Google Buries "Instant Off" Button

[Brett_Tabke]

It is bad enough that Google forced us to use "instant" in the first place, and that it was incompatible with several leading browsers, now they have buried it under 'preferences'. You are now forced to go through preferences every time you want to turn off instant (which is ever time for me as I delete cookies twice or more a day).

So, Google has been my 2nd search engine since June of 2009. I was using them about 30-40% of the time to backup Bing results for a 2nd opinion. This is pretty much a show stopper for me.

Are there any public 3rd party tools to pull google data with having to use the web search interface these days? ;-)

[indyank]

oh...that is bad news...

infact on slow connections (which is the case still in most parts of the world), google used to stop displaying results instantly and would ask us to press "Search" to display them.On presing "Enter" google will automatically take us to the first result.I didn't like this at all.I just wanted to see the results.

Now this move is horrible. I don't mind them taking it to preferences, as long as they don't turn it on automatically.But then they don't care about what we say :(

[indyank]

Brett, I just checked and I do find the instant switch on google.com. Are they rolling it in phases?

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Instant off switch is showing as usual on end as well.

[icedowl]

Brett, I have to change my preferences at least once a day now and it's driving me batty. It's not just for the instant crap, but I like to open results in a new tab and that keeps getting forgotten as well. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Robert Charlton]

I'm seeing the Instant off switch in the usual place to the right of the serps page search box as well. Note, though, that this generally means you have to do at least one search and get serps with Instant before you can turn it off. I don't believe the Instant toggle was ever directly available on the Google home page.

So, having a check box in Preferences, which I don't remember seeing before, is actually a good thing... though you will need either to stay signed-in or cookied-in for Google to remember those preferences.

I've more and more been staying signed in with History off on one of my browsers... and I'll occasionally play with cookies or Sign-in or default location on that browser.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I've more and more been staying signed in with History off on one of my browsers... and I'll occasionally play with cookies or Sign-in or default location on that browser.

I do this too but it's not ideal. I want a search engine that I can go to, type in my search and get the results without having to concern myself with all of these other issues.

(A bit like what Google used to be if you like.) ;)

[tangor]

I G once a week. B is my go to... until tonight. I wanted to research "mustang" and all I got was Ford... and I was looking for a Buddhist link to horses which ended up in the New World. And NONE OF THE BING OPERATORS (- NOT () ) worked. And, grins, did not work in G either. If I wore a tinfoil hat I'd be concerned that even though Ford didn't bite the Government Motors apple there was something going on. That said, my personal search engine is Bing.

And SHUT DOWN INSTANT does not work for me consistent since I have my browsers FF and IE clear history and cache on close. Inflicted with the pain EVERY freakin' time I visit G... but not B.

[aristotle]

Brett said:
Are there any public 3rd party tools to pull google data with having to use the web search interface these days? ;-)

There is at least one. Do a search for the term "Google results scraper" and you should see it at or near the top.

[ken_b]

Most of the time when I search via Google it is with cookies disallowed and js off, so no instant search for me.

It always annoys me when I forget and find myself on a G serp with instant on.

[cloudtap]

I don't realyl care about G Instant, I do hate though how the search button has so many issues now if you try to hit the search button after your search is done and then the ajax drop-down always gets screwed up, etc - G Instant IS annoying but doesn't Always get in the way, only once in a while.

[ddogg]

The 'preview' feature where they load an image of the page when you hover over the result is even worse. Useless features are one thing, but annoying useless features are just stupid. It's like the engineers have to do something with their time so here you go.

[Brett_Tabke]

> i find it there

Looks like this is a another browser issue. I have deleted and reinstalled Opera (with the latest update) and it seems to be back on a drop down next to search. I have had such a nightmare getting google results to work the last 4 months that I have #*$!ized every optional setting that could relate to google in Opera. I had turned off javascript on google.com to finally get rid of the annoying - never accurate - always wrong - forever annoying - instant search. So the click to turn off instant - was going to the preferences page. I am still not entirely sure what went on. Either - it is clearly a Google bug. This is bs that we should have to go through this kind of crap, just to get decent freakin search results.

I want my old Google back.

[Jonny6]

I switched to Bing a few months back, the combination of Google instant and localized results that incorrectly serves me places results from a city a hundred miles away was just too much!

[mhansen]

For me, I always have to shut down instant, 2-3 times, or it keeps coming back on new browser sessions. Its like: Shut if off, search. (Its still there) Shut it off again, search again. (Sometimes that works) Most of the time, I have to go into pref's and turn it off in there (just above the 10-100 results per page setting).

Anyone else seeing the "Social Circle" in serp's, even when you have opted out of Buzz, and have no public profile?

I use Chrome for 100% of Google stuff... (gmail, WMT, Analytics, etc) and Firefox for 100% of everything else... just to avoid stuff like this.