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Show HN: Google hijacking search from GitHub, Twitter, others

79 points by davgoldin ↗ HN
I couldn't find any relevant info about this. Maybe I'm part of some new Chrome experiment, or just very bad at searching.

Here's what it looks like: https://imgur.com/a/idXLYOJ

I opened a new Chrome tab just now, typed GitHub in the address bar. Opened the top suggested repository I'm checking frequently, and then used the GitHub search input box. As GitHub search results loaded, on the right side of the Chrome address bar I noticed a new, and colorful G icon. Animating and distracting, the icon expanded into a pretty big inline notification saying "See more search results". After a few seconds it animated and minimized itself back to the G icon.

Clicking the icon opens a right side panel with Google results of my GitHub query.

I then tried to search for something via the Chrome address bar. Without clicking on any of the results, I used the address bar again to open Twitter's home page (typing twitter.com). The animated G icon showed up again - right there on Twitter's home page.

Firefox installed.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

35 comments

[ 10.5 ms ] story [ 746 ms ] thread
Steven420
I'm not sure why people keep putting up with this kind of stuff from google. I really hope more people start using Firefox again
remram
Because Firefox does the same stuff?

Don't get me wrong, I use Firefox myself, but every once in a while I have to disable Pocket, or Studies, or whatever-the-colors-thing-was-called. I have to click the "what's new" button in the menu on Android and immediately close that tab so that the obnoxious blue dot goes away. A new persistent tab thing appeared this week, I am probably going to have to fiddle with my userChrome.css to remove it.

I think it's the better browser but I definitely don't feel in control.

ok_dad
With Firefox it’s easy to disable any of those. With Google, they literally hijacked a search box with private information.

Edit: I have another comment below, I agree there’s no excuse for Firefox either.

saurik
I mean, it seems like you can disable this under chrome:flags and looking for the Side Search experiment, which seems pretty "easy to disable". I think the argument, though, was that having to whack-a-mole things in the first place is annoying because it implies a broken incentive on behalf of the developers and Firefox doesn't seem like they are trying to be different here: they are just trying to not be Google... which is like, cool and all? but I want a bold alternative that isn't even playing by the same rules as Google, and that's not Firefox.
ok_dad
Good points, I agree, companies should at most pop up a tab telling us about the benefits of a feature and how to enable it, but keep it disabled by default. Better yet, they should take input from users on what they want to see in browsers, it’s probably not some additional tab that I didn’t even read about and just closed because I hate that crap.

I’m guess just pointing out this particular case is especially bad, why couldn’t Google start to hijack searches on internal company sites in the future? This feature seems ripe for abuse or errors causing issues.

j33zusjuice
I sure hope there’s something in this that identifies sensitive fields. Are they going to read everyone’s SSN and credit card information? Wtf is this?
proactivesvcs
It may be easy but it has to be repeated every time they add another unwanted feature.
hulitu
> With Firefox it’s easy to disable any of those.

If you know how, yes. The problem with all mainstream web browsers (Edge, Chrome, Firefox) is that with every release you need to disable something.

nicbou
Some of those must be disabled with about: config flags.

This must be done after every update, not just once.

rstat1
>> A new persistent tab thing appeared this week, I am probably going to have to fiddle with my userChrome.css to remove it.

No CSS mods required, you just right click on it and click "Remove".

soraminazuki
> or whatever-the-colors-thing-was-called. I have to click the "what's new" button in the menu

Theming and introduction of new features are legit features. Not even remotely the same as Google hijacking competing search services.

nicbou
According to Mozilla, they're not just themes. They make the world a better place.
soraminazuki
You're just nitpicking on the otherwise innocent wording they use to introduce new features. How's that supposed to be more egregious than what Google is doing here?

If that is enough to put you up in arms against Mozilla, you should see Google's PR notice when they suddenly kill off one of their services.

nicbou
I use Firefox. However I can't help but chuckle at how they introduced it. Some people at Mozilla live on a different planet.

It's not a comparison to Google, just something silly that Mozilla does. Google is a boring kind of evil. There's no fun to it.

witrak
>I use Firefox. However I can't help but chuckle at how they introduced it. Some people at Mozilla live on a different planet.

