21 ms·

I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

575 points by mlang23 7y ago

zoobab 7y ago
Strange with elinks I can still click on the links. With with lynx not.
Spivak 7y ago
Serious question, why search Google in your terminal with Lynx as opposed to `googler`? The actual result pages can still open in Lynx but the experience of navigating the results is very nice.
- scbrg 7y ago
  Not pretending to be able to answer for OP, but one answer would be that it's because lynx is a browser, and Google is a web site. Traditionally you read web sites with browsers, rather than requiring special tools for every particular site.
- dljsjr 7y ago
  Author of the post is blind so I'd imagine the usage of Lynx is for screen reading/accessibility reasons.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    Spivak is asking why Mario isn't using https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler . If Mario is able to use Lynx, the expectation is that Mario can probably also use googler.
- tdurden 7y ago
  I would imagine that most are not aware of googler &/or do not want to use one tool to search and another tool to browse
- apjana 7y ago
  There's a patch over v3.9 that works with the new layout: https://github.com/jarun/googler/issues/306 https://github.com/jarun/googler/issues/306 Hopefully we'll have a PR merged soon.
inciampati 7y ago
Another person notes that ddg is inferior. Maybe people get used to a certain way of searching with Google that doesn't translate to ddg. Haven't noticed a drop in quality myself and I think I might have been retrained to use different patterns and techniques in structuring my queries.
- Proven 7y ago
  Inferior how? For my purposes its results aren't as good. But also overall it provides much better privacy and isn't intrusive. Then - for folks who equally value these three things - ddg isn't inferior. When I can't find something on DDG, I use Google. Or if I'm pretty sure I won't find it, I start with Google. But I normally start - and end - my searches with DDG. For me DDG is not inferior to GSE.
- grenoire 7y ago
  What many people don't realise (especially in HN) is that DDG is not as good as Google, in my experience, in looking for non-English content. One of the things that stopped me was the lack of good Dutch results that Google can pick up easily with its internal translations and whatnot.
- hlandau 7y ago
  What's really weird about DDG is that the results from the no-JavaScript version seem far inferior to the results from the JS-enabled version of DDG.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  DDG results are so much worse for me, especially anything longer tail or in Spanish, that I switch to Google when I'm actually getting work done. I find myself adding "!g" to an important search just to check for any results that DDG doesn't know about and it's almost always an upgrade to see Google's results. Search is hard. I don't like to chime in to say something negative about an underdog like DDG, but I see this "people probably just don't know how to use DDG" suggestion a lot and it's quite the opposite: Google feels like it can practically read my mind with minimal context, like knowing I also may be talking about a recent event that shares the name with a generic search term. And I'm not talking about personalized search. Or consider how "elm dict" in Google takes me to https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/core/latest/Dict https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/core/latest/Dict (#1 result), but https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=h_&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=h_&ia=web in DDG doesn't (nowhere on page 1). Run into this enough and it becomes hard to willfully use DDG when you know you're likely missing out on good results when trying to do real work.
vvllmprz 7y ago
w3m works fine for me. Any reason people prefer lynx over w3m or eww?
- vthriller 7y ago
  It doesn't work for me for quite a while now (for up to a year), even with recent versions from git [0]. My preliminary guess is that's because Google renders each result with <div> (block element) inside an <a> tag. I didn't have any extra spare time to test that further (and report) though, so I simply ditched Google and just went with duck.com from that point. [0] https://github.com/tats/w3m https://github.com/tats/w3m
- jolmg 7y ago
  Also works with elinks.
  - erikbye 7y ago
    Indeed.
- tomcooks 7y ago
  Compatibility with screen readers that blind people use. Moreover, fuck Google and non standard practices in general.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    Lynx is not a screen reader. (In fact, it's considerably less accessible to blind users than a typical desktop browser -- as a console application, it has no way to provide accessibility data to a screen reader.) A screen reader is a tool like JAWS or VoiceOver which interacts with desktop software (including web browsers like Chrome or Safari) to provide information about what the user is interacting with.
    - anthk 7y ago
      >as a console application, it has no way to provide accessibility data to a screen reader.) FFS, you had console screen readers in Linux since forever. And even OpenbSD, with yasr. It works fine with speech-dispatcher. Less accesible? Maybe in your limited world, but this is "Hacker" "News". Well, I guess the new IT generations are even less aware of TTS systems since 1998 or so.
jrockway 7y ago
I feel like many of the text-mode browsers have failed to keep up with changing web standards. We were all mad when IE was holding back the Internet, and I'm not sure we should give lynx and w3m a pass because they're geek tools. (Accessibility is an important concern, but web browsers running under a GUI system support screen readers.) https://www.brow.sh/ https://www.brow.sh/ is a console-based browser that claims to support modern standards. Perhaps that is what we should be using. (I am now prepared for 6 comments replying to me saying that anything that can be implemented with HTML from 1999 should be, and a list of search results can be. I guess. If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember.)
- 1996 7y ago
  w3m gets a pass because javascript is bad. The FSF is right about that. wasm will be even worse. Not technically worse, but for removing another layer of control. DNS over HTTPS is just as bad in that sense. If you can make something without JS you should. cryptomarketplot.com has an accessible mode FOR CRYPTO!! If crypto sites can, everybody can.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    It's funny because "javascript is bad" was common geek sentiment at the turn of the century. Now it is flamebait, or being caught up in the past [itself possibly a bit of a code for ageism]. Seeing this attitude change is one of the most interesting things I've seen in tech nerd circles in the last decade or so.
    - juststeve 7y ago
      Can you elaborate on why it's funny? javascript (on it's own) has changed a lot in 20 years and it was originally designed in what, one week due to external time constraints? i think the criticisms are valid if $Your_favorite_language had ~4 days only for language design. From my recollection, there were no frameworks, no tooling, no linters, no jquery. it was a basically a primative language for browsers that had no compiler and didn't do anything useful (back in the 90's). About as exciting as VBA 1.0.
exikyut 7y ago
Curious, I installed lynx just to check this out. I find that I physically cannot navigate to the links in the page except the first few at the top. But. On the pages I get, the <a ... href="..." ...>...</a> structure is still 100% intact. It's buried in a table and div soup, but it's there. So, I argue Lynx parsing bug! The author of this article would have done well to save and diff the working/not-working HTML they received. :(
