google annoyance.....

Rik · Nov 25, 2010, 09:00:07

There's a browser called A Capella?

DorsetBoy · Nov 25, 2010, 09:07:59

Quote from: Rik on Nov 25, 2010, 09:00:07
There's a browser called A Capella?

No Rik you missed out an "R"

Gary · Nov 25, 2010, 09:10:08

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Nov 25, 2010, 09:07:59
No Rik you missed out an "R"

Opera has an "R" in it

DorsetBoy · Nov 25, 2010, 09:13:20

Quote from: Gary on Nov 25, 2010, 09:10:08
Opera has an "R" in it

Yup, R for ready, it works fine without having all these bits tacked on

armadillo · Nov 25, 2010, 14:22:50

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Nov 25, 2010, 09:13:20
Yup, R for ready, it works fine without having all these bits tacked on

Not really. It depends on what you want to do with it.

For instance, the only two browsers that are colour-managed are Firefox and Safari. All the others ignore embedded ICC profiles, the monitor profile or both.

There are also addons for Firefox to do things that Opera, Safari and Chrome cannot do, such as a good download manager that supports queuing, pause, resume, choice of how many to do simultaneously, where the list will be remembered even across a restart of the OS, tools like Adblock Plus that allow you to block selected scripts not just set a blacklist/whitelist of particular sites. There are many more. The reason for the addons is to provide extra things that some users want and that are not available as standard in any browser. Firefox has thousands of these addons. If you do not need or want any of those features, that is fine but no browser has the functions of those addons built in.

Sure, I have Opera, Safari, Chrome, IE and Firefox but the only one that meets all my needs is Firefox.

I have no problem with anyone preferring a different browser though.

Baz · Nov 25, 2010, 14:25:15

right..this gets stranger

turned on today and the google instant thing has stopped but now cant get the suggestions to stop

never used to do that before so I thought it was all part of the instant thing.

you know the ones, like predictive text

Armadillo when I get the "Open blockable items" window there is no entries with the filter in.All that happens when I type a letter into the search is some entry shows in the ABP window, in green font, as a script if that makes sense.when I delete the letter/word the entries delete too.

pctech · Nov 25, 2010, 14:42:04

Don't think you can stop those Baz unless you use something like NoScript.

armadillo · Nov 25, 2010, 15:15:06

Quote from: Baz on Nov 25, 2010, 14:25:15
Armadillo when I get the "Open blockable items" window there is no entries with the filter in.All that happens when I type a letter into the search is some entry shows in the ABP window, in green font, as a script if that makes sense.when I delete the letter/word the entries delete too.

OK, here is a step by step guide.

You are on the google page with the ABP window open and you type something into the google search.
Point the cursor at one of the ABP entries with the word "complete" in it and it looks like this

There are no filters at this stage.

Right click that entry and a context menu pops up. Click Block this item.

The filter rule pops up. Click Add filter.

That is all you need to do to configure ABP.

To see it has worked, refresh the google page.

Now type something into the search box

None of the predictive stuff appears.

Look in the ABP window and you will see a red script, together with its filter, and it repeats as you type more letters in.

Obviously, you can now close the ABP window.

BTW, you can bring up the ABP window by left clicking the actual red ABP icon, not the dropdown arrow to the right of the icon.

I am interested to know how you get on with this. I hope the screenshots are readable. They don't resize very well.

Quote from: pctech on Nov 25, 2010, 14:42:04
Don't think you can stop those Baz unless you use something like NoScript.

Oh yes you can! Adblock Plus does it just fine. NoScript is a bit more broad brushed and can block all scripts on a page. Adblock Plus is better when you want to do something very focused on a particular annoyance.

Rik · Nov 25, 2010, 15:25:59

Nice tutorial, Dill.

armadillo · Nov 25, 2010, 15:37:09

Thanks Rik. Tutorials are quite fun to write.

Rik · Nov 25, 2010, 15:37:48

Quick, do one on running a forum.

armadillo · Nov 25, 2010, 15:42:11

That's beyond my pay grade.

Rik · Nov 25, 2010, 15:45:12

You're no fun.

