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Search just went freaky
I have Yahoo as my default search engine. Today results began coming back with my ISP's domain in front of them (as if the opera info snuck into the query string were unrecognized by it). Now, no matter what I edit the Yahoo details to be in the search tab in prefs it doesn't work at all... ie: typing "y dog" and hitting enter does nothing.I really don't like that search was changed lately. i always had my own search.ini file that DID NOT have yahoo.opera.com/operaoperaoperaandmoreopera in the address. Now it seems as if the old ads based co-op Opera has reared it's ugly head once more. What happened to the user having control? Is that a thing of the past or is it one step closer to opera's partners with every new release?
I really hate the full-screen search menu, and that there isn't an apparent option to change it back. That and the dumb menu-bar replacing super-button are my least favorite parts of 10.51, but at least the super-button can be fixed.
I can't be the only person experiencing this. I've been to the help pages ( http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.51/en/search.html ), followed every single direction there and still typing even "y dog" into the address bar and clicking enter does absolutely nothing. I'd like an answer from someone if that's not too much to ask. It seems like Opera dev's are some of the first people here on other subjects. Why is the search issue so taboo?
Version 10.51; Build 3315; Platform Win32; System Windows XP;
Small note on a similar topic: Using XP now because Vista DRM componants do constant queries to check if you are running "Verified" software and hardware constantly... well, I am running verified equipement, all of it, the problem is that I record high bit rate audio and the constant queries ramp up cpu and add between 20-50 milliseconds of delay in my buffers which translates into drop outs, clicks and pops in my recordings. Isn't that great when all we want to do is use software that let's us do OUR OWN THING but it somehow turns on us and bites us because of the people who make it would rather force us into doing THEIR THING???
Version 10.51; Build 3315; Platform Win32; System Windows XP;
Small note on a similar topic: Using XP now because Vista DRM componants do constant queries to check if you are running "Verified" software and hardware constantly... well, I am running verified equipement, all of it, the problem is that I record high bit rate audio and the constant queries ramp up cpu and add between 20-50 milliseconds of delay in my buffers which translates into drop outs, clicks and pops in my recordings. Isn't that great when all we want to do is use software that let's us do OUR OWN THING but it somehow turns on us and bites us because of the people who make it would rather force us into doing THEIR THING???
Booted into Vista last night (exact same build as this as both were installed from the same file downloaded to the same partition). On the Vista install right-clicking in a search engine's input form does give the option "Create search". However, it will not function until the search.ini file is altered, the old Yahoo! search entry removed and that file saved, opera reloaded etc. On the XP install search forms do not give a "Create search" option in the menu and manually changing the search.ini only pops open a blank page. This is across the board behavior: ie with yahoo, google, wikipedia, dogpile, name it...
Anyone else having these issues? Is there any notice of it anywhere? I subscribe to as many of the opera dev's blogs as I know of and I actually read them... nada so far. It would seem like a pretty high priority thing, search, to a browser. Or am I just neglecting that the kiddy stuff like unite are now the stars of the game and eveything else gets put on a back burner now?
Anyone else having these issues? Is there any notice of it anywhere? I subscribe to as many of the opera dev's blogs as I know of and I actually read them... nada so far. It would seem like a pretty high priority thing, search, to a browser. Or am I just neglecting that the kiddy stuff like unite are now the stars of the game and eveything else gets put on a back burner now?
In the XP install I deleted the search.ini in the defaults folder and then reworked the search.ini within the profile folder to have ONLY 1 search engine (yahoo without any Opera statements or redirects etc). Guess what? All of the defaults came back and Yahoo wouldn't work at all.
Ok Opera. I love the browser, I love the security (other than the nagging at all kinds of site about TLS renegotiation which has led to several very frustrating moments with A LOT OF PEOPLE). However, if you want to continue to screw around with search features like this then I'm gone and I'm the same as taking about 20 people, whose systems that I administer, with me.
For every advance you people make you take two steps backwards with your approach to users' wishes.
For every bug you fix you add two more.
For every "liberating" feature that you add you march everyone one step closer toward being handcuffed to your corporate sponsors.
For every dev that actually works for you there are 20 browncoat want to be's floating around your forums busily trying to act like forum gods.
It is now old. It's not "getting" old. You have now crossed a line and there is no returning I sincerely hope that by this time next year your users have been cut in half. Fing with people this much... you simply deserve it.
Ok Opera. I love the browser, I love the security (other than the nagging at all kinds of site about TLS renegotiation which has led to several very frustrating moments with A LOT OF PEOPLE). However, if you want to continue to screw around with search features like this then I'm gone and I'm the same as taking about 20 people, whose systems that I administer, with me.
For every advance you people make you take two steps backwards with your approach to users' wishes.
For every bug you fix you add two more.
For every "liberating" feature that you add you march everyone one step closer toward being handcuffed to your corporate sponsors.
For every dev that actually works for you there are 20 browncoat want to be's floating around your forums busily trying to act like forum gods.
It is now old. It's not "getting" old. You have now crossed a line and there is no returning I sincerely hope that by this time next year your users have been cut in half. Fing with people this much... you simply deserve it.
It's my ISP. the very day after the FCC got slammed in a US court Charter Communications decided to begin redirecting searches that have any kind of redirect through their own redirected version of the engine. Consider the following screen captures:
The first is from a redirected link in firefox (which is exactly what the redirected link in Opera shows). Charter has swiped the request and replaced all of the left sidebar sort characteristics with it's own versions of it. Also, on the right can be seen the "sponsored results" which are not yahoo based sponsored results but sponsors of the ISP blatantly inserted into yahoo's layout.
