I don't mean to hog all the tech thread, but since somebody else was having this problem, and there doesn't seem to be a consistent answer in other help forums, I thought I'd just keep adding info. That was my first thought. So, I actually tried that first. Plus, since it's also happening independently on my laptop at home, I assumed it was something else. Not to get sidetracked - and, I really only posted that in case there was some relevance - but, the dot grid doesn't work the same way for me. With the menu bar, I could say type "Atlanta GA" in the search box without hitting enter, then one click on "maps" would pull up Google Maps of Atlanta. With the grid, I have to click on the grid, then click on "maps," which does not take what I typed in the search box as input, and then I have to re-type Atlanta GA into the maps search box. No. The only time I'm ever logged in to my Google account is if I post a YouTube video. By signing in there, when I go to my Google home page, I'll be signed in there. So, I always log out, close IE and then open it back up. Also, it's funny to me about "clearing the cache." That is often a successful solution to wonky behavior, and has been a recommended course of action for a long time. Yet, I can't remember a version of IE that actually has a "Clear Cache" option with a radio button that actually says simply "Clear Cache." For basic users with limited understanding like me, why isn't there just a "clear cache" option? If you choose "Delete Browsing History" (or Ctrl+Shift+Del) that pulls up a multitude of check boxes under a window titled "Delete Browsing History" - where the first check box is contrary to "delete" by being titled "preserve" for Favorites website data. It's not immediately intuitive that checking that box, but choosing the "delete" button reflects the action to delete or preserve that data. Several of my mobile devices actually have a "clear cache" option.
Add-ons: Flash and PDF helper. Toolbars: none ActiveX controls: The following are enabled - allow AcriveX fitering, binary and script behaviors, run ActiveX controls and plug-ins, run antimalware software on ActiveX controls, script Active X controls marked safe for scripting No ad blocker (just the standard pop-up blocker)
Microsoft isn't the best at intuitive user interface design. Their mobile group seems to have figured it out but they're just such a giant behemoth of a company that it's not consistent. I assume when you're clearing your cache, you're not checking off the "preserve favorites" box? That box is good for when you want to clear up junk but not so good when you want to troubleshoot a problem.
I had tried it both ways, and various other combinations of checked / unchecked boxes, and it still wasn't working. I had cleared and rebooted a couple times, with no change. Now, it is working again correctly, and I had not cleared or rebooted since the last time that it wasn't. No idea. Thanks for all the input.
I suspect there was something in Google's javascript that was choking IE, and they found it and fixed it.
Well, much like the way I fix things when I hear noises in my truck, have a nagging injury, or see a cat wandering in the yard, I applied a tried and true technique: ignore it and eventually it will go away.
I have a 4 monitor setup at work. My number 2 monitor colors don't match the other 3 monitors. I know, you're thinking "calibrate the screen". Tried that, can't get it to match. I thought maybe the monitor was bad, so I swapped around monitors... The color issue stayed with one particular cable. So I swapped out cables. No impact. So I swapped out docking stations. Still the color isn't right. So I tried a different laptop, and the colors all match perfectly. Which means it's something for the settings for monitor 2 on my laptop. I've gone through the windows diagnostics and everything I can find on Google to no avail. Any ideas on how to put the color back to defaults? HP 8570W laptop, Windows 7 professional, NVIDIA graphics card.
Has it always been like this or it something new? I would first try updating the video card drivers to see if that fixes it. Im assuming its an on-board video card? If so, motherboard might need replacing.
Can somebody tell me what's up with the /#spf=1 that shows up when I to google.com? Also discussed here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/PISz5T39j7g It only happens in Internet Explorer, and not FireFox.
Well, that's weird and I don't like weird when it comes to that. So, I'll be on Firefox until Google gets rid of that.
Wait, what? You're visiting Google's website and you're concerned that... what, exactly? That they can identify what browser you're using? What's weird here? What makes you think this is concerning or something that they can/should get rid of? You're literally visiting someone's website and then saying that you've got an idea of how they should handle the serving up of that website. It'd be like complaining that our thread IDs are served in the URL with a period and that you think they should be served with a dash. I encourage everyone to stop using Internet Explorer, but trust me that using Firefox is not solving anything that you're concerned about here.
Thanks for the response. I am not particularly tech savvy, which I thought should be obvious. A few years ago, I got a virus that was a redirect virus, every time I clicked on a Google search result. Ultimately, I ended up with a bunch of virus hunting and fixing. Ain't nobody got time for that. I have my home page set to Google.com. And, I don't stay signed in to Google. So, when I launch IE, I end up at Google.com. But now, when I launch IE, I end up at Google.com/#spf=1. I just wanted to know why. So, what I was concerned about, is that seems odd to me that there doesn't seem to be an explanation for it. For as long as I can remember, when I went to Google.com that's what was displayed. Now, that's not the case and that seems odd to me. Especially since I don't know much, but I do know that IE has caused some issues for me before and it doesn't happen on Firefox. So, if you say the same thing is happening on Firefox, but that browser still displays Google.com, then I'll take your word for it.
IE and Edge don't play on the Internet like the other browsers, and they usually need some sort of "hack" to get to work as expected. When you're serving content on such a fucking huge scale as Google, you do some load balancing and request direction a little differently to handle it... you don't just serve everyone up with the same content from the same server. They will take a look at the initial request coming in, figure out where it's coming from, what browser, what user class (business/free), etc., and then route them internally to the actual server that will reply to the request. Personally, I think that they are using an internal load balancer that does that load balancing based on the URI value of that SPF=1, so that anyone using a MS browser (IE or Edge) goes to a separate set of servers with different code that is optimized for their browser. Just because you have a different URI (the part base "google.com/") for Firefox, Chrome, and IE is no reason to freak out. As long as your browser shows a "healthy" HTTPS connection (with no warnings) for a real Google address, the connection between you and Google's servers is secure. (Unless you have some serious virus that has compromised your SSL validation in your browsers, but that's another issue). A quick search shows that a bunch of people are freaking out over this recent change, and I think it's a non-issue... it's probably some engineers somewhere optimizing shit and not even thinking that people really give a shit about what the URI actually says.
Right, these two points right here are the crux of it. As long as when you go to Google (or any website), and the domain name is what you expect it to be, and (often) you have a nice little green lock icon/secure indicator for your https connection, everything else is just internal to what the company is doing and can be safely ignored unless you can point to it as being a provable problem (e.g. the site is redirecting you to something that doesn't work as expected).
It's interesting to me that "people" are still curious about this, and it's also interesting to me that in IE google,com now redirected me to https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#spf=1, which was even longer. And, I know I'm stupid and blah blah blah whatever. That's not what I wanted to point out. But, then I disabled "active scripting" and "scripting of java applets" and holy shit, was my browsing and loading of web pages faster. Then, I re-enabled them. Now google.com actually results in google.com. The web pages don't load as fast as they did with the scripting disabled, but seem faster than before I did the disable, enable. So, there's that.