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

79 points by davgoldin 3 years ago | 35 comments

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.

nicbou 3 years ago |

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 3 years ago | |

I remember when web browsers just loaded websites! I miss those days.

jwalton 3 years ago | |

This is still malware, it’s just malware written by Google.

Schroedingersat 3 years ago | |

And now they're tye GM car of the mind.

j33zusjuice 3 years ago | | |

I don’t know. Fuckin slander, ask me.

Steven420 3 years ago |

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 3 years ago | |

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.

SturgeonsLaw 3 years ago | | |

> 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.

rstat1 3 years ago | | |

>> 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".

ok_dad 3 years ago | | |

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.

soraminazuki 3 years ago | | |

> 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.

lucasyvas 3 years ago |

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 3 years ago |

So now Google is hijacking private data you input in a site search bar?

thevagrant 3 years ago | |

It raises the question of whether they keylog everything in their browser.

nullish_signal 3 years ago | |

Chrome already offer(ed?) to store Credit Card information on payment sites for "faster checkout" This is about on par

klyrs 3 years ago | | |

Firefox does that too. Big nope

em-bee 3 years ago |

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 3 years ago | |

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 3 years ago | | |

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.

frozencell 3 years ago |

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?

Georgelemental 3 years ago | |

Just don't. Personally I use Firefox and Brave search

LegitShady 3 years ago | |

a non google browser, a non google search service

thesunkid 3 years ago |

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