If you look at the second pic note how the left sidebar is the standard Yahoo sort list. On the right notice that there are no sponsored links. That is because I have the Adblock addon removing any Yahoo related sponsored content.
My ISP is definitely taking things into their own hands since the Federal judge announced that the FCC doesn't run the net. My problem with this is simple: I do not like the thought of paying an ISP for a connection to the net and them making even more money off of me because they are selling not only my search history but my demographical data or GET and POST server information to 3rd parties because they think they are "allowed" to run me through proxies within their network before allowing my connections out to an external mains router, before it even hits a DNS server.
Hubs, ports and routers are one thing... internal servers which re-write my pages are another thing all together. At first when it looked like this was an Opera action taken I was alarmed and then became agitated. Now, after finding that it was my ISP all along I am a bit alarmed. If they are willing to do this kind of thing openly... just what do they believe they can get away with doing in private by possibly again rewritting any page to appear as if it had never been altered?
If we think of this in terms of tracking cookies which we have no control over, to me, it becomes a situation where not only are they entities such as the NSA or CIA which reroute our traffic through basement proxies at AT&T (suposedly looking for terrorists shopping at ShopNBC.com for lamps and household appliances but there is another level of Big Brother whose interest is not in protecting anything but their own fatcat incomes by selling us further down stream into the existing adbased spam culture that breeds datamined profiling of people based upon race, class, income, education, health, age etc. Look, I don't like to think of a world where my grandchild applies for a car loan and someone at a bank comes back and says "Sorry, no" all because they've just read through a list of potentially iffy actions/financial situations/health/age/race/class etc of everyone that some database says makes up their "profile". Would you like that? At that point, none of us are our own person any more... we will have become a nepotistic society more structured like a Monarchy where if you name is "Windsor" you get away with murder in a commonwealth country but if you name is NOT Windsor... you go to jail. I believe every person should be judged by their actions and actions that are legally disclosed, not actions which are "perceived" by means of bias or which were obtained from peeping, snooping, lying and/or which were basically stolen.
Will opera address these things any time soon? I hope so. I understand that HTML5 is fast approaching and is of great concern to the devs ... and that is as it should be. However, there's some seriously freaky stuff happening out here with relation to rights abuse, security breaches and users being proxied without their consent or knowledge as I am typing this right now.
Another thing I think I need to mention is that most passive users probably do not even notice as they use their ISP's main page as their home page so they are use to seeing "Charter" in the address of all of their searches. The yahoo pages look very similar to them and lately the pages have been changing anyway. So few will take note of what exact content is being altered and even fewer will figure out WHY it is being altered. Does Yahoo or google etc care? Maybe, maybe not. But, there are very good reasons why users should care... but like I say most probably will not even notice.
The first is from a redirected link in firefox (which is exactly what the redirected link in Opera shows). Charter has swiped the request and replaced all of the left sidebar sort characteristics with it's own versions of it. Also, on the right can be seen the "sponsored results" which are not yahoo based sponsored results but sponsors of the ISP blatantly inserted into yahoo's layout.
If you look at the second pic note how the left sidebar is the standard Yahoo sort list. On the right notice that there are no sponsored links. That is because I have the Adblock addon removing any Yahoo related sponsored content.
My ISP is definitely taking things into their own hands since the Federal judge announced that the FCC doesn't run the net. My problem with this is simple: I do not like the thought of paying an ISP for a connection to the net and them making even more money off of me because they are selling not only my search history but my demographical data or GET and POST server information to 3rd parties because they think they are "allowed" to run me through proxies within their network before allowing my connections out to an external mains router, before it even hits a DNS server.
Hubs, ports and routers are one thing... internal servers which re-write my pages are another thing all together. At first when it looked like this was an Opera action taken I was alarmed and then became agitated. Now, after finding that it was my ISP all along I am a bit alarmed. If they are willing to do this kind of thing openly... just what do they believe they can get away with doing in private by possibly again rewritting any page to appear as if it had never been altered?
If we think of this in terms of tracking cookies which we have no control over, to me, it becomes a situation where not only are they entities such as the NSA or CIA which reroute our traffic through basement proxies at AT&T (suposedly looking for terrorists shopping at ShopNBC.com for lamps and household appliances but there is another level of Big Brother whose interest is not in protecting anything but their own fatcat incomes by selling us further down stream into the existing adbased spam culture that breeds datamined profiling of people based upon race, class, income, education, health, age etc. Look, I don't like to think of a world where my grandchild applies for a car loan and someone at a bank comes back and says "Sorry, no" all because they've just read through a list of potentially iffy actions/financial situations/health/age/race/class etc of everyone that some database says makes up their "profile". Would you like that? At that point, none of us are our own person any more... we will have become a nepotistic society more structured like a Monarchy where if you name is "Windsor" you get away with murder in a commonwealth country but if you name is NOT Windsor... you go to jail. I believe every person should be judged by their actions and actions that are legally disclosed, not actions which are "perceived" by means of bias or which were obtained from peeping, snooping, lying and/or which were basically stolen.
Will opera address these things any time soon? I hope so. I understand that HTML5 is fast approaching and is of great concern to the devs ... and that is as it should be. However, there's some seriously freaky stuff happening out here with relation to rights abuse, security breaches and users being proxied without their consent or knowledge as I am typing this right now.
Another thing I think I need to mention is that most passive users probably do not even notice as they use their ISP's main page as their home page so they are use to seeing "Charter" in the address of all of their searches. The yahoo pages look very similar to them and lately the pages have been changing anyway. So few will take note of what exact content is being altered and even fewer will figure out WHY it is being altered. Does Yahoo or google etc care? Maybe, maybe not. But, there are very good reasons why users should care... but like I say most probably will not even notice.