start.ubuntu Google CSE has fewer features

[Paul Sladen]

The ubufox package causes the default browser homepage to be adjusted to:

  http://start.ubuntu.com/...

As of 8.10, this is:

  http://start.ubuntu.com/8.10/index.html

This page features a Google Custom Search (CSE) search form. Using this CSE form to search the web results in a Google interface with fewer features than using Firefox's builtin search-bar or simply google.com. For example, the "images" and "maps" features are missing.

Ideally using http://start.ubuntu.com/... should result in the same result as using Firefox's default search.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Thanks for the report. We have this bug already but this is a much better description of the problem so I'll mark the other bug as a duplicate of this one.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

A first step towards solving this problem (but I don't see how: it's a custom search, it can't be equal to the original) is to add a bit more honesty, or transparency if you please, to the default home page.

Right below the search field, a phrase could be added like "this is a custom search. We put it here because we think it is [link to whatever reasons you like|useful]. If you want a standard search instead, you can click [link that sets the home page to www.google.[LANGUAGE] | here".

What about this?

Also, a problem is that results come from the english web site. Users will notice getting very different results. That's a google "feature" and we can't do anything about it, but at least giving some hint to users will lead to discoverability of a solution, for those who may consider this annoying.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

See also bug #402767 "multisearch CSE presents reduced Google functionality".

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Subscribing Desktop Team---according to the TB, this is probably your patch, despite being in 'ubuntu-start-page'.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

I think even if I am striking I can point you to the "political" version of this bug, which is not about having less features, but about keeping users informed. It's bug #405350.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Why can't Canonical/Ubuntu talk with Google to get a customized homepage like http://www.google.com/firefox/ except it would be http://www.google.com/ubuntu/ ? This page magically has the normal Google buttons like Images, News, Advanced Search etc. as well as a custom logo, space for announcements and maybe a link or two back to ubuntu.com. It would be even nicer if Google would modify the page to add the magic extra code to search queries so that Ubuntu can get some profit in a similar manner to how Mozilla is funded by the Google searchbox searches.

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

Marking this as not a papercut as this is not a simple issue. It's a very complex issue with still not clear solution.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

Il 15/10/2009 14:24, Lionel Dricot ha scritto:
> Marking this as not a papercut as this is not a simple issue. It's a
> very complex issue with still not clear solution.
>
> ** Changed in: hundredpapercuts
> Status: New => Invalid
>

I suppose that making users UNDERSTAND that what they are using is not
google (e.g. by changing a bit the page look, and adding a link to a
wiki page) would be nearly impossible with current man power <G>

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

It would be completely wrong to "make users understand that what they are using is not Google", because what they are using *is* Google. That's why it's served from www.google.com.

Anyway, Ivanka Majic has redesigned the results page to re-add the missing features, and I understand that Matt Nuzum is now implementing it.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

Il giorno ven, 16/10/2009 alle 12.32 +0000, Matthew Paul Thomas ha
scritto:
> It would be completely wrong to "make users understand that what they
> are using is not Google", because what they are using *is* Google.
> That's why it's served from www.google.com.

Matthew, please, I really want to understand this issue. I think I have
a rather good education in computer science, and I find what you say
above very wrong.

Is it true or not, that the form in the default start page submits to a
custom google search? And is it true or not that users have NO way to
know if search results are altered? Is it true or not that banners are
more prominent in the ubuntu search?

The above is why I say that the standard page is not the standard google
search. Then, it becomes a matter whether one believes or not that users
will think to be using a standard google form. That's in my opinion
induced by the fact that the standard google page is extremely similar
to thhe ubuntu one, and that most browsers (not only in the linux world)
use google as their default page, so it is expectable that the standard
home page is a google search.

Matthew, I find rather insulting that most developers give a reply like
the one you gave ("hey, it's google after all!") when they are asked
about this, but when the questions become more precise, they don't reply
at all.

So please, reply.

