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I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

blind.guru

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Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#111

Post by linusnext »

jandrese wrote: post #88
linusnext wrote: post #74

From JWZ.org Greetings, Lynx users. There is a reason this page doesn't use ALT tags on the images. The reason is that the bozos responsible for both MSIE and Netscape Confusicator 4.0 decided that they would display the ALT tags of images every time you move the mouse over them -- even if the images are loaded, and even if they are not links. The ALT attribute to the IMG tag is supposed to be used instead of the ima…

Someone got really worked up over text appearing when they moused over an image, and broke accessibility because of it?

Yeah, jwz.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#112

Post by dredmorbius »

There used to be a saying in a11y circles, "Google is a blind user".[1]

Now Google are manifestly anti-blind-user.

Shouldn't be anything a major ADA lawsuit couldn't fix.

Meantime, DDG is actually pretty damned good. For console users: https://duckduckgo.com/lite

________________________________

Notes:

1. https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#113

Post by birdyrooster »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #109
jrockway wrote: post #7

I feel like many of the text-mode browsers have failed to keep up with changing web standards. We were all mad when IE was holding back the Internet, and I'm not sure we should give lynx and w3m a pass because they're geek tools. (Accessibility is an important concern, but web browsers running under a GUI system support screen readers.) https://www.brow.sh/ is a console-based browser that claims to support modern sta…

> I am now prepared for 6 comments replying to me saying that anything that can be implemented with HTML from 1999 should be, and a list of search results can be. They would be correct replies! In addition there is this concept called "graceful degradation", where if the browser has more advanced features, you support them, otherwise you work anyway. It's not like supporting Lynx means you can't have a map in the sea…

They probably are hiring only the best machine learning, cloud-native engineers fresh out of university who have never heard of lynx and now the institution doesn’t even realize it broke support for it.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#114

Post by TeMPOraL »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #96
TeMPOraL wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a cop-out. Being a developer and a long-time computer user biases me, but also gives me a more informed perspective on what's productive and ergonomic, and what's distracting and annoying. I can name the issues I see, instead of writing off the frustration as "this computer must have viruses" or "this is just how things have to be". Bloat because of inefficient design isn't delivering any value to regular peop…

Believing that you’re more qualified to have a user experience is pretty arrogant imo. Online communities like HN are always full of puritans who hate all sorts of stuff that ordinary users often like.

It's analogous to the "should you listen to parents or childless people on the topic of parenthood/children issues". Parents are strongly biased, but they also know much more about the issue.

Or: when seeking driving advice, would you reject a priori the opinions of professional drivers, just because they're not representative of the general population? You would be justified in rejecting their views when considering your marketing strategy. Which kind of makes me think that a lot of reasons for pushing the "devs are not representative users" thought aren't about how to best serve users.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#115

Post by dredmorbius »

earenndil wrote: post #53

Try googler https://github.com/jarun/googler

A fundamental principle of the Web is that site-specific clients or apps shouldn't be necessary.

That they are only underscores Google's massive blunder here.

Yes, there've been CLI wrappers around web queries before. Until the past few years, these simply addressed search format, URI arguments, and namespace. They launched in the user's choice of browser, text or graphical. Surfraw is the classic, I've written a few very brief bash functions for equivalent capabilities, again, launching any arbitrary browser (though usually w3m by my personal preference).

Now what's needed, and you're recommending, is a content-side wrapper as well. This story ends poorly.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#116

Post by at_a_remove »

dredmorbius wrote: post #112

There used to be a saying in a11y circles, "Google is a blind user".[1] Now Google are manifestly anti-blind-user. Shouldn't be anything a major ADA lawsuit couldn't fix. Meantime, DDG is actually pretty damned good. For console users: https://duckduckgo.com/lite ________________________________ Notes: 1. https://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/06-08-steven-web40/

Back when I did web design stuff and I couldn't get anyone to put any effort into accessibility, I would "sell" the concept as it being SEO: search engines see what we put in for text, not images. Accessibility for humans is accessibility for Google.