- MBCook 7y ago
  Why should anyone have to do that? If the site stops working for the user than it no longer works. Should they be expected to make their own ‘re-Googler’ to fix the page so they can use it again?
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    >Why should anyone have to do that? When there's a browser bug, someone needs to debug it and fix the browser. Otherwise the browser bug will remain forever.
- hvdijk 7y ago
  Not really a bug more than an outdated browser not being updated for HTML 5. In HTML 4, <a href="..."><div>...</div></a> is an error and Lynx deals with this by implicitly closing the <a>, turning it into a hidden link (which can still be followed by pressing 'l'). In HTML 5, <a href="..."><div>...</div></a> is valid.
  - tbodt 7y ago
    Google actually detects the Lynx user agent and sends an HTML 4 page, but apparently this new code wasn't written with that in mind.
- fanf2 7y ago
  I think it is because in html4 the content of an <a> element is restricted to inline elements, whereas in html5 <a> is transparent so its content can be block elements if its parent allows them.
dessant 7y ago
The redesigned version of Google Search that is being A/B tested no longer shows links. Despite being a developer, I'm anxious to click search results, especially because when results are filtered to be from the last day or week, they are full of phishing sites and pages with scraped content that immediately redirect to malware. This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. It makes people even more ignorant about the technologies they depend on, and exposes them to further risk of being exploited. UPDATE: This is the new design I've seen, the domains are missing: https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  They took urls away and then added this: https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png For example, searched "hierarchy" and it'll show "en.wikipedia.org > wiki > hierarchy" above the wikipedia search result. > This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. You're right if the url/domain isn't even shown at all. But I can think of a few benefits of showing the domain as it currently does, like to avoid phishing. It also basically parses the url and interprets it for less-technical users which is something that more-technical users are already doing when they read the url. I don't think it's so bad as a default if there's a config option for displaying the full url for more technical users, or the necessary data available to at least write a browser extension.
  - dessant 7y ago
    Multiple versions are being tested. The one I've seen does not contain the domain, not even in a tokenized form. It looked like this: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search-results-without-urls/329465/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search...
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      Yeah, the iteration I'm being served is definitely an upgrade over that. The one shown in your link is what I had previously, so it seems that mine is a refinement of it and a middle ground that I don't think is so bad.
corodra 7y ago
When it comes to searches for technical reasons, dev related, sci, even gov searches, duckduckgo blows google out of the water. Junk random searches, trivial things, yea... its weak. My experience I should say.
tantalor 7y ago
Sounds like a bug in lynx.
skykooler 7y ago
Google locked me out of Lynx nearly a year ago. I'm surprised it took this long to affect other people.
jedimastert 7y ago
> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. Jumping from "this isn't working on my incredibly niche browser" to "Google don't care about blind people" is completely ridiculous.
- amerine 7y ago
  Lynx is niche now? Low user count, yeah, but it’s a standards complaint browser.
  - typon 7y ago
    Lynx is the definition of niche...
  - jnty 7y ago
    The definition of niche is literally "appeals to a small, specialized section of the population" so, er, yes.
    - normalnorm 7y ago
      Perhaps, but in this case Google would just have to comply with the standards, which are not niche at all.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        The standards just describe what to do to make a standards compliant HTML page, what tags are allowed etc. There are no standards that say that e.g. your page can't be all dependent on JS. In other words, Google could be 100% standards compliant, and not work in Lynx.
        normalnorm 7y ago
        The grammar of the English language does not forbid one to write in Greek, but if you choose to write in Greek only, you will compromise on a lot of people being able to understand you. The same with standards, and you are misunderstanding on purpose. If Google chooses to not support simple HTML, then they are choosing to not support countless accessibility tools, and they know it. Some blind people will have a more miserable life because Google attained a de facto monopoly, but does not recognize some of the moral obligations that people like me feel should come with such a position. "With great power comes great responsibility", or maybe not.
addandsubtract 7y ago
That's what happens when Google releases their own console killer.
- freehunter 7y ago
  I think you may be confusing console (the terminal emulator, command line interface) with console (video game console like Xbox or Playstation or Stadia).
earenndil 7y ago
Try googler https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler
- apjana 7y ago
  Also ddgr: https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr Same author, no tracking, works over Tor.
  - mlang23 7y ago
    I like the idea behind DDGR. However, I was surprised that it doesnt offer a pager for search results. Whenever I search something, I need to use the scrollback buffer to actually see the first results... That is not very userfriendl, even for a CLI tool.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  A fundamental principle of the Web is that site-specific clients or apps shouldn't be necessary. That they are only underscores Google's massive blunder here. Yes, there've been CLI wrappers around web queries before. Until the past few years, these simply addressed search format, URI arguments, and namespace. They launched in the user's choice of browser, text or graphical. Surfraw is the classic, I've written a few very brief bash functions for equivalent capabilities, again, launching any arbitrary browser (though usually w3m by my personal preference). Now what's needed, and you're recommending, is a content-side wrapper as well. This story ends poorly.
  - Pete_D 7y ago
    > A fundamental principle of the Web is that site-specific clients or apps shouldn't be necessary. I think this ship, if it hasn't sailed already, is at least starting its engines and getting ready to leave the harbour. User agents and servers are increasingly trending towards an adversarial relationship, where the user doesn't want to do much of what the server is asking of it. This has been true from the first pop-up blockers, through to modern adblocking and anti-tracking measures (the situation now being so bad that tracking protection is a built-in default feature in some browsers). Eventually, a "filter out the crap" strategy becomes too onerous, an "extract what looks good" strategy starts to look better, and you end up with tools like Reader Mode. Custom clients are a natural next step - when someone gets desperate enough to write an article-dl to match youtube-dl, we'll be there.
tams 7y ago
Startpage.com, a Google proxy, still works fine in lynx.
- ta0987 7y ago
  Unfortunately, they got bought: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
