I like to Google with JavaScript disabled. I used to do this by adding the operator gbv=1
to my search strings, but now Google has added a script that forcibly reloads the search results page with the parameter changed to gbv=2
, which enables JS.
As a result, I've begun blocking scripts on Google (using the extension uBlock Origin). Unfortunately, this disables an important functionality: Any links I visit are only temporarily marked as visited on the results page. If I reload the results page, or (more realistic scenario) encounter some of the same results later while doing a new search for slightly different terms, the results I've already looked at are as blue as the ones I've never seen.
This seems to be because of the way Google redirects its search results. For example, today I did a search for "css semicolon", and the URL of the second result was displayed as
stackoverflow.com/questions/2406717/semicolon-in-css
The actual link, however, was
https://encrypted.google.com/url?q=http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2406717/semicolon-in-css&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiT0siQ567RAhWqj1QKHQWlDz8QFggbMAE&usg=AFQjCNFbK1Fld5AALqyb6B2c6Y0dFzvgIA
It appears that the contents of the ved
field in the query string are re-generated every time the results page is reloaded. Presumably that's why the visited links are no longer highlighted – because technically, I haven't visited them before.
A number of extensions and user scripts have been created to deal with this issue, but all the ones I’ve found are designed to work with JavaScript enabled (most of them seem to involve disabling an onmousedown event that doesn’t/can’t take place when JS is disabled).
How can I make Google show me which links I’ve already visited?