Google searches not working unless I disable Javascript

[Jim S.]

Been having this problem for two or three days. I try to do a search from www.google.com, and after I type in my search words and hit enter, I get a page with the search entry box at the top and nothing else.

I tried searching for the problem through Yahoo (a thoroughly unpleasant task, I hadn't realized that Yahoo was flooded with ads these days) and I found several mentions from several years ago about a virus that would cause similar symptoms, but nothing recent. I scanned with AVG (paid), Spybot (free) and Malwarebytes (free) and none of them came up with anything. I tried with a different browser and got the same results. I even tried firing up a Linux VM and got the same results!

I don't remember at this point how I hit on the idea of disabling Javascript, but when I do then the searches work fine. In fact, yesterday after a while I tried turning JS back on and Google worked again at the time, but then this morning it was back to not working again. Disabled JS again and it works.

I'm lost! The fact that I can't find anyone reporting anything like this recently is disturbing. But if it doesn't work in any browser on any OS, how can the problem be anywhere except Google?

 

[TheKrell]

I have a friend who had this happen last week on his W7 laptop, but not on his Android tablets or phones. Very mysterious.

 

[Darrell S]

I have had this happen the last week, but only on chrome. It works fine on IE and Firefox. It is on my w7 desktop.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have one machine where starting the other day can not contact any secure / https:// site and it happens on any browser (Firefox, IE, Safari etc)

I have scanned the PC and can't find anything. If I don't figure it out soon I will need to format that machine and start from scratch.

 

[Jim S.]

I have a friend who had this happen last week on his W7 laptop, but not on his Android tablets or phones. Very mysterious.

I forgot to mention, other computers in the house (all W7) are so far working fine. I haven't tried Android. But it definitely is broken on this computer on both Chrome and Firefox on W7 and on Firefox on Linux in a VM. So that rules out something going on in my browser -- unless it was infected from Google ITSELF! It doesn't rule out some sort of DNS hijack on my computer (since the VM might be subject to it too), except that that wouldn't explain why disabling Javascript fixes it!

 

[Darrell S]

I didn't try disabling Java. The only way I get it to work in Chrome is to enter the search in Chromes address bar.

 

[TheKrell]

I asked my friend who is using IE. He said he entered google.com into IE's compatibility list, and that fixed it.