Pale Moon forum

In the past two weeks or so, Google search is absolutely killing my PM. Anytime I go back to the seach page, the browser basically locks up. There must be some really fucked up scripts doing heavens know what in the background, but there is no way around it. It doesn't matter if the browser is a freshly launched instance or not, Ublock makes no difference either, it's just a mess.
It almost seems like something new they are doing to kill anything that's not their own or something.
Has this been happening to anyone else very recently?

I do not know. I 99% use DuckduckGo instead of Google for searches. I do however occasionally use Google map/ street view and seems to function ok (despite me ticking "reject all")

LuftWafflePilot wrote: ↑

2022-12-27, 16:29

It almost seems like something new they are doing to kill anything that's not their own or something.

Almost? New? It's their main focus for years.

Kerebron wrote: ↑

2022-12-27, 18:10

Almost? New? It's their main focus for years.

And they're not even the first to do that. It's just another application of the classic EEE. We give them more credits than they deserve.

LuftWafflePilot wrote: ↑

2022-12-27, 16:29

Has this been happening to anyone else very recently?

Can't confirm. Tested shortly before.

I'm pretty good with TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms)... and the 4 and 5 letter ones too... many years of playing alphabet soup in the military helps! However, I had to look up vannilla's 'classic EEE' comment in his post above to confirm my guess.

For anyone similarly challenged... EEE = Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish... apparently from Microsoft's early business tactics!
At any rate... that's what Wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_ ... extinguish ... and concludes with a nice pointed dig at Google Chrome at the bottom of the article.

Google Chrome

With its dominance in the web browser market, Google has been accused of using Google Chrome and Blink development to push new web standards that are proposed in-house by Google and subsequently implemented by its services first and foremost. These have led to performance disadvantages and compatibility issues with competing browsers, and in some cases, developers intentionally refusing to test their websites on any other browser than Chrome.

Find a Searx instance that you like or use Startpage. Searx can be configured to include Google's results. I don't particularly like or trust Startpage, but they use Google's results.

It doesn't answer your question but these are some alternative options at least. I tested and I don't have the same issue that you report, you may want to check to see if one of your extensions is causing the issue.

This is one of those problems that are impossible to troubleshoot reliably.
It just started out of the blue. I changed nothing about settings or anything, it's only when I go to Google, look something up, click on the link and then go back.

@ LuftWafflePilot

I use Google search, but not in the Search box which Pale Moon provides in the browser. I use Google search as a stand alone bookmark (favorite).

When I search for something in Google and get on the page with all the links for that subject, I visit one of the links, look at it and then hit my Back button to go back to the page with the search results, Pale Moon goes back to the page and never locks up.

At this time I'm using 64 bit linux Pale Moon 31.4.2 running in 64 bit linux Mint 21.1 (Vera) Xfce.

LuftWafflePilot wrote: ↑

2022-12-29, 11:43

This is one of those problems that are impossible to troubleshoot reliably. It just started out of the blue. I changed nothing about settings or anything, it's only when I go to Google, look something up, click on the link and then go back.

Some update might have occurred, like a blocker filterlist or extension.

1. Download and extract Pale Moon portable somewhere on your PC.
2. Close Pale Moon. Do not open PM and PM portable at the same time.
3. Open Pale Moon portable and see if the issue occurs.

Just one more incredibly good reason to use Pale Moon's default DuckDuckGo for search instead of Scroogle's spyware-as-a-service.

Besides the fact that DDG helps pay the bills around here if I recall correctly. Win-win.

andyprough wrote: ↑

2022-12-30, 00:55

Besides the fact that DDG helps pay the bills around here if I recall correctly.

Indeed it does.

andyprough wrote: ↑

2022-12-30, 00:55

Just one more incredibly good reason to use Pale Moon's default DuckDuckGo for search instead of Scroogle's spyware-as-a-service.

Besides the fact that DDG helps pay the bills around here if I recall correctly. Win-win.

I tried, but I am too used to Google unfortunately. Anytime I tried one of those alternative search engines/pages, the results were weird (for lack of better words) and the visual style was so alien to me I "had to" go back to Google.
I'm afraid it's similar problem I have with Linux, after being a Windows user for my entire life: I am totally incapable of learning even the very basics of the system. It's so alien to me I think I would have better luck learning to speak klingon.

But in the chance there is something fishy or slightly fishy about my system, is anyone aware of any more thorough cleaner than what Swabby does? I mean the entire PM/FF profile is a huge pile of mystery data spread across tons of files.
There must be something cleanable in that mess. Like those sql files that only ever grow, and all the data websites save. Has anyone who knew this stuff inside out ever developed any tool that would clean this up? I absolutely will not randomly delete stuff I have a feeling might not be needed or something.

LuftWafflePilot wrote: ↑

2022-12-30, 15:55

the results were weird (for lack of better words) and the visual style was so alien to me I "had to" go back to Google.

They look extremely similar. I don't understand what would be "weird" or "looking alien".

I don't remember. It was who knows how long. It just felt so off to me I couldn't use it.
Also I didn't specify what search engine it was (because I don't know).

Well we were talking specifically about DDG. but, whatever.

So I took another look at the Duck engine, and have instantly found a show stopper: there is no language preference for search. I just want results in english, not to search per region. What's the point of this I do not understand.
edit: And setting the location to Czech republic gave me a result in dutch on the 4th position anyway. So this is completely useless and not an option for me. If I missed a setting somewhere let me know.

LuftWafflePilot wrote: ↑

2022-12-31, 18:27

...there is no language preference for search...

Of course there is.

Show me.
I can't find anything that would let me specify what language results I want.
I repeat: the region setting is not that.

I guess you meant specifically the search results, not just "search" (which would be the interface language). The region setting is their only option. It's supposed to boost results in that region (AND subsequently language) but not restricted to that.

I don't know if your Pale Moon language settings might help (Content/Languages), but that will probably impact the DDG interface language alone.

Different search engine, different way of doing things. Don't expect it to work exactly like Google. Try it for a few days. Seems like you only tested it for less than a minute.