Baz · Nov 25, 2010, 17:22:03

nice tutorial again Armadillo

this is what I get when I type in google and then mouse over an entry notice the text is green.when I then right click the 'Block this item' is greyed out so doesnt work.

I did manage to manually add the rule to ABP so maybe its that.

But I have also found a work around for it, If you use http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 it works without the drop downs and if you prefer a .co.uk google,if it makes any difference, switch the .com to .co.uk but keep the extra bits on the end.

Many thanks for your time again Armadillo,I will go back to this and try your way to see if I can crack it that way too.

Thanks to all who helped too

armadillo · Nov 25, 2010, 20:53:57

Quote from: Baz on Nov 25, 2010, 17:22:03
nice tutorial again Armadillo

this is what I get when I type in google and then mouse over an entry notice the text is green.when I then right click the 'Block this item' is greyed out so doesnt work.

I did manage to manually add the rule to ABP so maybe its that.

Many thanks for your time again Armadillo,I will go back to this and try your way to see if I can crack it that way too.

Aha, all is now clear from your screenshot. The reason the 'Block this item' is greyed out is because of the filter that is in green on your screenshot. That green one is a whitelist entry. It is there to specifically allow scripts with the specified content to execute. It has got there because you have applied a published ABP pre-configured list (a subscription) called Easylist. Whoever wrote that list decided that everybody on earth would love google's new predictive entry feature and would want it to be protected against any attempt to block it! LOL.

If you want to add the blocking filter I said you needed, you will first have to delete that green whitelist filter. To do that, display the adblock window just like on your screenshot, and right click that green entry.

Click "disable filter"

Now skip past the actions between the lines of asterisks
***************************************

click "Edit filter in effect"

That pops up another window.
In that window, again right click that green filter (it might not be green this time, not sure about that)
That gives a context menu.
Click delete.

Hallelujah! They don't make it easy to do that.

********************************************

You should be able to select "Block this item" on the one I suggested.
If you did manage to add that manually (which I actually doubt) then that should now work without your needing to add it again.

Without checking through the entire syntax of the whole Easylist, I cannot be sure that there is not also another whitelist entry that will thwart you but what I have said will probably do the trick.

If that did not help, go back and perform the actions I have put between the lines of asterisks to actually delete the green filter rather than disable it.

Quote

But I have also found a work around for it, If you use http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 it works without the drop downs and if you prefer a .co.uk google,if it makes any difference, switch the .com to .co.uk but keep the extra bits on the end.

That looks like a great workaround. What that is doing is starting google with a switch in their own server-side script to turn off the "complete" feature. Remember my blocking filter was meant to block the "complete" feature. I didn't know they had that switch available in their script. If you have a link to where they have documented their switches, it would be interesting to see it.

Gary · Nov 26, 2010, 00:37:39

Quote from: armadillo on Nov 25, 2010, 20:53:57
Aha, all is now clear from your screenshot. The reason the 'Block this item' is greyed out is because of the filter that is in green on your screenshot. That green one is a whitelist entry. It is there to specifically allow scripts with the specified content to execute. It has got there because you have applied a published ABP pre-configured list (a subscription) called Easylist. Whoever wrote that list decided that everybody on earth would love google's new predictive entry feature and would want it to be protected against any attempt to block it! LOL.

If you want to add the blocking filter I said you needed, you will first have to delete that green whitelist filter. To do that, display the adblock window just like on your screenshot, and right click that green entry.

Click "disable filter"

Now skip past the actions between the lines of asterisks
***************************************

click "Edit filter in effect"

That pops up another window.
In that window, again right click that green filter (it might not be green this time, not sure about that)
That gives a context menu.
Click delete.

Hallelujah! They don't make it easy to do that.

********************************************

You should be able to select "Block this item" on the one I suggested.
If you did manage to add that manually (which I actually doubt) then that should now work without your needing to add it again.

Without checking through the entire syntax of the whole Easylist, I cannot be sure that there is not also another whitelist entry that will thwart you but what I have said will probably do the trick.

If that did not help, go back and perform the actions I have put between the lines of asterisks to actually delete the green filter rather than disable it.