  - tams 7y ago
    True, and it's a shame. But it might not matter that much in this accessibility context as Google is also an advertising company.
  - Multicomp 7y ago
    Wow, first Private Internet Access, now startpage? What's next, the next Waterfox version will be based on Chrome!? Starting to feel like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the trash compacter, the walls are closing in.
- UncleSlacky 7y ago
  How does Qwant perform? It's supposed to be privacy-focused like DDG and SP, and it's European, so covered by GDPR too: https://lite.qwant.com https://lite.qwant.com
deleted 7y ago
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Reason077 7y ago
duck.com works well with lynx.
linusnext 7y ago
From JWZ.org Greetings, Lynx users. There is a reason this page doesn't use ALT tags on the images. The reason is that the bozos responsible for both MSIE and Netscape Confusicator 4.0 decided that they would display the ALT tags of images every time you move the mouse over them -- even if the images are loaded, and even if they are not links. The ALT attribute to the IMG tag is supposed to be used instead of the image, not in addition to the image. This looks absolutely terrible, so I don't use ALT tags any more in self-defense. If they wanted to implemented tooltips, they should have used the TITLE attribute to the A tag. That's in the HTML 1.2 spec and everything. I had to decide between making this page look good for the vast majority of viewers, or making it be readable by the miniscule minority of you stuck in the 70s. Those of you in the retro contingent lost. Sorry. from view-source:https://web.archive.org/web/20000304020552/http://www.jwz.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20000304020552/http://www.jwz.or...
- jandrese 7y ago
  Someone got really worked up over text appearing when they moused over an image, and broke accessibility because of it?
  - linusnext 7y ago
    Yeah, jwz.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    jwz has a... strong personality.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      And several more in ready reserve!
deleted 7y ago
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khronix 7y ago
keep you worthless js out of my cpu cycles; dont need to read o
hartator 7y ago
Hey! We will be happy to give you an infinite access to our search API: https://serpapi.com https://serpapi.com It will be slower than regular Google but at least you are not going to be blocked. Edit: Create an account without credit card details, send an email to julien _at_ serpapi.com with it, and I’ll make sure you have an active account.
Apofis 7y ago
Google search no longer working with text readers should be an ADA Violation. https://www.ada.gov/complaint/ https://www.ada.gov/complaint/
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Lynx is not a screen reader. Screen readers are tools like JAWS or VoiceOver which interact with desktop applications, including desktop web browsers such as Chrome or Safari. Google works fine with these.
  - anthk 7y ago
    And YASR under Linux with lynx/edbrowse works 200000 times better than jaws, starting with a logical layout for the blind.
dredmorbius 7y ago
There used to be a saying in a11y circles, "Google is a blind user".[1] Now Google are manifestly anti-blind-user. Shouldn't be anything a major ADA lawsuit couldn't fix. Meantime, DDG is actually pretty damned good. For console users: https://duckduckgo.com/lite https://duckduckgo.com/lite ________________________________ Notes: 1. https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/ https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/
- jld 7y ago
  Is there a way to make DDG Lite chrome's default search engine? Chrome seems to let me create non-default search engines, set the full DDG as the default, but not set lite as the default.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    The problem is that the search query does not go in the URL in the Lite version. That really sucks. It makes it useless in the browser history as well. In fact, because all the URLs are the same on each query, they're not even added as separate entries in the history.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      They don't? Search term(s) are the URL parameter: ?q=<query> Which does show in my history AFAICT.
      - jolmg 7y ago
        On the regular version, not the lite. Here's my URL after searching for "asdf": https://duckduckgo.com/lite/ https://duckduckgo.com/lite/ In the search form, it uses POST instead of GET to perform the searches.
        Arnavion 7y ago
        Even if the search form uses POST, the server does read the parameter if it's specified in the querystring. That is, https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=asdf https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=asdf works, so adding it as a search engine with URL .../?q=%s should work as well.
patmcguire 7y ago
Did they also remove link wrapping with this? The HREF goes straight to the destination for me now on Chrome, where previously it went to some Google domain redirect. It's there on the first HTML load too, it's not a JS thing after the fact. Is there a different response for Lynx or are they formatting it in such a way that Lynx doesn't pick it up?
- Avery3R 7y ago
  They're using the ping property of the <a> element now, the only good thing to come out of this
  - e12e 7y ago
    Hm, so now I can go straight to the Google hosted AMP version without bumping through Google an extra time first? /s
  - e12e 7y ago
    On a more substantial note, that's documented here: https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#hyperlink0 https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#hyperlink0 It's a little odd, to see that a browser "must parse", but also "may either ignore the ping attribute altogether, or selectively ignore URIs". It strikes me as a bit clumsy compared to the typical MUST/SHOULD/MAY wording. Anyone (other than Google) using a-pings?
  - patmcguire 7y ago
    Ah yeah that's definitely going to be different HTML on Lynx, then, since I bet they don't support that and Google's not missing out on tracking. Yup - curling with Lynx user agent gets a targets of href="/url?q=<whatever>" rather than href="<whatever>" ping="tracking"
anonymousisme 7y ago
Sounds like an ADA lawsuit is in the works...
deleted 7y ago
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nyxtom 7y ago
It's been probably years since I've used Google search. It's entirely possible that I'm not getting desired results, but as far as I've been able to tell. It's entirely possible that because I don't end up on answers, I end up (most of the time) going directly to read source code and documentation more often than not. This seems to have helped created something of a better understanding of whatever tech I'm using at the time.
mwcampbell 7y ago
> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. This is not a blindness issue. It would be more accurate to say that Google doesn't care about geeks who cling to old ways of doing things long after there's a good reason to do so. As others on the thread have pointed out, blind people can use graphical web browsers with a screen reader, even under GNU/Linux. I know you know this; I'm pointing it out for the benefit of everyone watching the thread.
- autoexec 7y ago
  > It would be more accurate to say that Google doesn't care about geeks who cling to old ways of doing things long after there's a good reason to do so. Is it that you can't think of a good reason to use text-based browsers at all or is lynx itself the issue? command line web tools like lynx and curl are pretty handy to have available.
- boomlinde 7y ago