Exactly. Next example: 2 weeks ago they introduced a new version of the internal pdf viewer and set it as default (that I accept - it's their application). However, when you set FF as the default browser in Windows they make the browser a default pdf application too (see Release Notes 106.0).

LegitShady
no I disagree. I use firefox. I don't actually mind the new tab, although I don't really understand what its there for. mine just shows me my recently closed tabs.

But the color theming thing on the page tries to show me how virtuous it is to pick a color theme, and turns my stomach. they couldn't just let me pick a color, they have to try to talk about why its a good thing for society to pick a color on my firefox theme. The exact text says:

>Color can change culture. The latest colorways celebrate voices making the world a better place.

This is stupid nonsense and should never have made it out to users as if picking a color does anything other than picking a theme color. Stop trying to co-opt social nonsense to justify a theming feature. It's incredibly difficult to understand who reads this tripe and feels good about picking a color to 'celebrate voices making the world a better place' by 'changing culture'.

The people who release a theme color feature under the flag of social change need to be removed from the product development team, they are already driving down the average IQ. They are buffoons, advertising features in a way that only buffoons would appreciate.

SturgeonsLaw
> Because Firefox does the same stuff?

It's not quite the same. Firefox will push Pocket et al as extensions, which can be disabled. Annoying, but that's a pretty reasonable approach.

In this instance of Chrome's behaviour, it looks like it's reading the contents of text fields the user has entered, then feeding that data to back to Google's mothership. It's not clear whether it sends the data when the user opts to view more search results, or if it has already sent it by that point, but either way, Mozilla is doing nothing that egregious.

lucasyvas
I noticed this as well - I really don't care for it, but was not particularly offended by it. I only use Chrome for my work browser because it makes life easier, so at least I won't have to put up with it being there much.

It may in some cases be helpful, but in general I'm very opposed to these "attention grabber" features. I really just want to get into what I'm doing and not see little doodads hanging around my screen for little benefit of my own.

The results themselves obviously don't visually fit either - looks like they just slammed an iframe on the side instead of giving it some kind of native browser chrome/UI experience. Lazy.

ok_dad
So now Google is hijacking private data you input in a site search bar?
nullish_signal
Chrome already offer(ed?) to store Credit Card information on payment sites for "faster checkout" This is about on par
klyrs
Firefox does that too. Big nope
ok_dad
I guess I’m a weirdo, I worry more about my actual private data from other sites being vacuumed by Google, not credit cards that I can easily cancel if they get stolen.
thevagrant
It raises the question of whether they keylog everything in their browser.
frozencell
What do you use to "proxy" Google? A proxy? How to avoid their key-loggers? Basically how to use Google Search and Chrome in anonymous?
LegitShady
a non google browser, a non google search service
Georgelemental
Just don't. Personally I use Firefox and Brave search
nicbou
I'm repeating myself here, but I'm tired of how non-consensual technology has become. When I got into computer, this sort of behaviour was attributed to malware. Now it's standard practice for the biggest players.

I remember when computers were meant to be a bicycle of the mind.

gary_0
I remember when web browsers just loaded websites! I miss those days.
jwalton
This is still malware, it’s just malware written by Google.
em-bee
i would not call this hijacking but pushing their products. it's essentially targeted advertising. so yeah, chrome is used as a platform to advertise google services. somehow that is not a surprise anymore. it's actually surprising that they didn't do this from day one. and for me it is another reason to avoid chrome.

hijacking would be is you want to search on github but instead of getting github search results, you get google search results.

j33zusjuice
I think they meant hijacking in the sense that they read his search on another site. So they’re either scanning the page loads, or reading your keystrokes, or something that is sending the data back to Google.
em-bee
why would that be sending back data to google without a users action? sure it could. but there is absolutely no need to send anything until that google button is clicked. so it's really just advertising i think. and it's technically no worse than making a selection and getting an entry in the context menu to send that selection to your preferred search engine.

the button as it appears would not be a problem if it would offer to send your github or twitter search to your configured default search engine instead of always to google.

come to think of it, did anyone check if that feature is configurable? most people still have google as the default search engine so it would naturally default to google even if it wasn't actually tied to google.

thesunkid
You can disable it (I think) by opening `chrome://flags/` on Chrome, searching for "Side search" feature.