Vincenzo

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

The answer to your questions are, in order, "of course it is, that's why it says so twice on each results page", "altered from what?", and "no, neither of them have banners at all". Those questions, however, have nothing to do with this bug report. This bug report is about the custom search missing some features that the <http://www.google.com/> search has. If you want to avoid feeling insulted, I suggest first considering the possibility that it is not entirely everyone else's fault.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

Matthew: I think you are honestly not aware of previous discussion of the matter. So:

"altered from what" is "altered w.r.t. the results that google would return without the CSE". CSE allows one to decide which sites are included in the search and which not. By now, at least, italian people gets english results, so a different order of them. I am not saying that ubuntu DOES alter the results. I am saying that users have no way to know that. That's because CSE has not been designed to be used as a google replacement but rather to index just some sites, so it is very obvious that results *should* differ. What you are trying to achieve is probably a technical abuse of the CSE.

"the banners", perhaps you are using adblock. If you start firefox e.g. in the guest session in ubuntu, you'll see that the advertisement by google is much more prominent in the ubuntu search. Your average user will not use adblock, and will get more advertisement.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

As usual no reply, in particular to "altered from what". I am not accusing
anyone of altering results, what I say is that we are using a
different search provider than the standard google search, and users
MUST be aware of that when they search.

Otherwise, if your idea is that you WANT users to BELIEVE that they
are using the standard search, then, sad to say it, but you ARE
tricking your users on purpose.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Vincenzio, as you have already been told more than once, it is not true that "we are using a different search provider"; we are using Google, the same company that provides "the standard Google search". Launchpad is not your personal information service, and you are disrupting this bug report. Please take your insinuations elsewhere, thanks.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

This all started more than one year ago; for one year I tried to get to something, because I liked and like ubuntu. I do not think canonical or ubuntu are evil entities, but the matter of the home page, which is probably the application that every ubuntu user will use more frequently every day, is not handled in the right way and your users are not aware of that.

I do not want to "insinuate" anything. If I am wrong, I will just stand corrected. However, from your words above I don't understand if I got what a CSE is wrong, or you don't even know what it is. What I will state now is based on obious facts that everyone can verify, so if they are not true, just explain me why.

I looked at the form action URL in the default ubuntu firefox home page

http://start.ubuntu.com/9.10/

The source code of the page reads

      <form action="http://www.google.com/cse"

so the submit URL is not www.google.com, but rather www.google.com/cse. It is certainly TRUE that googe is the provider of both services, but as far as I know they are rather different services.

The "cse" or "custom search engine" service that you use in the home page permits a third party (in this case ubuntu) to configure the search engine, deciding what sites are indexed and what not, and perhaps also to alter the order in which results are presented. Moreover, the use of the CSE seems related to the presence of much more prominent advertising in the results page, which should generate revenue for the third party in question.

I do not think it is bad to make revenue for an open source project that way, but users should know. This is a matter of transparency, you may have a different position, but you should at least agree that "cse" and "/" are two different google pages.

The "cse" is probably aimed at providing custom search engines that index single web sites (like most other distributions do) and not to provide an alternative to google, but of course you may use it like that.

What you can not do is to prove to users what your configuration of the CSE is. Therefore, in my opinion you should add a disclaimer somewhere, and link it in the 9.10 start page.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

Following the link http://www.google.com/cse/ anyone can read information from google about what a CSE is.

[Jakob Unterwurzacher (jakobunt)]

This bug is about "start.ubuntu Google CSE has fewer features" and that is why i am subscribed here - please keep the user trust issue in bug #405350 .

Now, on-topic:
What the Ubuntu CSE misses most IMO are (see attached pdf):
1) Images, Maps, News ... Search
2) "Search pages in german" (my browser preferences prefer german)
3) The output language is always english (should be browser preference)

[Martin Albisetti (beuno)]

While this is a valid bug, we're going to stick with Google Custom Search in the foreseeable future.
I feel your pain on having less feature, but it's just the way things work. Anyone is more than welcome to change their default home page if they care (I change it, for example).
For the random user who doesn't care, this is perfectly fine.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

I should not help ubuntu at all, as I swore - after realizing that nobody was going to provide a clear reply to the political side of this bug.

But for <insert your favourite god here> sake, I think you should not close bugs when they are there, and you just want to keep the software. It would be like closing all Xorg bugs because you're going to stick with Xorg in ubuntu.

The bug is there and could be fixed (I see more than one way, but as I said, I have good reasons not to waste time in helping here). You are supposed to leave it open undefinitely, until it gets the man power to be fixed. Yeah, just like any other bug.