  On the other hand I don't feel like I'm in a position to blame a blind user for clinging to something they already know instead of learning how to use a graphical browser. A lot of people in general have good reasons for sticking to what they know. Especially if what they stuck to worked fine until recently, and doesn't now only for some trivial reason that's easy to fix.
khronix 7y ago
This is a trend I've noticed also, behemoths breaking standards without permission nor apology, crushing the canary in the coal mine (w3m/lynx, though emacs eww browser works). As a member of an IT Development team creating various web applications, we have found different approaches are needed based on client needs and workflow. We develop many complex data-based backed query/display single page web apps usually with zero js. Where not needed it is little more than a security hole begging for trouble. Where no 'live' user experience is required this is equals resource waste (xtra payload, xtra client cpu cycles if no js blocker) especially in many work environments. As user/engineer I am annoyed when any site sends me their worthless js to execute unnecessarily, thus wasting my devices cpu cycles, battery, plus my lifejuice, and for what??? In most cases nothing I want/desire/need, therefore just to make a bigger tool of me than before, and not for the better. That being said, using web communications, live/simulated data visualizations benefit greatly from js. Separation of concerns is what is missing, js was created to benefit and enhance user experience, the ne'er do wells have hacked it into a tool mindlessly used and often enough does screw the user over without permission nor apology... Interestingly the creators of what became Google received their start with NSF funding. Good way to finish off giving everyone the finger Google, continue to 'do only evil'...
AdrienLemaire 7y ago
> However, I have to admit, the search results of duckduckgo are by far inferior to what Google used to give. I've switched to DuckDuckGo since I read its CEO's book "Super Thinking", and I'm not feeling that it's inferior. Sure, it doesn't have rich cards and other goodies, but I've come to realize that these are nice-to-have, but not essential. On the other hand, reducing the confirmation bias by getting out of the filter bubble is, I believe, essential.
arasx 7y ago
I am willing to bet, attorneys who specialize in exerting money from ecommerce sites based on fluke accessibility lawsuits will not take notice of this problem that presents an actual hardship.
deleted 7y ago
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mastazi 7y ago
> Luckily, there is duckduckgo. However, I have to admit, the search results of duckduckgo are by far inferior to what Google used to give. For cases where DuckDuckGo isn't quite enough, I usually rely on StartPage [1]. It uses results from Google, but like DuckDuckGo it doesn't track its users. Startpage, like DuckDuckGo, also works well in Lynx (I've just tested in Lynx 2.8.9 on Ubuntu 16.04). Additionally, you can get StartPage results right from within DuckDuckGo by just appending the !sp shortcut to your search query [2] Edit: you may want to keep in mind, however, that StartPage is now owned by an advertising company. Some users took issue with that. Personally, I'm OK with that as long as users are not being tracked. Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 [1] https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ [2] https://duckduckgo.com/bang?c=Online+Services&sc=Search https://duckduckgo.com/bang?c=Online+Services&sc=Search
- colechristensen 7y ago
  DDG has been getting better. I've switched my browsers search to it and only occasionally go back to Google for something specific.
  - rosybox 7y ago
    DDG's results are very bad still, and they will likely always be terrible. It's not hard to find a query that is objectively much worse than what Google has. DuckDuckGo will never be able to catch up to Google's search quality results. It doesn't have Google's data, Google relies on the search behavior of most of the people of the internet to guide its results along with its vast human and hardware resources to create results that even Microsoft can't match. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/to-break-google-s-monopoly-on-search-make-its-index-public https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/to-break-...
    - colechristensen 7y ago
      Googles results are getting steadily shittier, so they're a bad benchmark to beat. The behavior based searching is crap which has been usurped by people seeking profits. Optimizing the dopamine feed of users and ad impressions of publishers isn't a good thing or something to aspire to.
glloydell 7y ago
"Bye bye mainstream, hello ghetto." Yes, because your use of deprecated software is no longer supported is TOTALLY the same thing as being relocated into the Ghetto in Warsaw.
kion 7y ago
This appears to have been fixed since the posting. Links in the search results work again in lynx.
3xblah 7y ago
Solution: Use alternative HTML parser lynx -tagsoup https://www.google.com/search?q=whatever The program will now display search result URLs as visible links.
Koshkin 7y ago
I am able to Google using Links (another excellent text mode web browser).
mbrukman 7y ago
Hi Mario, I am an engineer on Google Search frontend. Thank you for posting this, and I'm really sorry and saddened to see this broken; this is certainly not intended behavior. I've reproduced the issue you described in the blog (Lynx does not allow clicking on the search results page). Even though Google serves valid HTML to Lynx, it's probably HTML that Lynx cannot parse, and since it used to work before, this is a regression. I filed a bug for our team to look further into it and address the root cause. Interestingly enough, pressing <L> shows a list of links in the current document, and it does show all the available result links, so Lynx does see and parse them, it's just not rendering the links inline with the search results, so that's something we have to investigate as well. In the meantime, as a temporary workaround, if you're open to using Chrome with a simple UI that would be amenable to a screenreader and keyboard navigation, you can use a User Agent switcher extension by Google [1] to set the user agent header to Lynx [2] and Google will serve the same HTML that it would have served to Lynx. You can then use the <Tab> key to iterate over the search results, and <Enter> to select a particular result. I look forward to seeing this bug resolved, and will be personally following up on the status of this bug. Again, I'm really sorry to see this, and I hope we'll be able to restore your ability to use Google with Lynx shortly! [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switche... [2] https://developers.whatismybrowser.com/useragents/explore/software_name/lynx/ https://developers.whatismybrowser.com/useragents/explore/so...
- mlang23 7y ago
  Thanks a lot for this positive reply! I am thrilled to read that this might be counted a regression and actually fixed. I really hope that can happen. Regarding 'L', Lynx sometimes "hides" links if the anchor is around a div. Maybe it is just that simple. IIRC, <a href=...><div>...</div></a> will trigger a similar behaviour. Regarding your Chrome suggestion, that really doesnt help me much since I spend 99% of my workday on a plain virtual console. The context switch of moving to another computer that runs Windows for simple searches is really not practical. Again, thanks for spotting this and acting on it!
  - mbrukman 7y ago
sullivandanny 7y ago
I'm Google's public liaison for search. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and our apologies for the inconvenience caused. This was indeed a bug that our engineers have explored, and it should be fixed now.

