Duck Duck Go behavior broken after Brave Update

Browser Support Web Compatibility
1

Description of the issue
Duck Duck Go does not display full interface after Brave Update; Category and option selectors do not display. In addition, there is a tracker blocked by Brave, i.e., https://duckduckgo.com/t/sl_h that I don’t recognize as having been seen before. However, even if I disable ad blocking, the category and otpion selectors do not display.

Exact URL of the website in question

Did the issue present with default Shields settings? [Default states are: Block: Ads/Trackers, 3rd Party Cookies, 3rd Party Fingerprinting Allow: Encrypt Connections enabled (HTTPS), Scripts] (yes/no)
YES

Does the site function as expected when Shields are turned off? (yes/no)
NO

Is there a specific Shields configuration that causes the site to break? If so, tell us that configuration. (yes/no)
NOT THAT I HAVE DETECTED

Does the site function as expected when using Chrome? (yes/no)
YES

What Brave version/Build are you using when you encounter the issue?(About Brave info)
Version 0.56.12 Chromium: 70.0.3538.77 (Official Build) (64-bit) WIndows 10

1 Like
2

I’m not having any issues with any menus/options on DDG in release build. Can you send me a screenshot of which selectors aren’t working?

3

[quote=“Mattches, post:2, topic:37197”]
Basically all the selectors are absent. An attached png for the same search in Chrome is attached next.

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From Chrome Browser, you can see the selectors and a promoted item at the top of the list.

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4

Can I see what your Shields settings are for DDG?

5

First, I’m a big fan of Brave for many months and appreciate your attention…
My settings are…

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As a reminder, there is this tracker/ad blocked…
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6

Appreciate the kind words.
Unfortunately I’m still unsure about what’s happening. I’ve replicated your settings on DDG and everything still shows up just fine:

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image1882×984 163 KB

Additionally, I’m not blocking that particular tracker on my end. I tried on a fresh install on both Windows and macOS:
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We’re currently working on solutions for whitelisting individual ads/trackers

And Cookies as well:

I’ll reach out to the team again to see if they have any additional input and cc @sriram in the interim.

7

I can’t reproduce it either on a clean install of release build.

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@rvanee Could you check what errors you see in developer console when you visit the site? Also could you try a clean reload(Ctrl+Shift+R) of the page and check

8

First, answers to your last questions, but please read on, as I have discovered some methods to turn on/turn off the phenomenon…

Developer console errors…

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Clean Reload results…
Performed clean reload and the result was no different, including the errors.

Turn on/turn off…

I’ve discovered that the loss of full function happens when DDG is invoked from the “https://duckduckgo.com/html/” site. Both the virgin DDG search page, as well as the resulting search results page are missing major additional content items on the display and that one ad/tracker is blocked, that is, the unexpected behavior that started my query.

If, however, care is taken to start with the “https://duckduckgo.com” site, both the virgin search page and the resulting search pages have all the expected content items, and two alternative ad/trackers are blocked, that is, more or less the expected behavior.

What I can’t fathom is how I ended up being directed or re-directed to the “…/html” site in the beginning. DDG was my default search engine in Brave and, odds are, I was searching from the context menu during my daily reading when I first observed the unexepected results. However, I definitely can’t prove that.

After those original observations of the problem, I more than likely have been invoking DDG by typing “DuckDuckGo.com” in the search bar, and, as it turns out, the browser was autofillling “DuckDuckGo.com/html” as I hit return. Hence, always being returned to the bad behavior.

I have since returned DDG as my default browser (I had swapped it out a day or so after this problem showed) and it seems solid. So, I think, on the surface, my problem is fixed. I may consider turning off the search bar suggestions, however. Meanwhile, being able to start a search to two different DDG sites seems to be a subtle degree of freedom for confusion, like the one I’ve experienced, but that’s just my opinion.

Feel free to close this item as fixed, but feel free to follow up with any lingering questions that you might have. Thanks very much for the help, and I hope my explanation is intelligible. I’m a fan.

1 Like
9

You get redirected to the /html/ page if you have script blocking enabled on the site. Try disabling Script blocking and check. This should solve the mystery of not seeing what you see against https://duckduckgo.com/

10

Glad to hear you got it figured out! This one was bugging me. I’ll leave the topic open for just a bit longer just in case.

11

Followup: The final note from @sriram gives me a further hypothesis on how I might have spiraled into the situation. When I updated the Brave configuration, it appears I needed to reset “all scripts allowed” on all my trusted sites as I visited them. That would have included, of course, DDG. On the first search from the context menu using DDG as the default, Brave would have given me the message that javascript was disallowed. I then would have reset to “all scripts allowed”, but, because I was already redirected to the “…/html” site for that first search, it wouldn’t have returned the page content that I was missing. After that, the “…/html” site was captured in the history and any diagnostics that I did by typing “DuckDuckGo.com” in the search/location bar would have been affected and autocompleted as “DuckDuckGo.com/html”, given my usual habits of hitting return quickly. Hence, what appeared to me to be a permanent problem. Thanks again for your help.

3 Likes
12

Great sleuthing @rvanee!
I’m going to bookmark this thread in case other users report similar behavior.
Thanks again for reaching out!