Closed Bug 735115 Opened 13 years ago Closed 13 years ago

Some Google search results link to a version optimized by Google for mobile (Google Mobilizer)

Categories

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Product:
Web Compatibility
Component:
Site Reports
Platform:
ARM
Android
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(blocking-kilimanjaro:+, blocking-fennec1.0 -)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED
Project Flags:
blocking-kilimanjaro +
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
blocking-fennec1.0 --- -

People

(Reporter: philikon, Assigned: jpr)

References

Details

Often when I search for something via Google and I click on one of the search results, I'm not taken directly to the page itself. Instead I'm presented with some minified/optimized version that Google created specifically for mobile devices. I say minified/optimized, but what it really is is lobotomized: no layout, no JS, etc. Fennec is very capable of showing web pages with complex layouts thankyouverymuch! I just want the original page!
Philip, can you provide an example for a search result that shows this behavior?
These steps performed yesterday: * Open a new tab in Fennec * Type "chevy s10" * Never visited a page with that in the title or URL, so awesome screen only shows Google, Amazon, Twitter, Wikipedia search suggestions * Click on Google * Tap on Wikipedia search result * Observe minified version. I've had the same happen with other searches days and weeks ago ("evil genius racing" is the only one I can remember off hand). Of course today I can't reproduce it at all. I don't think I updated Fennec since yesterday, so it must either be something different about what Fennec sends out or Google changed something.
Wikipedia has a mobile view that knows Firefox mobile browser. This is not a bug. If you don't want the Wikipedia mobile version scroll to the bottom and choose disable mobile site.
That is not what he is describing. I've seen Google do this do, and not just for Wikipedia. They're sending us a google optimized version of a page. It doesn't happen all the time. I wonder if they are testing a new feature (or just angry about our -webkit- prefix stuff :) )
Assignee: nobody → jpr
blocking-fennec1.0: --- → +
Should we move this bug to fennec native evangelism (it sounds like an evangelism bug)? I'd like to link this up with the google meta evangelism bug.
Coming at this from a slightly different perspective, are we getting this content because Google sniffs the Fennec UA and assumes that it should try to return WAP content? This is, of course, just a guess. We need to engage with Google to understand what's going on here. Also of note (from bug 754177), I could not reproduce this issue in Toronto. The following day in MV (where AaronMT and John Jenson, both in Canada, said that they still could not reproduce) I was able to reproduce the issue. This issue may be isolated to certain countries. I agree with Jason. Without any indication that this is an issue in our code base we need to follow up with Google. We can do this as part of an existing evangelism effort that is underway.
Assignee: jpr → nobody
Component: General → Evangelism
QA Contact: general → evangelism
blocking-fennec1.0: + → ---
blocking-kilimanjaro: --- → ?
Thanks, Lawrence. I agree, let's follow up with Google as soon as we can. Users might easily not realize it's something that Google is doing and attribute the behaviour to poor rendering on Fennec's part.
blocking-kilimanjaro: ? → +
Request for comment sent to Google partner team. Hopefully the search team can comment on this here.
(In reply to Kev [:kev] Needham from comment #9) > Request for comment sent to Google partner team. Hopefully the search team > can comment on this here. Awesome. Kev - Can you help us out with some of the other google bugs linked to the meta bug (bug 668288)?
Something we very much want to see fixed but we don't have any control of this.
Assignee: nobody → jpr
blocking-fennec1.0: --- → -
We don't have control over Google, but it can still be a blocker ... Right now searching for something in Firefox on Android is a really painful process for some of us. We can (and are) reaching out to Google. We can also change the default search engine.
DuckDuckGo (for me at least) works amazingly well on Fennec!
(In reply to Stormy Peters from comment #12) > We don't have control over Google, but it can still be a blocker ... Right > now searching for something in Firefox on Android is a really painful > process for some of us. > > We can (and are) reaching out to Google. > > We can also change the default search engine. Okay. Stormy, see the meta bug this is linked to (bug 668288) for more google-related issues. At this point, is there anything you need from the mobile web compat guys in terms of analysis for google-based apps? Or are you carrying all of the google-related issues forward shown in bug 668288 (e.g. UA sniffing, webkit layout problems, this issue seen in this bug)?
Sorry, I meant "we" = Mozilla. I don't think we can say something is not a blocker just because we can't control it. I am not personally working on all the google-related issues ... but there is a cross functional team looking at these issues that meets tomorrow. Aaron Train scheduled it and I think Laurence Mandel is leading it these days. Jean-Yves Perrier and John Jensen from Engagement are part of it.
(In reply to Stormy Peters from comment #15) > Sorry, I meant "we" = Mozilla. > > I don't think we can say something is not a blocker just because we can't > control it. > > I am not personally working on all the google-related issues ... but there > is a cross functional team looking at these issues that meets tomorrow. > Aaron Train scheduled it and I think Laurence Mandel is leading it these > days. Jean-Yves Perrier and John Jensen from Engagement are part of it. Right, I'm in that meeting as well and work directly with that group. We're just looking someone to drive sending off the issues to Google (and communicate back and forth as needed to get the Google related issues resolved).