575 points by mlang23 7y ago

Strange with elinks I can still click on the links. With with lynx not.

Serious question, why search Google in your terminal with Lynx as opposed to `googler`? The actual result pages can still open in Lynx but the experience of navigating the results is very nice.

scbrg 7y ago
Not pretending to be able to answer for OP, but one answer would be that it's because lynx is a browser, and Google is a web site. Traditionally you read web sites with browsers, rather than requiring special tools for every particular site.
dljsjr 7y ago
Author of the post is blind so I'd imagine the usage of Lynx is for screen reading/accessibility reasons.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  Spivak is asking why Mario isn't using https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler . If Mario is able to use Lynx, the expectation is that Mario can probably also use googler.
tdurden 7y ago
I would imagine that most are not aware of googler &/or do not want to use one tool to search and another tool to browse
apjana 7y ago
There's a patch over v3.9 that works with the new layout: https://github.com/jarun/googler/issues/306 https://github.com/jarun/googler/issues/306 Hopefully we'll have a PR merged soon.

inciampati 7y ago

Another person notes that ddg is inferior. Maybe people get used to a certain way of searching with Google that doesn't translate to ddg. Haven't noticed a drop in quality myself and I think I might have been retrained to use different patterns and techniques in structuring my queries.

Proven 7y ago
Inferior how? For my purposes its results aren't as good. But also overall it provides much better privacy and isn't intrusive. Then - for folks who equally value these three things - ddg isn't inferior. When I can't find something on DDG, I use Google. Or if I'm pretty sure I won't find it, I start with Google. But I normally start - and end - my searches with DDG. For me DDG is not inferior to GSE.
grenoire 7y ago
What many people don't realise (especially in HN) is that DDG is not as good as Google, in my experience, in looking for non-English content. One of the things that stopped me was the lack of good Dutch results that Google can pick up easily with its internal translations and whatnot.
hlandau 7y ago
What's really weird about DDG is that the results from the no-JavaScript version seem far inferior to the results from the JS-enabled version of DDG.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
DDG results are so much worse for me, especially anything longer tail or in Spanish, that I switch to Google when I'm actually getting work done. I find myself adding "!g" to an important search just to check for any results that DDG doesn't know about and it's almost always an upgrade to see Google's results. Search is hard. I don't like to chime in to say something negative about an underdog like DDG, but I see this "people probably just don't know how to use DDG" suggestion a lot and it's quite the opposite: Google feels like it can practically read my mind with minimal context, like knowing I also may be talking about a recent event that shares the name with a generic search term. And I'm not talking about personalized search. Or consider how "elm dict" in Google takes me to https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/core/latest/Dict https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/core/latest/Dict (#1 result), but https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=h_&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=h_&ia=web in DDG doesn't (nowhere on page 1). Run into this enough and it becomes hard to willfully use DDG when you know you're likely missing out on good results when trying to do real work.

vvllmprz 7y ago

w3m works fine for me. Any reason people prefer lynx over w3m or eww?

vthriller 7y ago
It doesn't work for me for quite a while now (for up to a year), even with recent versions from git [0]. My preliminary guess is that's because Google renders each result with <div> (block element) inside an <a> tag. I didn't have any extra spare time to test that further (and report) though, so I simply ditched Google and just went with duck.com from that point. [0] https://github.com/tats/w3m https://github.com/tats/w3m
jolmg 7y ago
Also works with elinks.
- erikbye 7y ago
  Indeed.
tomcooks 7y ago
Compatibility with screen readers that blind people use. Moreover, fuck Google and non standard practices in general.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Lynx is not a screen reader. (In fact, it's considerably less accessible to blind users than a typical desktop browser -- as a console application, it has no way to provide accessibility data to a screen reader.) A screen reader is a tool like JAWS or VoiceOver which interacts with desktop software (including web browsers like Chrome or Safari) to provide information about what the user is interacting with.
  - anthk 7y ago
    >as a console application, it has no way to provide accessibility data to a screen reader.) FFS, you had console screen readers in Linux since forever. And even OpenbSD, with yasr. It works fine with speech-dispatcher. Less accesible? Maybe in your limited world, but this is "Hacker" "News". Well, I guess the new IT generations are even less aware of TTS systems since 1998 or so.

jrockway 7y ago

I feel like many of the text-mode browsers have failed to keep up with changing web standards. We were all mad when IE was holding back the Internet, and I'm not sure we should give lynx and w3m a pass because they're geek tools. (Accessibility is an important concern, but web browsers running under a GUI system support screen readers.) https://www.brow.sh/ https://www.brow.sh/ is a console-based browser that claims to support modern standards. Perhaps that is what we should be using. (I am now prepared for 6 comments replying to me saying that anything that can be implemented with HTML from 1999 should be, and a list of search results can be. I guess. If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember.)

1996 7y ago
w3m gets a pass because javascript is bad. The FSF is right about that. wasm will be even worse. Not technically worse, but for removing another layer of control. DNS over HTTPS is just as bad in that sense. If you can make something without JS you should. cryptomarketplot.com has an accessible mode FOR CRYPTO!! If crypto sites can, everybody can.
- asveikau 7y ago
  It's funny because "javascript is bad" was common geek sentiment at the turn of the century. Now it is flamebait, or being caught up in the past [itself possibly a bit of a code for ageism]. Seeing this attitude change is one of the most interesting things I've seen in tech nerd circles in the last decade or so.
  - juststeve 7y ago
    Can you elaborate on why it's funny? javascript (on it's own) has changed a lot in 20 years and it was originally designed in what, one week due to external time constraints? i think the criticisms are valid if $Your_favorite_language had ~4 days only for language design. From my recollection, there were no frameworks, no tooling, no linters, no jquery. it was a basically a primative language for browsers that had no compiler and didn't do anything useful (back in the 90's). About as exciting as VBA 1.0.

exikyut 7y ago

Curious, I installed lynx just to check this out. I find that I physically cannot navigate to the links in the page except the first few at the top. But. On the pages I get, the <a ... href="..." ...>...</a> structure is still 100% intact. It's buried in a table and div soup, but it's there. So, I argue Lynx parsing bug! The author of this article would have done well to save and diff the working/not-working HTML they received. :(

