Getting around Google fade

The fade-in effect on the Google search engine home page causes me disproportionate rage. I have given it a go for over a month now, but I still cringe every time I load the page, and I’ve decided I just don’t need this kind of aggravation on a daily basis.

I tried out a few other search engines but nothing appealed, so now I’m back to Google. However, the daily bad feeling generated by the fade-in is too much for me. Life is short, so I’ll live it fade-in free.

Here are several of the things I’ve tried, all of which work in one way or another in Firefox….

1. I had Google as my ‘home’ page in Firefox. Changing the link from www.google.com or www.google.co.uk to this:

http://www.google.co.uk/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

leaves me with all links but none of the fade-in. My only hesitation in making this change is that I enjoy the occasional changes to the Google logo.

2. I then tried adding the Noscript plug-in and disabling scripts from running on Google, available here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

This worked, but every time I opened a search page, a little Noscript message would pop up, informing me that scripts were disabled. This was better than the fade, but not quite as good as things were before all this fade-in business began.

3. Finally, I tried the Stylish plug-in available here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Once it was installed, I pointed my browser at Google, clicked the Stylish icon and chose ‘Write new style’ from the menu. I then entered:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(“www.google.co.uk”) {

#ghead
{
opacity:1!important;
}
.fade
{
opacity:1!important;
}
.gbh
{
opacity:1!important;
}
#fctr
{
opacity:1!important;
}
#sbl
{
opacity:1!important;
}

}

in the text box and saved. (Many thanks to BdgR47!) Everything works beautifully now – there is no fade, no extra plug-in messages messing up the page and I’ll not miss any festive logos. The world is, indeed, a better place in which to live.