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Google Search bug shows blank page in Firefox for Android (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The issue:

Android users with Firefox can't access Google Search (including intl sites and localized domains like google.de, .co.uk, .com.br). Instead, they see a blank page.

Cause:

A server-side bug on Google's end related to User-Agent (UA) sniffing, which serves an empty page to newer Firefox versions.

Affected versions:

All Firefox versions on Android (>= 65) including Mobile 121.0, Nightly 123, and older.

Chrome not affected:

The bug is specific to Firefox.

Solutions:

Use a different browser (Chrome, etc.) or search engine (DuckDuckGo).

Advanced users can:

Change Firefox's UA in developer settings or with add-ons.
Request the desktop version of Google from Firefox settings (region-dependent).

Status:

Problem identified as critical and escalated.
Still unresolved at the time of reporting.

Additional notes:

Disabling Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection doesn't fix the issue.
Some users report google.co.in loading the desktop site instead of mobile.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It was fixed in a few hours:

https://status.search.google.com/incidents/hySMmncEDZ7Xpaf9i32C

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

And it was never broken for Chrome.

Google can do plenty of damage to Firefox in a few hours and the best way to do it is to simply not include Firefox in their testing. If you don't know the standards the web is built on, it makes FF look unreliable, despite it being Google's bug.