New Google software nagging me

[Barry]

When I search for something on Google, I'm now asked "do you want to allow software such as ActiveX controls and plug-ins to run" (I keep my browser in nag mode). If I say no then I can't to go to the next results page by clicking one of the numbers on the bottom of the search page and I can't use the search box for another search. What kind of new fancy stuff is Google doing when you click one of the numbers?

Here's the HTML the Google uses for each number in the results page menu, which doesn't work when I disallow the new special software:

<td><a href="/search?q=hihi&amp;hl=en&amp;rls=com.microsoft:en-US&amp;prmd=iv&amp;ei=4QR7TNK3F8GC8gbC6YjEBw&amp;start=10&amp;sa= N" class=fl><span class="csb ch" style="background-position:-74px 0;width:20px"></span>2</a>

I took a minute to see if there's a script used for the "csb ch" class but the script I found in the source code seems to be encoded.

[AussieWebmaster]

yeah it is still a little buggy and hang time would make NFL punters proud

[Barry]

The use of plugins and other things that slow down the loading of webpages seems to have been increasing recently. Since my browser is configured to tell me when a webpage wants to run software (not including scripts, which I allow automatically), I keep my finger on the Esc key so I could quickly deny the requests, but some webpages try more than 10 times to run software. Most webpages run fine without their software, though some crash the browser and sometimes, as with Google, features don't work.

Before Google started with the search plug-ins, the most annoying offenders were news websites. I view headlines on Google News and between the small town papers and other dubious publications and the slow sites with the unscrolling toolbars at the bottom like Reuters and the sites with full-page ads that you have to "click to skip" the only news website that's acceptable to me is Associated Press, and even they ask twice to run software!

[Barry]

Google fixed it. Now there's just one prompt instead of two and I could deny it and the search page still works. :)