I just tested changing user agents in Chrome - setting UA to a random string like "fff" gets a search page, but setting it to "Links" or "Lynx" gets "Your browser isn't supported anymore" - which is to say, this doesn't look accidental, but more like these UAs are specifically being blocked.
EDIT: Forging user agent in Links (with links -http.fake-user-agent) gets a usable homepage, but the results page just sends you to a turn-on-your-javascript page.
My impression is that support for less common browsers and other unusual uses of google products has survived due to pet interest by individual googlers and not any sort of widespread policy.
I wonder to what extent visually disabled internet users are affected by this, since I can imagine at least some of them using lynx with an on-screen reader for a terminal emulator.
Not to any meaningful degree. Lynx (or other terminal-based browsers) would be an extraordinarily poor choice of browser for a non-sighted user, as it lays text out visually in the terminal (e.g. using color and indentation to distinguish between types of text) and does not provide accessibility cues. Those users are much better served by standard GUI web browsers.
Ask someone who is visually impaired. I know that they historically use browsers that do not support JavaScript. I also am acquainted with one developer who uses software for reading his terminal outloud, although I never asked the specifics of what he uses for web browsing or IRC for that matter. I do know that he loves the iPhone.
That said, I just found this post by a blind person who uses Lynx and complained about it the last time Google broke Lynx support:
That may have been true decades ago but I think this is pretty marginal these days. All the Blind people I have talked to use mainstream browsers. GUI browsers actually provide more metadata to screen readers than something like Lynx can, and they actually work with websites people need to access.
I don't feel it's particularly controversial to think that Javascript shouldn't be a requirement to use the internet. This is one step towards making that the case.
From a normal browser (don't ask me what I mean by that), with its normal/default user agent, Google search does not work without Javascript. I think at all, any more, but at some point I had got rate limited of sorts, after using the search without Javascript for a little, I got a prompt to enable it.
This is more about requiring JavaScript that blocking specific browsers. I think all the new LLM labs (plus all the tools offering SEO services for LLM-based search and answer engines) finally reached a limit of scraping that Google no longer can sustain.
The most efficient way to search is to read the text. Waiting for images to download and then admire them cannot improve that. It looks like Google has lost relevance and is telling us, again.
maybe this is a knee-jerk reaction but I don't see any good reason for this. At it's core Google's job is to take an input and list outputs. The marketshare of people using lynx is small enough that whatever advertising or ai extras they want to squeeze in won't be meaningfully impacted by not working on lynx.
Standard Google page can use JS and WASM to fingerprint device and detect bots. No-JS page cannot detect bots so it makes sense to shut it down to prevent using it for bot detection bypass.
I wonder if an Invidious or Nitter-like solution will be coming soon, as no doubt me and countless others, although still a minority, are now truly motivated to do something about it.
These bastards have truly ruined what's left of the open Internet. Google, FUCK YOU!
For search, you mean? SearXNG has been around for a while and is excellent. I have used it for years as my main search. Not sure if it supports lynx but a least they don't arbitrarily block it.
On Linux you use Orca with your browser of choice. On Windows you use JAWS or NVDA with your browser of choice. All major browsers support screen readers.
When resources are an issue, this does matter.
I use to store previous Lynx/ Links search results in history lists,
to allow browsing within local files later. Creating such lists with
Firefox is a mess. (This browser tends to block my Thinpad for hours.)
Really sad. Google was a key to the internet.
Torsten
EDIT: Forging user agent in Links (with links -http.fake-user-agent) gets a usable homepage, but the results page just sends you to a turn-on-your-javascript page.
That said, I just found this post by a blind person who uses Lynx and complained about it the last time Google broke Lynx support:
https://blind.guru/blog/2019-11-25-endofgoogle.html
"Maybe for you"
> Waiting for images to download and then admire them cannot improve that.
"It does improve the way we track you"
> It looks like Google has lost relevance and is telling us, again.
They just got patted on the back by regulators in US so they don't give a fsck.
Maybe, like in 2019 when a similar submission got traction, you'll be able to get it restored.
(I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626995)
Edit: corrected spelling error
(for the record I grow to dislike g more every day, and also this move)
Anyone can spoof UA…
I can spoof UA today with lynx, curl or what ever that isnt executing js.
See topic.
These bastards have truly ruined what's left of the open Internet. Google, FUCK YOU!
Just google it.
https://search.sethforprivacy.com/
How do kids today even survive online?
You might want to take a look at the context.
But Linux! And *BSD! Or some Illumos.
Or in general just some effin textmode terminal, running whatever is able to run Lynx/Links/Elinks(2?).
Google begins requiring JavaScript for Google Search
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42747092