Adding Joanne Nagel, and putting words in her mouth by saying she can help with the partner team at Google. We have more than a couple avenues in (eng contacts, personal contacts, and business contacts), and it'd be great to get a full list of Google-related issues and present it to them to all of contacts in a coordinated manner.
(In reply to Kev [:kev] Needham from comment #17) > Adding Joanne Nagel, and putting words in her mouth by saying she can help > with the partner team at Google. We have more than a couple avenues in (eng > contacts, personal contacts, and business contacts), and it'd be great to > get a full list of Google-related issues and present it to them to all of > contacts in a coordinated manner. Sounds good. I'll work with our web compat group to compile a consolidated Google report and communicate with Joanne about this.
I've just noticed this happening recently. It wouldn't be so bad if the "optimized" version wasn't completely awful and unusable :(
Google has a tool called Google Mobilizer (http://www.google.com/gwt/x) that creates a mobile "friendly" version of a site. It seems Google Search is sending all search results to Mobilizer. You can check the URL of the mobile-friendly page to see it's actually displayed using Mobilizer.
No longer blocks: google-evangelism
Summary: Some Google search results link to a version optimized by Google for mobile → Some Google search results link to a version optimized by Google for mobile (Google Mobilizer)
Why was bug 668288 removed as a blocker against the Google meta bug? This still sounds like a google-oriented issue.
Still dont see this with Google Canada. Jason, the issue isn't related to layout (Gecko).
I think this is still a blocker for Fennec even though it's not a Gecko issue.
(In reply to Stormy Peters from comment #25) > I think this is still a blocker for Fennec even though it's not a Gecko > issue. I'm with Stormy. I just ran into as well. It's a fairly common and terrible, borderline unusable experience.
(In reply to Aaron Train [:aaronmt] from comment #23) > Still dont see this with Google Canada. Jason, the issue isn't related to > layout (Gecko). Ah I realized where the confusion arose on why the blocking flag was taken away. For that bug, I changed the scope of the tracking to be generally any problem in related to Google that requires evangelism effort, as I've attached the UA sniffing bugs to that tracker bug. Re-putting that bug as blocking for that reason.
Blocks: google-evangelism
Just to close this loop -- now that I am in the USA I see this on my installation of Fennec Nightly.
Blocks: 757134
This particular bug can't block the release as it is completely outside our control. While there are people who have connections to Google there are no guarantees that they will be able to resolve this issue for us this quarter. I've filed bug 757134 about setting the default search engine which is a solution that is under our control.
I've been throwing something together that would "fix" these results for us (will post here in a bit). While super super SUPER SUPER SUPER hacky, it IS an option.
The Google search team is working on a fix for this. I'll have an update by the end of the week with an ETA of when the fix will go live.
(In reply to Mike Graboski from comment #32) > The Google search team is working on a fix for this. I'll have an update by > the end of the week with an ETA of when the fix will go live. Awesome. Mike - We have a listing of google issues attached to a meta bug in bug 668288 that affect firefox for android and boot to gecko (e.g. many google sites are not serving firefox for android the right content, webkit layout issues). I've constructed a summary report of these issues here - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ip5E_7SChrfxCPGQetjFUQrjYLgvluH0A8CoOsrBaz0/edit. Could you assist us in getting traction on these issues? We want google-based applications to look awesome on firefox for android and boot to gecko, so serving the right content could get them to look awesome.
Jason - Joanne Nagel and I can help here. Google's got a partner services team that helps work these issues, and that's the right channel for this type of request. Mike is Search focused (iirc), and there are different product teams that we should bring this kind of issue up with. (In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #33) > Awesome. Mike - We have a listing of google issues attached to a meta bug in > bug 668288 that affect firefox for android and boot to gecko (e.g. many > google sites are not serving firefox for android the right content, webkit > layout issues). I've constructed a summary report of these issues here - > https://docs.google.com/document/d/ > 1ip5E_7SChrfxCPGQetjFUQrjYLgvluH0A8CoOsrBaz0/edit. Could you assist us in > getting traction on these issues? We want google-based applications to look > awesome on firefox for android and boot to gecko, so serving the right > content could get them to look awesome.
(In reply to Kev [:kev] Needham from comment #34) > Jason - Joanne Nagel and I can help here. Google's got a partner services > team that helps work these issues, and that's the right channel for this > type of request. Mike is Search focused (iirc), and there are different > product teams that we should bring this kind of issue up with. Okay sounds good. Joanne just pinged me about getting a discussion setup to talk about this. I'll work to get something setup this week to figure out how to get traction on google-related issues.
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
This appears to be fixed!
Appears to be fixed for me as well. Sweet relief.
To be clear, this didn't randomly fix itself. There have been folks at Google working directly on this problem, and I very much appreciate their efforts!
Hey guys, the Google search team pushed this fix last night. Glad to hear that you're all seeing it working as expected now!
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
whoo-hoo!! Works for me now too. Thanks to everyone at Google and Mozilla who made this happen!
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Component: Evangelism → Mobile
Product: Firefox for Android → Tech Evangelism
Product: Tech Evangelism → Web Compatibility
Component: Mobile → Site Reports
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.