MBCook 7y ago
Why should anyone have to do that? If the site stops working for the user than it no longer works. Should they be expected to make their own ‘re-Googler’ to fix the page so they can use it again?
- Thorrez 7y ago
  >Why should anyone have to do that? When there's a browser bug, someone needs to debug it and fix the browser. Otherwise the browser bug will remain forever.
hvdijk 7y ago
Not really a bug more than an outdated browser not being updated for HTML 5. In HTML 4, <a href="..."><div>...</div></a> is an error and Lynx deals with this by implicitly closing the <a>, turning it into a hidden link (which can still be followed by pressing 'l'). In HTML 5, <a href="..."><div>...</div></a> is valid.
- tbodt 7y ago
  Google actually detects the Lynx user agent and sends an HTML 4 page, but apparently this new code wasn't written with that in mind.
fanf2 7y ago
I think it is because in html4 the content of an <a> element is restricted to inline elements, whereas in html5 <a> is transparent so its content can be block elements if its parent allows them.

dessant 7y ago

The redesigned version of Google Search that is being A/B tested no longer shows links. Despite being a developer, I'm anxious to click search results, especially because when results are filtered to be from the last day or week, they are full of phishing sites and pages with scraped content that immediately redirect to malware. This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. It makes people even more ignorant about the technologies they depend on, and exposes them to further risk of being exploited. UPDATE: This is the new design I've seen, the domains are missing: https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png

hombre_fatal 7y ago
They took urls away and then added this: https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png For example, searched "hierarchy" and it'll show "en.wikipedia.org > wiki > hierarchy" above the wikipedia search result. > This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. You're right if the url/domain isn't even shown at all. But I can think of a few benefits of showing the domain as it currently does, like to avoid phishing. It also basically parses the url and interprets it for less-technical users which is something that more-technical users are already doing when they read the url. I don't think it's so bad as a default if there's a config option for displaying the full url for more technical users, or the necessary data available to at least write a browser extension.
- dessant 7y ago
  Multiple versions are being tested. The one I've seen does not contain the domain, not even in a tokenized form. It looked like this: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search-results-without-urls/329465/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search...
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Yeah, the iteration I'm being served is definitely an upgrade over that. The one shown in your link is what I had previously, so it seems that mine is a refinement of it and a middle ground that I don't think is so bad.

corodra 7y ago

When it comes to searches for technical reasons, dev related, sci, even gov searches, duckduckgo blows google out of the water. Junk random searches, trivial things, yea... its weak. My experience I should say.

tantalor 7y ago

Sounds like a bug in lynx.

skykooler 7y ago

Google locked me out of Lynx nearly a year ago. I'm surprised it took this long to affect other people.

jedimastert 7y ago

> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. Jumping from "this isn't working on my incredibly niche browser" to "Google don't care about blind people" is completely ridiculous.

amerine 7y ago
Lynx is niche now? Low user count, yeah, but it’s a standards complaint browser.
- typon 7y ago
  Lynx is the definition of niche...
- jnty 7y ago
  The definition of niche is literally "appeals to a small, specialized section of the population" so, er, yes.
  - normalnorm 7y ago
    Perhaps, but in this case Google would just have to comply with the standards, which are not niche at all.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      The standards just describe what to do to make a standards compliant HTML page, what tags are allowed etc. There are no standards that say that e.g. your page can't be all dependent on JS. In other words, Google could be 100% standards compliant, and not work in Lynx.
      - normalnorm 7y ago
        The grammar of the English language does not forbid one to write in Greek, but if you choose to write in Greek only, you will compromise on a lot of people being able to understand you. The same with standards, and you are misunderstanding on purpose. If Google chooses to not support simple HTML, then they are choosing to not support countless accessibility tools, and they know it. Some blind people will have a more miserable life because Google attained a de facto monopoly, but does not recognize some of the moral obligations that people like me feel should come with such a position. "With great power comes great responsibility", or maybe not.

addandsubtract 7y ago

That's what happens when Google releases their own console killer.

freehunter 7y ago
I think you may be confusing console (the terminal emulator, command line interface) with console (video game console like Xbox or Playstation or Stadia).

earenndil 7y ago

Try googler https://github.com/jarun/googler https://github.com/jarun/googler

apjana 7y ago
Also ddgr: https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr Same author, no tracking, works over Tor.
- mlang23 7y ago
  I like the idea behind DDGR. However, I was surprised that it doesnt offer a pager for search results. Whenever I search something, I need to use the scrollback buffer to actually see the first results... That is not very userfriendl, even for a CLI tool.
dredmorbius 7y ago
A fundamental principle of the Web is that site-specific clients or apps shouldn't be necessary. That they are only underscores Google's massive blunder here. Yes, there've been CLI wrappers around web queries before. Until the past few years, these simply addressed search format, URI arguments, and namespace. They launched in the user's choice of browser, text or graphical. Surfraw is the classic, I've written a few very brief bash functions for equivalent capabilities, again, launching any arbitrary browser (though usually w3m by my personal preference). Now what's needed, and you're recommending, is a content-side wrapper as well. This story ends poorly.
- Pete_D 7y ago
  > A fundamental principle of the Web is that site-specific clients or apps shouldn't be necessary. I think this ship, if it hasn't sailed already, is at least starting its engines and getting ready to leave the harbour. User agents and servers are increasingly trending towards an adversarial relationship, where the user doesn't want to do much of what the server is asking of it. This has been true from the first pop-up blockers, through to modern adblocking and anti-tracking measures (the situation now being so bad that tracking protection is a built-in default feature in some browsers). Eventually, a "filter out the crap" strategy becomes too onerous, an "extract what looks good" strategy starts to look better, and you end up with tools like Reader Mode. Custom clients are a natural next step - when someone gets desperate enough to write an article-dl to match youtube-dl, we'll be there.

tams 7y ago

Startpage.com, a Google proxy, still works fine in lynx.

