Javascript libraries can help with a lot of that, but you're right.
Which is part of why this browser seems so pointless. Webkit in Safari is different than Webkit in Chrome. Webkit in this new browser will be different still. Which means you just added three more configurations to test, without removing any -- except I, for one, am not going to care, since I don't see this browser getting a user base anywhere.
Thus the ideal solution is not to make the user switch engines willy nilly.
Yes.
The ideal solution is for the browser to pull the ideal rendering engine from a database that matches sites against the ideal engine.
No, then you've just got the browser switching rendering engines willy-nilly.
I shouldn't even have to switch user-agents to make things work. That's why we have these things called standards -- the only rendering engine you should need is your favorite one that supports the standards.
Worth mentioning, this problems is mostly Microsoft's fault. Easily 90% of the cross-browser problems are cases where it works everywhere but IE. If I didn't have to test in IE, I probably would only test outside of Firefox once a week.
That said, the solution to this is a decent window manager -- even Spaces on OS X helps a bit.
That would be tricky to do, without changing the Javascript API -- it would at least have to be modal per-tab, at least for prompt/confirm.
Of course, nothing stopping Javascript programmers from doing some of this themselves -- I like the jQuery Growl plugin, which simulates the Growl system on OS X. Much better than an alert.
Some people will buy a car based on the brochure (a form of advertisement), tv commercial, magazine endorsement (usually a form of advertisemtn) or billboard.
Which is all the more reason to see them as a detriment to society, rather than a benefit.
Do you think that these people would simply not buy a car, if they weren't advertised to? No, they would simply have to find a way to learn about them other than being spoon-fed.
And do you think that it's a good thing that people will buy something purely from the brochure? Are they getting a better deal from that than from finding out for themselves?
For the record, I think asking around online is the WORST way to research. People are either blind in love or absolutely hate their product/service.
Neither of which makes the information useless. In fact, it's all the more useful, because if you were limited to advertising, you'd never see hate, only the love.
An example: My father did some research online, and ended up not buying a car because of BMW's iDrive system. Had he only looked at advertisements, he'd only see the good side of it -- having heard from people who hate it, at least he knows there can be some serious drawbacks.
Moreover: Especially when they hate something, people are more than willing to detail all the ways in which they hate it. For example, I hate that Spore is DRM'd so heavily. If DRM doesn't matter to you, you might not be swayed by my review. If DRM does matter to you (and it should), you might choose not to buy the game, because of my review. Both decisions are more accurate and more informed than any EA advertisement, which isn't going to mention the issue at all.
The same applies to the love -- as a Linux fanboy, I'll certainly tell you all the things I love about my Ubuntu laptop. It will be a much more comprehensive and real-world list than you'll find on ubuntu.com -- more information with which to make your own decision.
A simple test before buying: Put the company name, and/or the model number, and the keyword "sucks" into a Google search. Also try with "rocks".
How exactly do you make informed purchasing decisions without information?
Pull model, rather than a push model.
That is: If I want to buy a new car, I'll go do my research. I'll ask around online. I'll go to an auto shop and test-drive the more interesting ones. I'll check with the old blue book.
The advertisement, at this point, does nothing for me other than exposing me to psychological tricks trying to sway me towards one car over another. It's not as though I would have never found out about the Prius, were it not for Toyota's advertising.
Relying on customers to make themselves aware of your product and to educate themselves entirely about the pro's and con's thereof is hardly a viable business strategy.
That is, again, from the perspective of someone selling something.
Independent consumer reviews are hardly unbiased or comprehensive, and take away advertisements that is all you're really left with.
Given that advertisements are also biased and limited, but also are guaranteed to have a goal of getting me to buy a specific product, I'll take my chances with those reviews.
And who says they have to be consumer reviews? Or are you counting professional reviews as "advertisements"?
Again: Point is that an advertisement is an attempt to get me to want something I didn't necessarily even know or care about until that moment. What I do when I go on Newegg and compare prices and reviews is exactly the opposite. Neither is "random chance", but one is guided by corporations, and the other by consumers.
You don't seriously develop in a browser do you other than for testing purposes??
You've obviously never used them...
Granted, I don't actually use 17, I probably don't even use 10, but the ones I use are pretty essential. Firebug is a large part of it -- it means I can see exactly which files are loading from where (and how long they're taking). It means I can see exactly what the DOM tree looks like, and which styles are being applied where, and from what CSS classes. It means I can then edit said CSS inline to see what it looks like -- no more guessing pixel values, I just use the arrow keys to position something, then copy that value into the actual CSS file.
