each one of these can do simple tasks that neither of the others can! :smack: One of my problems may be that I’ve turned down Chrome repeatedly on its request to update. I think I’ve 35.0.1916.114 now; spell-check no longer works, etc. but my philosophy is “'better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”

One amusing change early this month was that my cookies pointing to Google.com are now ignored and I’m redirected to Google.co.th. One workaround is to select the New Tab page, click Images, search for anything, then click Web. This gives Google.com instead of Google.co.th. Wow! :eek:

8

Now you’ve done it. Documented the issue. It won’t take them long to fix that little hole.

You know that Google reads all dope posts, don’t you?

9

You could have ended that sentence four words earlier.

10

I don’t get it.

  1. What browser are you using?

  2. What are you doing when this happens?

  3. What, exactly, does happen.

11

What is google dot co dot th?

ETA: My daughter installed Google Chrome on my computer many months ago. I didn’t like the way it made Firefox behave, so I removed it and forbade her to reinstall it.

12

I wonder what about:blank’s Alexa ranking is.

13

.th is Thailand’s country code. Google has many local versions of their website. It’s google.com.au in Australia for example.

14

I’m also curious what exactly the OP is refering. I use a lot of Google services, and have never used Chrome, and it hasn’t given me any problems.

Google doesn’t make money off of its browser, so I don’t think they really care if people use it or not. Its purpose is to make sure other browser don’t gain enough market share to break standards and make it difficult to offer web-services (like Gmail, Goolge drive, etc.)

But as long as other browsers can access their websites and serve their ads, Google doesn’t care what browser you use. Trying to use their services as leverage to get you to use Chrome is the exact opposite of their goals.

15

“TSD message board”? Please use the correct form: “SDMB”.

16

Does setting Google still redirect you to the thai google ?

Declan

17

OP, please come back and explain what the hell you’re on about.

18

No! Thanks for the tip. Was I somehow supposed to know about that? The redirection just started a few weeks ago, or rather re-started after working as wanted for a few years. (I’d set various options, though recall no “ncr”).

It may seem I’m nitpicking since the google.co.th page sometimes(*) has a place to click Use google.com in the lower-right corner, but I often can’t get google.co.th to load! (That problem is due to a bizarre DNS-hijacking(?) problem I reported earlier and which has gotten worse.)

    • I say “sometimes” offers a Use google.com option because that option has disappeared from google.co.th now that I’ve done the /ncr ! :dubious: And such arbitrary reversals are a reason I find Google annoying. As another example, consider the “About 8,830,000 results (0.21 seconds)” message that appears after searches. For a while I needed to Sign in in order for such messages to display! :dubious:
19

The only reason I knew about it, was a tip on the dope from someone else.

Declan

20

… New California Republic?