ta0987 7y ago
Unfortunately, they got bought: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
- tams 7y ago
  True, and it's a shame. But it might not matter that much in this accessibility context as Google is also an advertising company.
- Multicomp 7y ago
  Wow, first Private Internet Access, now startpage? What's next, the next Waterfox version will be based on Chrome!? Starting to feel like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the trash compacter, the walls are closing in.
UncleSlacky 7y ago
How does Qwant perform? It's supposed to be privacy-focused like DDG and SP, and it's European, so covered by GDPR too: https://lite.qwant.com https://lite.qwant.com

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Reason077 7y ago

duck.com works well with lynx.

linusnext 7y ago

From JWZ.org Greetings, Lynx users. There is a reason this page doesn't use ALT tags on the images. The reason is that the bozos responsible for both MSIE and Netscape Confusicator 4.0 decided that they would display the ALT tags of images every time you move the mouse over them -- even if the images are loaded, and even if they are not links. The ALT attribute to the IMG tag is supposed to be used instead of the image, not in addition to the image. This looks absolutely terrible, so I don't use ALT tags any more in self-defense. If they wanted to implemented tooltips, they should have used the TITLE attribute to the A tag. That's in the HTML 1.2 spec and everything. I had to decide between making this page look good for the vast majority of viewers, or making it be readable by the miniscule minority of you stuck in the 70s. Those of you in the retro contingent lost. Sorry. from view-source:https://web.archive.org/web/20000304020552/http://www.jwz.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20000304020552/http://www.jwz.or...

jandrese 7y ago
Someone got really worked up over text appearing when they moused over an image, and broke accessibility because of it?
- linusnext 7y ago
  Yeah, jwz.
- catalogia 7y ago
  jwz has a... strong personality.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    And several more in ready reserve!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

khronix 7y ago

keep you worthless js out of my cpu cycles; dont need to read o

hartator 7y ago

Hey! We will be happy to give you an infinite access to our search API: https://serpapi.com https://serpapi.com It will be slower than regular Google but at least you are not going to be blocked. Edit: Create an account without credit card details, send an email to julien _at_ serpapi.com with it, and I’ll make sure you have an active account.

Apofis 7y ago

Google search no longer working with text readers should be an ADA Violation. https://www.ada.gov/complaint/ https://www.ada.gov/complaint/

duskwuff 7y ago
Lynx is not a screen reader. Screen readers are tools like JAWS or VoiceOver which interact with desktop applications, including desktop web browsers such as Chrome or Safari. Google works fine with these.
- anthk 7y ago
  And YASR under Linux with lynx/edbrowse works 200000 times better than jaws, starting with a logical layout for the blind.

dredmorbius 7y ago

There used to be a saying in a11y circles, "Google is a blind user".[1] Now Google are manifestly anti-blind-user. Shouldn't be anything a major ADA lawsuit couldn't fix. Meantime, DDG is actually pretty damned good. For console users: https://duckduckgo.com/lite https://duckduckgo.com/lite ________________________________ Notes: 1. https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/ https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/

jld 7y ago
Is there a way to make DDG Lite chrome's default search engine? Chrome seems to let me create non-default search engines, set the full DDG as the default, but not set lite as the default.
- jolmg 7y ago
  The problem is that the search query does not go in the URL in the Lite version. That really sucks. It makes it useless in the browser history as well. In fact, because all the URLs are the same on each query, they're not even added as separate entries in the history.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    They don't? Search term(s) are the URL parameter: ?q=<query> Which does show in my history AFAICT.
    - jolmg 7y ago
      On the regular version, not the lite. Here's my URL after searching for "asdf": https://duckduckgo.com/lite/ https://duckduckgo.com/lite/ In the search form, it uses POST instead of GET to perform the searches.
      - Arnavion 7y ago
        Even if the search form uses POST, the server does read the parameter if it's specified in the querystring. That is, https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=asdf https://duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=asdf works, so adding it as a search engine with URL .../?q=%s should work as well.

patmcguire 7y ago

Did they also remove link wrapping with this? The HREF goes straight to the destination for me now on Chrome, where previously it went to some Google domain redirect. It's there on the first HTML load too, it's not a JS thing after the fact. Is there a different response for Lynx or are they formatting it in such a way that Lynx doesn't pick it up?

Avery3R 7y ago
They're using the ping property of the <a> element now, the only good thing to come out of this
- e12e 7y ago
  Hm, so now I can go straight to the Google hosted AMP version without bumping through Google an extra time first? /s
- e12e 7y ago
  On a more substantial note, that's documented here: https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#hyperlink0 https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#hyperlink0 It's a little odd, to see that a browser "must parse", but also "may either ignore the ping attribute altogether, or selectively ignore URIs". It strikes me as a bit clumsy compared to the typical MUST/SHOULD/MAY wording. Anyone (other than Google) using a-pings?
- patmcguire 7y ago
  Ah yeah that's definitely going to be different HTML on Lynx, then, since I bet they don't support that and Google's not missing out on tracking. Yup - curling with Lynx user agent gets a targets of href="/url?q=<whatever>" rather than href="<whatever>" ping="tracking"

anonymousisme 7y ago

Sounds like an ADA lawsuit is in the works...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

nyxtom 7y ago

It's been probably years since I've used Google search. It's entirely possible that I'm not getting desired results, but as far as I've been able to tell. It's entirely possible that because I don't end up on answers, I end up (most of the time) going directly to read source code and documentation more often than not. This seems to have helped created something of a better understanding of whatever tech I'm using at the time.

mwcampbell 7y ago

> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. This is not a blindness issue. It would be more accurate to say that Google doesn't care about geeks who cling to old ways of doing things long after there's a good reason to do so. As others on the thread have pointed out, blind people can use graphical web browsers with a screen reader, even under GNU/Linux. I know you know this; I'm pointing it out for the benefit of everyone watching the thread.

autoexec 7y ago
> It would be more accurate to say that Google doesn't care about geeks who cling to old ways of doing things long after there's a good reason to do so. Is it that you can't think of a good reason to use text-based browsers at all or is lynx itself the issue? command line web tools like lynx and curl are pretty handy to have available.
boomlinde 7y ago
On the other hand I don't feel like I'm in a position to blame a blind user for clinging to something they already know instead of learning how to use a graphical browser. A lot of people in general have good reasons for sticking to what they know. Especially if what they stuck to worked fine until recently, and doesn't now only for some trivial reason that's easy to fix.

