Few days back I noticed that the search results have a magnifying glass shaped icon with them. Accidental clicks on the "white space" results in a new image showing the contents of the page in the "tiniest" font which is simply unreadable !! I find it irritating and useless, when we can't read the font then what's the use of showing that image ?? And it doesn't go off until you again click on some white space !

I always have Javascript turned off when I'm searching Google. There's a FF add-on called SearchPreview that basically provides the same functionality as what Google is doing now, only it's a lot less annoying. I also use a Firefox extension called GoogleSharing which *supposedly* anonymizes your searches behind a proxy server.

Actually, I didn't even know Google had added this feature until I happened upon this thread!

Here's what my Google results page(s) look like, BTW. Dark theme is optional.

and I just turned off Javascript and now those images do not get displayed but Google used to show the relevant search statements while typing in the bar, that too has gone now

and with Javascript disabled I can't even "Look Inside" the Amazon books I had to enable it again !

I think web 2.0 and more and more websites using AJAX then it is becoming increasingly difficult to use the internet with Javascript disabled.

I hate this new feature. I didn't like 'Instant Search' either, but at least you can turn that off.

Google made it's reputation from being simple, quick and effective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep

I have observed for past few days, Google does not display complete results untill I click the search button 3 or 4 times

See the screenshot attached!

I always use noscript in Firefox, then I enable scripts only as needed. I also use privoxy, and it strips a lot of scripts out before the web page ever reaches the browser.

The downside to this is that browsing can be very annoying; a site doesn't work right so I have to enable script after script until it does. Sometimes (often) I just decide I don't need to see that site.

The upside is that browsing is no longer annoying, with those flashing ads and mystery popups, and I NEVER have "surprise" download packages thrust at me, and audio on websites doesn't come on and interfere with the music I'm playing, and my computers and browsers never get infected, and I have cookies under total control.

Hmmm...I guess this just says that these days browsing is annoying, and you have to "pick your poison". Me, I opt for security and privacy, and choose to deal with the annoyances that come with that.

I don't really find it annoying.

Anyway, I remember I tried NoScript because everyone praised it so much, but I found that the internet is pretty worthless without JavaScript, so I removed NoScript.

Noscript provides other protections as well. e.g. cross site scripting, attacks on routers. Even if you enable scripting globally.

I always, as a fledgling Javascript programmer, thought this feature was amazing myself, Google just showing off what they can do - since they've written a browser, how about utilising its rendering engine, and guess what, do it to give their SEARCH function a new feature - never would have even *occurred* to me, let alone implement it. But, as I see from this thread, it maybe hasn't gone down too well with everyone. Oh well.

That sentence was a PITA to read lol.

Magnifying glass is a standard "Zoom" icon used to drill down etc. I think what the OP's crib was the tiny useless font.

Font was not the only problem I cribbed about! I don't want this feature and there is no way to turn it off ???? Accidental clicking on white spaces opens up these small windows, then again I have click somewhere else to get rid of them!!

Having new experimental features in Google is not the problem but levying them on people IS.

NoScript is pretty much essential for a peaceful and uncluttered (and safer) browsing experience. The Shift+Ctrl+\ hotkey to enable JavaScript on first level domains makes it more convenient. But some sites are still not adequately functional then; when first level domains can run JS they find more JS to run. Is there a hot key way to enable those too?