That looks like a great workaround. What that is doing is starting google with a switch in their own server-side script to turn off the "complete" feature. Remember my blocking filter was meant to block the "complete" feature. I didn't know they had that switch available in their script. If you have a link to where they have documented their switches, it would be interesting to see it.

Or just use this URL for google, its simpler http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 and wont muck up other pages that use google.

drummer · Nov 26, 2010, 02:06:12

Quote from: Gary on Nov 26, 2010, 00:37:39
Or just use this URL for google, its simpler http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 and wont muck up other pages that use google.

Brilliant - that one actually did the trick.

Using "google.co.uk" with the same /suffix also works.

Gary · Nov 26, 2010, 07:14:28

Quote from: drummer on Nov 26, 2010, 02:06:12
Brilliant - that one actually did the trick.

Using "google.co.uk" with the same /suffix also works.

Glad it helped, Drummer

armadillo · Nov 26, 2010, 10:47:47

Quote from: Gary on Nov 26, 2010, 00:37:39
Or just use this URL for google, its simpler http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 and wont muck up other pages that use google.

Indeed. Baz actually posted that solution himself in reply #38, about 5 hours before you and I acknowledged it in reply #39. So, credit to Baz for getting there first

It set me wondering whether google publish a list of their switches that would enable us to find all the other things like complete=0 that might be useful? Did you find one somewhere?

The purpose of my antics with Adblock Plus was to turn off all google scripts with the "complete" in them, provided they are within the clients1.google.co.uk domain. The switch "complete=0" in the google.co.uk url presumably does the same thing.

Gary · Nov 26, 2010, 13:01:41

Quote from: armadillo on Nov 26, 2010, 10:47:47
Indeed. Baz actually posted that solution himself in reply #38, about 5 hours before you and I acknowledged it in reply #39. So, credit to Baz for getting there first

I'm not claiming anything or taking anything from Baz I just had not looked back that far that's all, anyway its not a contest.

armadillo · Nov 26, 2010, 17:04:54

No, I know it's not a contest. I just felt a bit miffed on behalf of Baz that nobody noticed when he posted that solution. It was actually included at the end of my post that you quoted in full, so you had looked back that far. It looked a bit dismissive to quote an entire half page post and then counter it with the "simpler" and "won't muck up" parts, when the simpler bit was already there. Not a contest but it looked too much like a bit of competitive "my solutions are best" kind of style. Everyone wants to help and I think it is a bit off to quote a whole post in order to dismiss it without reading it.

Anyway. I do not want there to be ill feeling.

Any chance you know the answer to the question I asked, as I think it would help a lot of people - this bit.

Quote
It set me wondering whether google publish a list of their switches that would enable us to find all the other things like complete=0 that might be useful? Did you find one somewhere?

I waded through much of the google help but saw nothing documenting the switches.

Baz · Nov 26, 2010, 17:40:15

Sorry Armadillo dont know where the switches may be listed,I just stumbled across it while trying to find a solution then it kept cropping up in a rew sites so I tried it,then tried it with the .co.uk and it worked

drummer · Nov 26, 2010, 18:22:42

My apologies to Baz as I also missed your comment, so thanks to you too.

Baz · Nov 26, 2010, 19:09:15

thanks Drummer no bother caused.These things easy get overlooked sometimes.

thanks to another walk through from Armadillo,even though I found a solution he still took the time to explain it

armadillo · Nov 26, 2010, 23:11:05

Thanks Baz. It can be so frustrating when you stumble across something on a site and then cannot remember where and cannot find it again. I do it all the time. It drives me nuts. I try to bookmark anything interesting as I go along but you can end up with hundreds of bookmarks that you can make no sense of anyway and still cannot find what you wanted.

I am glad the follow up explanation for ABP was worthwhile. I only did it because you said you wanted to have a try at getting ABP to work even though you had already found the simpler solution.

While I was browsing for anywhere that might list the google switches, I stumbled across some google forum posts (which I am sure I could never find again!) where people were getting ridiculously angry about the things google introduce with no easy means to turn them off. There were several Adblock Plus workarounds described for some of those. So other people are also resorting to doing it that way. Most things do not have a nice simple switch available in google, or at least not one that anybody can find.