The Javascript is pretty good, too -- I get a nice console I can type arbitrary code into, I can keep a log, set breakpoints, etc... In so many ways, Firebug brings modern software development tools to the Web.
Then there's the Web Developer toolbar, which adds an absurd number of tools -- the ability to temporarily disable CSS or JavaScript, for example. It's also nice to know whether a page was rendered in "standards mode" or "quirks mode", and there's even an extension (which I haven't needed) to run an actual validator against that page.
Then there's Firecookie -- cookie support for Firebug. Easy access to which cookies are being used on this page, and console logs of exactly when they were modified, and to which values, and by which script.
None of them are necessary, but there's no way I'm giving up Firebug.
As for surfing - the only extension i have is flash
Flash isn't an extension, it's a plugin. Not that there's a lot of difference.
and Ive yet to find a page I couldn't surf
That's not the whole of it.
For example, I missed a feature of Konqueror -- ctrl+m to hide the menubar. Most of the time, you don't need it, so why leave it there taking up space? So I got a Firefox extension to hide the menubar, and show it when I press alt.
I'm sure with heavier Firefox users, stupid little extensions like that account for most of it.
Then there's the really powerful ones, like Greasemonkey. I can write a bit of Javascript that will run on a given page -- or on a given set of pages, or on every page. If you know anything about Javascript, sit back and think about how powerful that could be. All kinds of things you'd think you need extensions for become simple scripts that anyone can understand.
Simple, stupid example: Suppose you don't like the "parent" link in this comment. You could write a script to remove it. Something fancier -- maybe add a mouseover "tooltip"-like effect for usernames and userids on Slashdot, which fetches the user's profile via AJAX, and shows you just the bio.
Basically, Greasemonkey makes it possible for a competent web developer to get rid of just about any annoyance from just about any page -- or add features, or just customize it (want Slashdot to have a blinking red background?) -- with a few lines of Javascript.
It's a gateway drug -- there's already one site I won't visit outside of Firefox, because of the script I've written for it.
I imagine for that to happen, there would have to be a bit more of a standard than just "what works on Firefox" -- considering that Firefox addons are largely written in XUL and Javascript, they're actually a bit worse than webpages written to only work with Firefox.
The best way to achieve Firefox compatibility would be to run it via XULrunner, implying you're using Gecko and Spidermonkey, in which case, WTF is the point of having a browser other than Firefox?
I would love to see it happen, though. Right now, I use Konqueror for everyday browsing, and Firefox when I need its extensions (or when there's a website that breaks on Konq).
I would imagine that they feel like entirely different games.
That much isn't always bad. Not a great example, but Duke Nukem 1 and 2 were kind of "meh" for me -- could never really get into them. Duke 3D was a whole different story, and if Duke Nukem Forever does come out, I'll play it.
And for some things, like Zelda, it really feels like an evolutionary change -- like yes, this is the same game, but that's the natural direction for them to take it. Ocarina of Time is still one of my all-time favorites.
I don't disagree about some play mechanics, but it is somewhat a matter of taste. I do, however, find myself agreeing with the sibling poster that 2D games, rendered in 3D, work very well -- Beyond Good & Evil worked very well as a 3D game, but I doubt I'd want to play the little air-hockey minigame in 2D. Maybe I'm just spoiled by fancy graphics, but it just seems right in 3D.
Consider a 2D game, say an RPG -- so you add all sorts of animations. Emotions, attacks, etc...
And you add different customization options. Clothing, various weapons and armor...
Now, what do you do when you add horses to that mix? Sure, vector is going to help a bit, but you're still probably going to be drawing fundamentally different pictures, at least for the pants (and maybe the weaponry), otherwise it's going to look stupid.
The question is whether this is going to be more work than moving some props around in 3D. Having not done the work, I can't really say, but I would think that 3D is easier -- especially as you start to think of more possible perspectives and movements.
In 3D, you could suddenly decide to make your character shrug, and not necessarily even test all the different clothes and weapons to make sure they look right. In 2D, a shrug would be a difficult proposition -- again, without making it look ridiculous.
Oh, and the "retro look" is a cop-out. There's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing in 3D as well -- just look at the Wii.
Is there no one selling these things as plain vanilla PDFs? Or maybe even text files?
I've got a laptop I wouldn't mind reading this on, money to spend, and time. And the only things I can find are DRM'd to the point where I wouldn't even be able to read them (I'm on Linux).