It was pitiful that I had to do this but there you have it.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#117

Post by eggie »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #23
inciampati wrote: post #4

Another person notes that ddg is inferior. Maybe people get used to a certain way of searching with Google that doesn't translate to ddg. Haven't noticed a drop in quality myself and I think I might have been retrained to use different patterns and techniques in structuring my queries.

DDG results are so much worse for me, especially anything longer tail or in Spanish, that I switch to Google when I'm actually getting work done. I find myself adding "!g" to an important search just to check for any results that DDG doesn't know about and it's almost always an upgrade to see Google's results. Search is hard. I don't like to chime in to say something negative about an underdog like DDG, but I see thi…

I know you're probably annoyed that I'm telling you that you're using ddg wrong. That's not exactly what I'm saying. It's more like: we're trained to expect certain things from the search engine, and so it's hard to switch.

> Or consider how "elm dict" in Google takes me to https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/core/latest/Dict (#1 result), but https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=h_&ia=web in DDG doesn't (nowhere on page 1).

ddg gives me the source code to elm Dict (8th hit, so it's in the first page): https://github.com/ivanov/Elm/blob/master/libraries/Dict.elm

I assume it's the same because ddg is claiming not to affect search results by anything except time and user configuration.

Google's results (for me) are a full page of references to every different version of elm's documentation for dict. Not exactly a wide net, and frankly pretty redundant. To see anything else, I have to click at the bottom of the page. It doesn't show me the source code. I went through the first ten pages and didn't see any link to it.

For ddg, I just use the arrow key to scroll down, and I can press enter to follow the link I want, changing the meaning of "first search page" for me quite a bit.

> DDG results are so much worse for me, especially anything longer tail or in Spanish, that I switch to Google when I'm actually getting work done. I find myself adding "!g" to an important search just to check for any results that DDG doesn't know about and it's almost always an upgrade to see Google's results.

I have a completely different experience in italian. They're actually pretty good, which is surprising given the small audience.

For work, usually I directly search for documentation in reference systems (e.g. en.cppreference.com). Neither ddg or google will consistently direct me to the "best" documentation. YMMV.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#118

Post by catalogia »

jandrese wrote: post #88
linusnext wrote: post #74

From JWZ.org Greetings, Lynx users. There is a reason this page doesn't use ALT tags on the images. The reason is that the bozos responsible for both MSIE and Netscape Confusicator 4.0 decided that they would display the ALT tags of images every time you move the mouse over them -- even if the images are loaded, and even if they are not links. The ALT attribute to the IMG tag is supposed to be used instead of the ima…

Someone got really worked up over text appearing when they moused over an image, and broke accessibility because of it?

jwz has a... strong personality.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#119

Post by grawprog »

blauditore wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be the first (EDIT: third) of six. > If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember. To better track people and push ads. It's really mostly just it. Modern web has very little to do with providing value to the end-user; any utility that's provided is mostly a side effect, and/or a vector to lure people into situations…

Come on, you can't be serious about this. Creating sophisticated web pages is massively easier than 10 or 20 years ago. Yes, HTML of plain simple text-only pages is still pretty much the same, but most users actually prefer visually fancier content with pictures and colors. Yes, companies presenting themselvses online profit of more capabilities. And yes, presenting ads is probably easier too. But if you think those…

>Creating sophisticated web pages is massively easier than 10 or 20 years ago.

And still average people aren't taking advantage of this and creating their own websites because despite it being massively easier, the way the web is now has pushed it still beyond the average person's reach. If these 'sophisticated' stacks and technologies weren't the norm and instead the web was more focused on being s place where.the average person can easily put up their own fancy looking simple webpage maybe we wouldn't be so dominated by these massive companies that have become the gatekeepers by providing limited platforms for people to do what did used to be a relatively easy thing even back in the day.

There's a reason these companies fund and push these technology stacks, it gives them huge control over the internet and in the end, they don't really do anything fundamentally different than what good old fashioned HTML and CSS can do. Hell especially the HTML of today.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#120

Post by patmcguire »

Did they also remove link wrapping with this? The HREF goes straight to the destination for me now on Chrome, where previously it went to some Google domain redirect. It's there on the first HTML load too, it's not a JS thing after the fact. Is there a different response for Lynx or are they formatting it in such a way that Lynx doesn't pick it up?
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