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Google Search bug shows blank page in Firefox for Android (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

submitted 9 months ago by Elephant0991@lemmy.bleh.au to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

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The issue:

Android users with Firefox can't access Google Search (including intl sites and localized domains like google.de, .co.uk, .com.br). Instead, they see a blank page.

Cause:

A server-side bug on Google's end related to User-Agent (UA) sniffing, which serves an empty page to newer Firefox versions.

Affected versions:

All Firefox versions on Android (>= 65) including Mobile 121.0, Nightly 123, and older.

Chrome not affected:

The bug is specific to Firefox.

Solutions:

Use a different browser (Chrome, etc.) or search engine (DuckDuckGo).

Advanced users can:

Change Firefox's UA in developer settings or with add-ons.
Request the desktop version of Google from Firefox settings (region-dependent).

Status:

Problem identified as critical and escalated.
Still unresolved at the time of reporting.

Additional notes:

Disabling Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection doesn't fix the issue.
Some users report google.co.in loading the desktop site instead of mobile.

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[–] JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

After intending to for years, I've recently switched to DuckDuckGo after getting increasingly frustrated with Google's search results. This makes that decision feel all the more like the right one.

I find it hard to say this is deliberate on Google's part but at best it's yet another case of Google blatantly skipping over Firefox testing.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I did so, too.

I've done so repeatedly over the past years, each time giving it one month to evaluate how useful its result are to my productivity before deciding whether to swap back.

After now giving it three months, I can say this:

As much as I complain about Google's results having gotten worse, fucking hell is Bing sad (which AFAIK is still the majority of DDG's result input). It's orders of magnitude less useful than what Google digs up for my mix of gaming, board gaming, cooking, trivia knowledge and programming input.
Apple Maps is still an insult to people actually wanting to find things on a map on a desktop system and I cannot believe they have not replaced it with something else, no matter what. Openstreetmap would be a godsend. The current state just means I used an extension that hardwired Google Maps into it so I don't have to add the !-command each and every time.

In theory though, DDG is nice. If they can improve the quality of their results, I can work around the maps issue. But it's still significantly behind Google, but I also have to see this in context of course: Google has a fuckton of money to throw around, for the budget they have, DDG is impressive.