Re:have a problem with made up words?
on
Anathem
·
· Score: 1
The alt-text on the xkcd comic in question says, specifically:
Except for anything by Lewis Carroll and Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I'm looking at you, Anathem.
Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon were all very good.
Then, for some reason, I couldn't get through the first 100 pages or so of Quicksilver.
I have no idea what happened. Maybe not so much, though -- some of the complaints in TFA could've easily been leveled against Snow Crash. For example:
We meet a very large cast of characters, many of whom seem unnecessary. Names appear and disappear, and the reader is left to ponder why they were introduced at all... There are also a lot of uncompleted story lines and plot holes... Time and time again, Stephenson introduces an interesting concept, or an intriguing subplot, only to drop it without any follow-up.
That pretty much describes Snow Crash -- and, in fact, it was one of the reasons I loved the book. It was a pretty wild ride -- Spoiler alert! -- Hiro's job as a delivery boy doesn't exactly last very long. After introducing us to the world of pizza -- the car, the pizzas, the mafia, the swords -- pretty much the entire thing simply evaporates, and is only mentioned casually later on.
This was done frequently, and it was done in such a way that it both exposed you to a lot of interesting little ideas, and gave the book a frantic pace -- "page turner" doesn't begin to describe it.
So, what's different about it this time? Having not touched Anathem, I really don't know, but is it possible we've simply gotten jaded to that style of writing? Or just that 900 pages is too long to try it for?
If i come across a game that has no support for it, and i can't find a patch file anywhere, it is going bye-bye, returned, deleted, whatever.
The ironic part is, while almost no Linux games don't have their own Windowed mode, there's one trick I can only apply to Windows games -- run them in a Wine "desktop window", rather than letting them draw native windows. Then, they think they go fullscreen, but they're actually inside a desktop window.
I would be shocked if an MMO actually lacked a Windowed mode, communities are a large part of MMOs.
Nexus TK did for a very long time. I played it the way I described above, and people frequently asked me for help making it windowed -- of course, most didn't want to make the switch to Linux just for that!
Recently, though, they added a windowed mode -- and made it the default, which immediately annoyed everyone. See, Nexus runs at a fixed resolution, so people with native 1024x768 resolutions were finding their game couldn't fit on their screen as a window.
The one I wish I could do right now is, temporarily disable the "blocked popup" bar. I can permanently disable it, but I don't want to do that -- most of the time, I'd rather avoid a site that uses popups...
Permanently set search preferences without having to log into your Google account.
This part is covered already -- they get set in your cookie. No need to even have a Google account to permanently turn on 100 results per page, and turn off SafeSearch.
There are many reasons to want to do this -- I often run MMOs in a window, rather than fullscreen, for this reason.
For one: Maybe you're stuck on a quest, and you want to look up the answer. So you bring up a guide, leave it onscreen, an refer to it as you do the quest.
For another: If it's got a decent community, you may find yourself spending a fair amount of time in-game just to socialize. If that's the case, the game can be serving the same function as an IM (or IRC) client -- and I don't know about you, but I do browse the web when I chat.
And it's possible to get sick of the music without getting sick of the game. So, turn off the in-game music, turn on your own collection -- or, if all you get is an in-game browser, turn on Pandora.
But then, there's this point -- why bother integrating a web browser into the game, when you can simply run the game in a window and use a real browser?
Because even with a single site, it's useful -- I could promote Wikipedia, and demote expert-exchange, for example.
And even if it's not shared, Google could still use this to tailor my own search results -- give me more things like Wikipedia, and less things like experts-exchange.
And then, a week later, I find a new site that's just as obnoxious.
Contrast this to Google's one-click next to a site, which gives me a cool animation, and adds the results to the bottom of the page anyway, so if they really contain something useful, I can find them.
Probably doesn't help anyway, unless I'm clearing my cookies frequently, and/or randomizing these keywords somewhat -- and even here, I'm still on a mostly-static IP at home. The only safe way to stay anonymous towards Google is to not use Google.
Slashdot Mirror
Javascript libraries can help with a lot of that, but you're right.
Which is part of why this browser seems so pointless. Webkit in Safari is different than Webkit in Chrome. Webkit in this new browser will be different still. Which means you just added three more configurations to test, without removing any -- except I, for one, am not going to care, since I don't see this browser getting a user base anywhere.
Thus the ideal solution is not to make the user switch engines willy nilly.
Yes.
The ideal solution is for the browser to pull the ideal rendering engine from a database that matches sites against the ideal engine.
No, then you've just got the browser switching rendering engines willy-nilly.
