The Internet Has Peaked

[Finster]

Is it just me, or has every developer on the World Wide Web been in conspiracy to simultaneously start throwing crap back at me whenever I try and type into a window? I go to Google. I start typing in my search request. Before I get halfway through, it starts spitting out half-baked attempts at a search result. Right where I am trying to type, too! This is not only extremely annoying but slows the whole process down. It's like talking to someone and having them constantly interrupt and try to finish your sentences for you.

I absolutely hate it when some smart-assed software tries to read my mind. Computers are supposed to do what their human operators tell them to, not speculate on what the human is thinking and usually blow it anyway. There is this key on my keyboard labled "Enter". It is suppose to let you tell the computer that you've completed an entry. Is it now redundant?

Unfortunately it's not just Google, either. Everybody's doing it. They all started at once, as if to make sure there would be no opportunity for competition to weed out this fetid practice. No escape. Like HAL, you will have to do it their way or not at all.

It might be too much to hope for, but perhaps some of our technically inclined iTulipers know of some way to turn this off? Help! Or one of these days I'll sit down to put a post up on iTulip about the banks and it will come out bananas.

And so will I!

[jk]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

if you're using google toolbar, open the options panel [the wrench symbol over on the right] and under "search" uncheck the option "suggest searches as you type."

[Finster]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

if you're using google toolbar, open the options panel [the wrench symbol over on the right] and under "search" uncheck the option "suggest searches as you type."

Bless you, JK! You are an angel of mercy!

[Finster]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

Yikes! I don't have a Google toolbar. :confused: (Lucky thing because I just switched to Alta Vista...)

I tried to find something equivalent in Internet Explorer, to no avail...

[Finster]

Aha!

http://www.blogsdna.com/784/how-to-d...-home-page.htm

http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en

Well that takes care of Google...

... just 999,999,999 sites to go...

[ggirod]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

Also there is the autocomplete function in various browsers which sometimes you can turn off. Here are links to do so in various contexts.

[bart]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

You might like Scroogle ( https://ssl.scroogle.org/ ) - a front end for Google but with no tracking.

I've been known to use the aggregator Clusty too - http://clusty.com/

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

You might like Scroogle ( https://ssl.scroogle.org/ ) - a front end for Google but with no tracking./

If you're looking for a no-tracking search engine, try ixquick.

[Rajiv]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

In the google window, on the top right you can set your preferences (search settings). I hope that it eases your pain

[Finster]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

Thanks for the tips ... the Google problem is solved.

Unfortunately however, this disease is an epidemic. Typing-activated pop-ups are popping up everywhere. Stock Charts is a recently noted example. Type in the "Enter Ticker" window and before you are barely started a window pops ups with a list of possible tickers. Never mind the fact that there is a "Go" button right next to it presumably for the purpose of indicating you have completed your entry, not to mention a separate feature dedicated to finding symbols if that's what the user actually wants to do.

Now add the banks to the list. Mine has an online bill payment feature. It used to be very handy. But little by little, its getting more cumbersome. The bill payment feature has a window where you enter the amount to be paid. Now, as soon as you start typing in it, an advertising window pops up promoting the bank's "get this bill on line" feature. You have to click to close it before you are permitted to complete your task. A check of the preferences settings reveals no opt-out for this excrable junk. Unless there is some way of disabling this sort of code in my browser, it appears the only recourse is to change banks. And unless it goes away soon, I will probably do just that.

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

Is this another one of those very definitive "two types of people in the world" things?

I hate search suggestions.

[leegs]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

I don't mind them.

[ggirod]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

If you acquire a slower computer you may find that you can type what you want well before the computer figures out what to suggest to you. You may find that reassuring, or you may resent having such a slow machine that it can't recognize your friend's name from the names out there and you know that the three letters you entered of your friend's name is unique and you just wish the stupid thing would just finish it for you .... That is me ... Finster, on the other hand, is you ... sometimes I wish I had a faster machine ... then I think of Finster, his suffering, and I am grateful

Sorry .... the devil made me do it.

[Finster]

Re: The Internet Has Peaked

If you acquire a slower computer you may find that you can type what you want well before the computer figures out what to suggest to you. You may find that reassuring, or you may resent having such a slow machine that it can't recognize your friend's name from the names out there and you know that the three letters you entered of your friend's name is unique and you just wish the stupid thing would just finish it for you .... That is me ... Finster, on the other hand, is you ... sometimes I wish I had a faster machine ... then I think of Finster, his suffering, and I am grateful

Sorry .... the devil made me do it.

Congratulations ggirod, this must qualify for the most original suggestion ...

To explain a bit further ... my PC is one of those Murphy's models ... it is faster than blazes at the stuff you don't want it to do and slower than molasses at everything else...