khronix 7y ago

This is a trend I've noticed also, behemoths breaking standards without permission nor apology, crushing the canary in the coal mine (w3m/lynx, though emacs eww browser works). As a member of an IT Development team creating various web applications, we have found different approaches are needed based on client needs and workflow. We develop many complex data-based backed query/display single page web apps usually with zero js. Where not needed it is little more than a security hole begging for trouble. Where no 'live' user experience is required this is equals resource waste (xtra payload, xtra client cpu cycles if no js blocker) especially in many work environments. As user/engineer I am annoyed when any site sends me their worthless js to execute unnecessarily, thus wasting my devices cpu cycles, battery, plus my lifejuice, and for what??? In most cases nothing I want/desire/need, therefore just to make a bigger tool of me than before, and not for the better. That being said, using web communications, live/simulated data visualizations benefit greatly from js. Separation of concerns is what is missing, js was created to benefit and enhance user experience, the ne'er do wells have hacked it into a tool mindlessly used and often enough does screw the user over without permission nor apology... Interestingly the creators of what became Google received their start with NSF funding. Good way to finish off giving everyone the finger Google, continue to 'do only evil'...

AdrienLemaire 7y ago

> However, I have to admit, the search results of duckduckgo are by far inferior to what Google used to give. I've switched to DuckDuckGo since I read its CEO's book "Super Thinking", and I'm not feeling that it's inferior. Sure, it doesn't have rich cards and other goodies, but I've come to realize that these are nice-to-have, but not essential. On the other hand, reducing the confirmation bias by getting out of the filter bubble is, I believe, essential.

arasx 7y ago

I am willing to bet, attorneys who specialize in exerting money from ecommerce sites based on fluke accessibility lawsuits will not take notice of this problem that presents an actual hardship.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mastazi 7y ago

> Luckily, there is duckduckgo. However, I have to admit, the search results of duckduckgo are by far inferior to what Google used to give. For cases where DuckDuckGo isn't quite enough, I usually rely on StartPage [1]. It uses results from Google, but like DuckDuckGo it doesn't track its users. Startpage, like DuckDuckGo, also works well in Lynx (I've just tested in Lynx 2.8.9 on Ubuntu 16.04). Additionally, you can get StartPage results right from within DuckDuckGo by just appending the !sp shortcut to your search query [2] Edit: you may want to keep in mind, however, that StartPage is now owned by an advertising company. Some users took issue with that. Personally, I'm OK with that as long as users are not being tracked. Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 [1] https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ [2] https://duckduckgo.com/bang?c=Online+Services&sc=Search https://duckduckgo.com/bang?c=Online+Services&sc=Search

colechristensen 7y ago
DDG has been getting better. I've switched my browsers search to it and only occasionally go back to Google for something specific.
- rosybox 7y ago
  DDG's results are very bad still, and they will likely always be terrible. It's not hard to find a query that is objectively much worse than what Google has. DuckDuckGo will never be able to catch up to Google's search quality results. It doesn't have Google's data, Google relies on the search behavior of most of the people of the internet to guide its results along with its vast human and hardware resources to create results that even Microsoft can't match. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/to-break-google-s-monopoly-on-search-make-its-index-public https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/to-break-...
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    Googles results are getting steadily shittier, so they're a bad benchmark to beat. The behavior based searching is crap which has been usurped by people seeking profits. Optimizing the dopamine feed of users and ad impressions of publishers isn't a good thing or something to aspire to.

glloydell 7y ago

"Bye bye mainstream, hello ghetto." Yes, because your use of deprecated software is no longer supported is TOTALLY the same thing as being relocated into the Ghetto in Warsaw.

kion 7y ago

This appears to have been fixed since the posting. Links in the search results work again in lynx.

3xblah 7y ago

Solution: Use alternative HTML parser lynx -tagsoup https://www.google.com/search?q=whatever The program will now display search result URLs as visible links.

Koshkin 7y ago

I am able to Google using Links (another excellent text mode web browser).

mbrukman 7y ago

Hi Mario, I am an engineer on Google Search frontend. Thank you for posting this, and I'm really sorry and saddened to see this broken; this is certainly not intended behavior. I've reproduced the issue you described in the blog (Lynx does not allow clicking on the search results page). Even though Google serves valid HTML to Lynx, it's probably HTML that Lynx cannot parse, and since it used to work before, this is a regression. I filed a bug for our team to look further into it and address the root cause. Interestingly enough, pressing <L> shows a list of links in the current document, and it does show all the available result links, so Lynx does see and parse them, it's just not rendering the links inline with the search results, so that's something we have to investigate as well. In the meantime, as a temporary workaround, if you're open to using Chrome with a simple UI that would be amenable to a screenreader and keyboard navigation, you can use a User Agent switcher extension by Google [1] to set the user agent header to Lynx [2] and Google will serve the same HTML that it would have served to Lynx. You can then use the <Tab> key to iterate over the search results, and <Enter> to select a particular result. I look forward to seeing this bug resolved, and will be personally following up on the status of this bug. Again, I'm really sorry to see this, and I hope we'll be able to restore your ability to use Google with Lynx shortly! [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switche... [2] https://developers.whatismybrowser.com/useragents/explore/software_name/lynx/ https://developers.whatismybrowser.com/useragents/explore/so...

mlang23 7y ago
Thanks a lot for this positive reply! I am thrilled to read that this might be counted a regression and actually fixed. I really hope that can happen. Regarding 'L', Lynx sometimes "hides" links if the anchor is around a div. Maybe it is just that simple. IIRC, <a href=...><div>...</div></a> will trigger a similar behaviour. Regarding your Chrome suggestion, that really doesnt help me much since I spend 99% of my workday on a plain virtual console. The context switch of moving to another computer that runs Windows for simple searches is really not practical. Again, thanks for spotting this and acting on it!
- mbrukman 7y ago

sullivandanny 7y ago

I'm Google's public liaison for search. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and our apologies for the inconvenience caused. This was indeed a bug that our engineers have explored, and it should be fixed now.