I shouldn't even have to switch user-agents to make things work. That's why we have these things called standards -- the only rendering engine you should need is your favorite one that supports the standards.
Worth mentioning, this problems is mostly Microsoft's fault. Easily 90% of the cross-browser problems are cases where it works everywhere but IE. If I didn't have to test in IE, I probably would only test outside of Firefox once a week.
That said, the solution to this is a decent window manager -- even Spaces on OS X helps a bit.
For Linux, there's a project which lets me run four versions of IE simultaneously under Wine, or I'll run Windows in a VM.
For Windows, there's IETab, which makes me think this browser is even more worthless.
Because with Seamonkey it really makes it easy to copy/paste that recipe they are sure that Mabel will like,LOL!
I'm still not seeing how it's any easier to copy/paste between applications, than to copy/paste within the same application.
What am I missing?
That would be tricky to do, without changing the Javascript API -- it would at least have to be modal per-tab, at least for prompt/confirm.
Of course, nothing stopping Javascript programmers from doing some of this themselves -- I like the jQuery Growl plugin, which simulates the Growl system on OS X. Much better than an alert.
Some people will buy a car based on the brochure (a form of advertisement), tv commercial, magazine endorsement (usually a form of advertisemtn) or billboard.
Which is all the more reason to see them as a detriment to society, rather than a benefit.
Do you think that these people would simply not buy a car, if they weren't advertised to? No, they would simply have to find a way to learn about them other than being spoon-fed.
And do you think that it's a good thing that people will buy something purely from the brochure? Are they getting a better deal from that than from finding out for themselves?
For the record, I think asking around online is the WORST way to research. People are either blind in love or absolutely hate their product/service.
Neither of which makes the information useless. In fact, it's all the more useful, because if you were limited to advertising, you'd never see hate, only the love.
An example: My father did some research online, and ended up not buying a car because of BMW's iDrive system. Had he only looked at advertisements, he'd only see the good side of it -- having heard from people who hate it, at least he knows there can be some serious drawbacks.
Moreover: Especially when they hate something, people are more than willing to detail all the ways in which they hate it. For example, I hate that Spore is DRM'd so heavily. If DRM doesn't matter to you, you might not be swayed by my review. If DRM does matter to you (and it should), you might choose not to buy the game, because of my review. Both decisions are more accurate and more informed than any EA advertisement, which isn't going to mention the issue at all.
The same applies to the love -- as a Linux fanboy, I'll certainly tell you all the things I love about my Ubuntu laptop. It will be a much more comprehensive and real-world list than you'll find on ubuntu.com -- more information with which to make your own decision.
A simple test before buying: Put the company name, and/or the model number, and the keyword "sucks" into a Google search. Also try with "rocks".
How exactly do you make informed purchasing decisions without information?
Pull model, rather than a push model.
That is: If I want to buy a new car, I'll go do my research. I'll ask around online. I'll go to an auto shop and test-drive the more interesting ones. I'll check with the old blue book.
The advertisement, at this point, does nothing for me other than exposing me to psychological tricks trying to sway me towards one car over another. It's not as though I would have never found out about the Prius, were it not for Toyota's advertising.
Relying on customers to make themselves aware of your product and to educate themselves entirely about the pro's and con's thereof is hardly a viable business strategy.
That is, again, from the perspective of someone selling something.
Independent consumer reviews are hardly unbiased or comprehensive, and take away advertisements that is all you're really left with.
Given that advertisements are also biased and limited, but also are guaranteed to have a goal of getting me to buy a specific product, I'll take my chances with those reviews.
And who says they have to be consumer reviews? Or are you counting professional reviews as "advertisements"?
Again: Point is that an advertisement is an attempt to get me to want something I didn't necessarily even know or care about until that moment. What I do when I go on Newegg and compare prices and reviews is exactly the opposite. Neither is "random chance", but one is guided by corporations, and the other by consumers.
You don't seriously develop in a browser do you other than for testing purposes??
You've obviously never used them...
Granted, I don't actually use 17, I probably don't even use 10, but the ones I use are pretty essential. Firebug is a large part of it -- it means I can see exactly which files are loading from where (and how long they're taking). It means I can see exactly what the DOM tree looks like, and which styles are being applied where, and from what CSS classes. It means I can then edit said CSS inline to see what it looks like -- no more guessing pixel values, I just use the arrow keys to position something, then copy that value into the actual CSS file.
