Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

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baumgrenze
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Joined: January 14th, 2005, 5:57 pm
Location: Charlottesville, VA

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by baumgrenze »

It is 9/1/18, but I just found this thread. I've noticed the same behavior as in the screen dumps already posted.

I am running Win 7/Pro x64 and SM 2.49.3

I find that Google search in Chrome works as expected. Does this suggest that "do no evil" does not include mucking with Google search so that it behaves like this, works in Chrome but not in other browsers? Is it just 'the times we live in' or are others becoming more paranoid?

FWIW, I avoid signing in to Google.' Yeah, I don't have a Gmail account. I still direct my 'junk mail' to a Yahoo Mail account.

Would installing SM 2.49.4 improve or exacerbate the problem?

thanks
baumgrenze
Thanks,

Baumgrenze
terryj99
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Joined: April 1st, 2012, 7:20 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by terryj99 »

Many, many thanks to user TPR75. This fix worked for me as well when the problem suddenly appeared today. You are my hero!
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baumgrenze
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Location: Charlottesville, VA

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by baumgrenze »

I join the others in expressing my thanks to TPR75 for the solution!

I just opened a SM browser window and my Google bookmark works 'right' again!

I report that the instance of Google that opened had (not to my surprise) a note in the upper right corner reading (surprise?) Google recommends Chrome (which I declined.) This further enables my 'paranoia' that Google (do no evil) deliberately tried to sabotage my browsing experience with SM!

Thanks again,
baumgrenze
Thanks,

Baumgrenze
BertHickman
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Joined: September 2nd, 2018, 12:25 pm

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by BertHickman »

The above fix seemed to work for getting the cursor centered in the Google search bar. However, when I did an actual Google search, none of the URL's for the search results work - clicking on any of the URL's on the Google page doesn't take me to the referenced page. It just stays on the Google search results page. Help!
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baumgrenze
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Location: Charlottesville, VA

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by baumgrenze »

Hi Bert

Curious to duplicate your experience, I tried. As you describe, simple click does not work, however a right click > open in new window (tab) does work.

I'll leave it to the mavens to sort that one out, but it does work.

I still wonder about the benefits (problems) associated with migrating from SM 2.49.3 to 2.49.4. What have early adopters experienced?

Do I understand correctly that 2.49.4 is not an 'upgrade' from 2.49.3? The web page:

https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

carries this warning in RED.

Automatic upgrades from previous versions are, for most configurations, disabled for this release. If you need to upgrade from an earlier version, please download the full installer from the downloads section and install SeaMonkey 2.49.4 manually over the previous version.

thanks
baumgrenze
Thanks,

Baumgrenze
lem3
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Joined: May 15th, 2015, 10:29 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by lem3 »

When my elderly relatives were about to throw someone under the bus they'd always preface their remarks with "bless their hearts".

To their credit, the Google programmers, bless their hearts, made the effort to generate specific code for the search results page that they serve to SeaMonkey and (probably) other Gecko-based browsers that aren't FireFox. Unfortunately they botched the job, using, for example, one CSS "-moz-box" directive that never existed and breaks the input field layout.

As an exercise I've added a few lines to my userContent.css file that fixes the problem but instead I'm going to just use the FireFox useragent string in an override declaration since one change on Google's part and it breaks again.

I've already had to do that for chase, usps and yahoo so at this point I'm just rolling with it.
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therube
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Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by therube »

Do I understand correctly that 2.49.4 is not an 'upgrade' from 2.49.3?
You understand incorrectly.
The (automatic) update process is simply broken at this point.

Backup your Profile & update (to 2.49.4 - it has security updates in there).
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
terryj99
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Joined: April 1st, 2012, 7:20 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by terryj99 »

Baumgrenze, I too have the problem that BertHickman described of Google search result links not working except as you described (workaround of "open in new tab/window"). While the code offered in this thread indeed fixed the initial problem of the "truncated" Google search input field display, I had in the process upgraded to 2.49.4.

Is the problem of hyperlink failure likely related to SeaMonkey 2.49.4 or is it the combination of the new browser and TPR75's helpful general.useragent.override.google.com code?
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baumgrenze
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Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by baumgrenze »

terryj99

I have not yet upgraded to SM 2.49.4.

Therefore we might be tempted to conclude that this hyperlink failure is a 'weakness' in the Firefox browser that Google is 'exploiting' as an 'enhancement' to drive Mozilla users to Chrome.

I have limited bandwidth. I've not taken time to evaluate search engines other than Google, but I'm strongly tempted. I am frequently frustrated by their insistence that they 'know better' what I am trying to accomplish than I do, even to the point of ignoring "quotes" around a search term and presenting results that ask the question 'must include "xxxx."

I am open to suggestions.
Thanks,

Baumgrenze
BertHickman
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Joined: September 2nd, 2018, 12:25 pm

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by BertHickman »

Google apparently made some changes since the behavior is slightly different this morning. Anyway, I also changed to a slightly different user agent string that better reflects my setup: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko. Everything now seems to work properly. Thanks, everyone for the help!
lem3
Posts: 74
Joined: May 15th, 2015, 10:29 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by lem3 »

I used this string for the about:config useragent.override:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0

and clicking on the links in the search results page has the expected behavior: I'm taken to that page.
terryj99
Posts: 7
Joined: April 1st, 2012, 7:20 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by terryj99 »

lem3 wrote:I used this string for the about:config useragent.override:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0

and clicking on the links in the search results page has the expected behavior: I'm taken to that page.
BertHickman and lem3 -- thanks for your donations of config code. This appears to have solved my problem with the Google links being flaky.

SeaMonkey is quite important to me in maintenance of intranet html files where, with one command, I can jump into editing mode and edit the info being browsed without having to launch Dreamweaver or whatever. I am so thankful for the support forum where folks are so quick to help us non-technical folk tweak it to rise to new "challenges." Thank you guys!
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Ztruker
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Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by Ztruker »

Rich
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda
GreenGNU
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Joined: April 25th, 2005, 10:35 am

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by GreenGNU »

Thank you terryj99, lem3 and BertHickman for developing a fix for the maddening SM Google search error and the hyperlink issue. I used lem3's config with SM 2.48 on W7.
SteveKG
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Joined: September 12th, 2018, 10:01 pm

Re: Google search messed up with SeaMonkey 2.49.3

Post by SteveKG »

I am using SeaMonkey 2.49.4 on Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 Bit. I also have the same Google search box problem listed by others. The about:config fix outlined earlier for general.useragent.override.google.com that specifies Trident v11.0 causes Google to think you are using Windows Explorer 11 as your browser and it causes my response time to degrade horribly and even causes some of my links to fail. I modified the string value for the preference to "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0" (without the quotes) and now my Google search box works perfectly, as well as the drop down suggestions. I also have no problems activating any of the search results links. Only problem is that now Google thinks I'm using Firefox instead of SeaMonkey and that is not what I want them to think. I really want them to KNOW I'm using SeaMonkey and to FIX the problem they created in the first place. So I am planning to call them in the morning to complain. Anyone else having this problem, please call Google and tell them to fix this problem. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
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