Unless there is a good reason to _not wanting_ to fix it (that's what "wontfix" means) but you're supposed to provide a reason for that. I don't think there's a good reason: this is a bad bug in internationalization of ubuntu. When my Italian mother looks up "casa" on google she's looking for a house, not the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia. One sign of this bug, in the early times when I still used to believe in the ubuntu home page, was that my mother complained badly to me on the phone, about her computer "being all in English" and other people pressing her to stop listening to her crazy son, and switch to windows. Yes that's how the real world works. I resisted (actually, I just let her use windows for a while, and she happily returned to ubuntu) and my mother still has ubuntu but I had to "fix the bug" for her. I wonder if there are other Italian moms that can use ubuntu without their son/daughter/niece fixing this bug.

Not that I care at all anymore, I will not reopen the bug myself.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

I also think this is a valid bug and should not be closed. While I understand that Canonical generates revenue through the use of the home page, and that is a reason for using it, that needs to be weighed up against the problems that the use of the page causes and the other possible options.

To start with, I think it should be explained whether Google have been asked to implement a fix for this problem, and what their response has been. As Vincenzo has said, the customised Firefox Google homepage does not suffer from this bug. It could also be explained whether there are substantial differences in revenue between using a custom search page, and a regular search page, and why. Presumably either provides an opportunity for a financial arrangement with Google.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Ubuntu goes to great lengths to provide localised interfaces and this /is/ ultimately fixable, just passing "client=ubuntu" has solved the issue for the Firefox chrome interface search/address bars.

It's not an apparently artistic decision.

For the moment, I'm assigning it to myself as a place-holder.

[Adi Roiban (adiroiban)]

Hi Paul,

The code for Ubuntu start page is here: https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-start-page/ubuntu-start-page/trunk

Can you please branch that code, fix the HTML files and let us know about the changes? ... maybe create a Merge proposal.

Many thanks!

[Rick Spencer (rick-rickspencer3)]

@Paul - AIUI, the "Firefox chrome interface search/address bars" are not related to the custom search page. The search/address bars use stock Google search results, whereas the default home page is a custom search page, as described above. I don't think the "client=ubuntu" relates at all to the custom search.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Adi: ta.

Rick: AFAIK, the only reason for the CSE use was/is to quickly enable revenue share on search results, before Canonical (Ubuntu) had a proper account/relationship setup with Google (Yahoo).

I'm not party to the agreement that was signed, so I can only make an educated guess at the appropriate strings based on the diffs that were made to the Ubufox settings recently. Based on that "partner=ubuntu" appears to be sufficient---is this the case? Is this all that the agreement requires be passed.

There's various things "wrong" here.

  1. index.html.it (Italian) then leading English-language results. This is solved by passing &hl=it (and the same for all other language codes)
  2. only a subset of language being available as 'index.html.CC' translations, despite the backend search provider providing more
  3. Use of CSE reducing feature set (no Maps, Images, ...). This is solvable by replacing "google.com/cse?cx=..." with "google.com/search?partner=ubuntu"

Ultimately *lets stick with Italian as that was the example used above", we end up with two diffs:

 --- index.html.it.orig 2010-04-27 16:32:39.000000000 +0100
 +++ index.html.it.hl 2010-04-28 01:18:29.000000000 +0100
 @@ -162,2 +162,3 @@
                  <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="partner-pub-9300639326172081:d9bbzbtli15" />
 + <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="it" />
                  <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8" />

and then:

 --- index.html.it.hl 2010-04-28 01:18:29.000000000 +0100
 +++ index.html.it.cse 2010-04-28 01:16:31.000000000 +0100
 @@ -161,2 +161,2 @@
 - <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/cse" name="search">
 + <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search" name="search">
 - <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="partner-pub-9300639326172081:d9bbzbtli15" />
 + <input type="hidden" name="source" value="ubuntu" />

Bingo, two out of three solved and the search for "casa" returns what is expected, in the language expected, in the user interface expected:

  http://www.google.com/search?source=ubuntu&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&sa=Search&q=casa

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

I screwed up twice: "source=ubuntu" is the magic string.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Sigh. client=ubuntu .

[Jakob Unterwurzacher (jakobunt)]

Implmented the "<input type="hidden" name="hl" value="it" />" field as suggested by Paul in all languages, please merge https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~jakobunt/ubuntu-start-page/fix-lang/+merge/24307