The Javascript is pretty good, too -- I get a nice console I can type arbitrary code into, I can keep a log, set breakpoints, etc... In so many ways, Firebug brings modern software development tools to the Web.
Then there's the Web Developer toolbar, which adds an absurd number of tools -- the ability to temporarily disable CSS or JavaScript, for example. It's also nice to know whether a page was rendered in "standards mode" or "quirks mode", and there's even an extension (which I haven't needed) to run an actual validator against that page.
Then there's Firecookie -- cookie support for Firebug. Easy access to which cookies are being used on this page, and console logs of exactly when they were modified, and to which values, and by which script.
None of them are necessary, but there's no way I'm giving up Firebug.
As for surfing - the only extension i have is flash
Flash isn't an extension, it's a plugin. Not that there's a lot of difference.
and Ive yet to find a page I couldn't surf
That's not the whole of it.
For example, I missed a feature of Konqueror -- ctrl+m to hide the menubar. Most of the time, you don't need it, so why leave it there taking up space? So I got a Firefox extension to hide the menubar, and show it when I press alt.
I'm sure with heavier Firefox users, stupid little extensions like that account for most of it.
Then there's the really powerful ones, like Greasemonkey. I can write a bit of Javascript that will run on a given page -- or on a given set of pages, or on every page. If you know anything about Javascript, sit back and think about how powerful that could be. All kinds of things you'd think you need extensions for become simple scripts that anyone can understand.
Simple, stupid example: Suppose you don't like the "parent" link in this comment. You could write a script to remove it. Something fancier -- maybe add a mouseover "tooltip"-like effect for usernames and userids on Slashdot, which fetches the user's profile via AJAX, and shows you just the bio.
Basically, Greasemonkey makes it possible for a competent web developer to get rid of just about any annoyance from just about any page -- or add features, or just customize it (want Slashdot to have a blinking red background?) -- with a few lines of Javascript.
It's a gateway drug -- there's already one site I won't visit outside of Firefox, because of the script I've written for it.
I imagine for that to happen, there would have to be a bit more of a standard than just "what works on Firefox" -- considering that Firefox addons are largely written in XUL and Javascript, they're actually a bit worse than webpages written to only work with Firefox.
The best way to achieve Firefox compatibility would be to run it via XULrunner, implying you're using Gecko and Spidermonkey, in which case, WTF is the point of having a browser other than Firefox?
I would love to see it happen, though. Right now, I use Konqueror for everyday browsing, and Firefox when I need its extensions (or when there's a website that breaks on Konq).
Acid?
Real Men use Thermite.
Bonus: If the thief is holding it in their lap at the time, they have been REMOVED from the gene pool.
I would imagine that they feel like entirely different games.
That much isn't always bad. Not a great example, but Duke Nukem 1 and 2 were kind of "meh" for me -- could never really get into them. Duke 3D was a whole different story, and if Duke Nukem Forever does come out, I'll play it.
And for some things, like Zelda, it really feels like an evolutionary change -- like yes, this is the same game, but that's the natural direction for them to take it. Ocarina of Time is still one of my all-time favorites.
I don't disagree about some play mechanics, but it is somewhat a matter of taste. I do, however, find myself agreeing with the sibling poster that 2D games, rendered in 3D, work very well -- Beyond Good & Evil worked very well as a 3D game, but I doubt I'd want to play the little air-hockey minigame in 2D. Maybe I'm just spoiled by fancy graphics, but it just seems right in 3D.
Which also covers brand-new perspectives.
Consider a 2D game, say an RPG -- so you add all sorts of animations. Emotions, attacks, etc...
And you add different customization options. Clothing, various weapons and armor...
Now, what do you do when you add horses to that mix? Sure, vector is going to help a bit, but you're still probably going to be drawing fundamentally different pictures, at least for the pants (and maybe the weaponry), otherwise it's going to look stupid.
The question is whether this is going to be more work than moving some props around in 3D. Having not done the work, I can't really say, but I would think that 3D is easier -- especially as you start to think of more possible perspectives and movements.
In 3D, you could suddenly decide to make your character shrug, and not necessarily even test all the different clothes and weapons to make sure they look right. In 2D, a shrug would be a difficult proposition -- again, without making it look ridiculous.
Oh, and the "retro look" is a cop-out. There's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing in 3D as well -- just look at the Wii.
I read the big three -- Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon -- loved them.
Then, I borrowed Quicksilver -- couldn't get through it. Barely even the first chapter.
It's good to know I didn't give up too soon...
Is there no one selling these things as plain vanilla PDFs? Or maybe even text files?
I've got a laptop I wouldn't mind reading this on, money to spend, and time. And the only things I can find are DRM'd to the point where I wouldn't even be able to read them (I'm on Linux).
The alt-text on the xkcd comic in question says, specifically:
Except for anything by Lewis Carroll and Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I'm looking at you, Anathem.
Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon were all very good.
Then, for some reason, I couldn't get through the first 100 pages or so of Quicksilver.
I have no idea what happened. Maybe not so much, though -- some of the complaints in TFA could've easily been leveled against Snow Crash. For example:
We meet a very large cast of characters, many of whom seem unnecessary. Names appear and disappear, and the reader is left to ponder why they were introduced at all... There are also a lot of uncompleted story lines and plot holes... Time and time again, Stephenson introduces an interesting concept, or an intriguing subplot, only to drop it without any follow-up.
That pretty much describes Snow Crash -- and, in fact, it was one of the reasons I loved the book. It was a pretty wild ride -- Spoiler alert! -- Hiro's job as a delivery boy doesn't exactly last very long. After introducing us to the world of pizza -- the car, the pizzas, the mafia, the swords -- pretty much the entire thing simply evaporates, and is only mentioned casually later on.
This was done frequently, and it was done in such a way that it both exposed you to a lot of interesting little ideas, and gave the book a frantic pace -- "page turner" doesn't begin to describe it.
So, what's different about it this time? Having not touched Anathem, I really don't know, but is it possible we've simply gotten jaded to that style of writing? Or just that 900 pages is too long to try it for?
If i come across a game that has no support for it, and i can't find a patch file anywhere, it is going bye-bye, returned, deleted, whatever.
The ironic part is, while almost no Linux games don't have their own Windowed mode, there's one trick I can only apply to Windows games -- run them in a Wine "desktop window", rather than letting them draw native windows. Then, they think they go fullscreen, but they're actually inside a desktop window.
I would be shocked if an MMO actually lacked a Windowed mode, communities are a large part of MMOs.
Nexus TK did for a very long time. I played it the way I described above, and people frequently asked me for help making it windowed -- of course, most didn't want to make the switch to Linux just for that!
Recently, though, they added a windowed mode -- and made it the default, which immediately annoyed everyone. See, Nexus runs at a fixed resolution, so people with native 1024x768 resolutions were finding their game couldn't fit on their screen as a window.
Nice! Thanks.
The one I wish I could do right now is, temporarily disable the "blocked popup" bar. I can permanently disable it, but I don't want to do that -- most of the time, I'd rather avoid a site that uses popups...
Whoops, that should be adviews^Wtraffic.
Also, how do I get the "edit your post" feature?
but the fact that somebody paid to ask the question cuts down a lot on the noise there overall, so at least there will be a question
Which doesn't seem to be a very good indicator of how good the response is. I can't remember ever finding what I needed there.
I'm happy to use their transfer and information and pay them nothing
I'd rather not even give them the adviews^Wtracking.
Permanently set search preferences without having to log into your Google account.
This part is covered already -- they get set in your cookie. No need to even have a Google account to permanently turn on 100 results per page, and turn off SafeSearch.
There are many reasons to want to do this -- I often run MMOs in a window, rather than fullscreen, for this reason.
For one: Maybe you're stuck on a quest, and you want to look up the answer. So you bring up a guide, leave it onscreen, an refer to it as you do the quest.
For another: If it's got a decent community, you may find yourself spending a fair amount of time in-game just to socialize. If that's the case, the game can be serving the same function as an IM (or IRC) client -- and I don't know about you, but I do browse the web when I chat.
And it's possible to get sick of the music without getting sick of the game. So, turn off the in-game music, turn on your own collection -- or, if all you get is an in-game browser, turn on Pandora.
But then, there's this point -- why bother integrating a web browser into the game, when you can simply run the game in a window and use a real browser?
Because even with a single site, it's useful -- I could promote Wikipedia, and demote expert-exchange, for example.
And even if it's not shared, Google could still use this to tailor my own search results -- give me more things like Wikipedia, and less things like experts-exchange.
And then, a week later, I find a new site that's just as obnoxious.
Contrast this to Google's one-click next to a site, which gives me a cool animation, and adds the results to the bottom of the page anyway, so if they really contain something useful, I can find them.
Probably doesn't help anyway, unless I'm clearing my cookies frequently, and/or randomizing these keywords somewhat -- and even here, I'm still on a mostly-static IP at home. The only safe way to stay anonymous towards Google is to not use Google.