Having to search from https://www.google.com/?ion=0 to make the instant go away is a pain in the ass. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

That's it. I couldn't take it any more. I switched to Bing as my default search engine. Fuck you, Google. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Did you turn it off here? http://www.google.com/prefere... (Never show Instant results.) and still does it? - AJ Batac

I have turned it off almost LITERALLY eleventy-billion times, AJ, and I'm about ready to blow a fuse. Several people in the forums are having the same exact problem, some posts as recent as yesterday. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Install AdBlock Plus and block everything from this directory: http://www.google.com/extern_... - AJ Batac

That link took me to an Error 404? Or am I supposed to put it in the AdBlock Plus thing? - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Yup - AJ Batac

I like Duckduckgo.com for the search. I think its better then bing. - Me

I know about duckduckgo and all the others. I really want to use Google still, but the instant thing makes me want to scream. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

So wait, AJ, where do I put that link? It's saying something about Adblock syntax being required. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

You understand that your fustration will just keep occuring as they keep changing things? - Me

Listen, there are other changes that I have made my peace with, but this PARTICULAR THING I cannot tolerate. They still have the option to turn it off, but for some unknown reason it will not work. If they turn instant into the only option, then it's truly time to go. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

AJ, I haven't figured out how to make it work... Maybe I'm missing something. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Doing a search in Duckduckgo, it took me to a Google Group that has this same issue.. for the past two years. It appears many are still having it as google just keeps changing the settings back after a while. The Adblock option is listed there too, maybe this will help explain that part. https://groups.google.com/a... - Me

And the problem will likely continue while it remains profitable. :p - Josh Haley

Add it like this: http://www.google.com/extern_... (yes with an asterisk at the end) - AJ Batac

AJ, I did that, with the asterisk, and the problem persists. CW, I appreciate the link, I have seen the lengthy old threads about this in addition to ones from just yesterday saying that even though Google appears to give users the option to disable instant results, selecting "never show instant results" no longer works all of a sudden after working just fine for months. I did not have problems back in 2011. They just started this week. Thanks, everyone, but I guess I'll have to just give up. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Damn. I was hoping that would work for you. :( - AJ Batac

I was hoping so, too, of course. This is seriously inconvenient. There are features of Google that I want to use. Various changes have been bothersome, but not deal-breaking. The instant thing is just not tolerable for me, so I guess it really is time to give up. They'll probably force everyone to use instant eventually anyway. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Give http://duckduckgo.com a try. - AJ Batac

sigh. I have. I think Bing is closer to what I'm used to, for all its flaws. I see that duckduckgo lets me choose to see images and things from a drop down menu, but I'd prefer to have access to that from a sidebar or top bar that's always visible like it is on Google. I'm already missing the "sites with images" feature on Google. I had to visit https://www.google.com/?ion=0 to see the instant-free version of Google and use that feature again. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

I've gone to this link: https://www.google.co.uk/prefere... (presume .com is the same address) and have been able to turn off Google Instant. Is this where you're going on it's not working? Have you tried clearing cookies and internet files and trying again? - Kol Tregaskes

Kol, I appreciate your taking the time to try to help me with the problem, but earlier in the thread AJ asked me the same thing and I told him that yes, I have checked preferences (obviously). It is not working correctly, multiple people have complained on Google's forums about it in the past few days, but nothing has changed. I cleared all of my internet files for another problem I was having. (You may not have seen that part, it was on a different post.) - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Latest news: I gave up on using Bing as my new search engine. Too many things are missing that I enjoyed on Google. I switched to Yahoo as the default instead. We'll see how long that lasts... I tried Google as a default one more time, and it's still ignoring my preference to not show the instant results. I ended up switching to the special Google link above several times while I tried to use Bing as the default. Using that link gets rid of the instant, but I can't seem to set it as my default on Chrome. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Interesting. Let us know how using Bing indirectly rather than directly works out. (Since Yahoo! searching is Bing...) - Walt Crawford

ive been using Bing, and finding it wholly inadequate. I need to see if duckduckgo works for me. - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Walt, nice try being snarky. Yahoo might have the Bing engine, but it has a different interface. Bing doesn't show enough of certain details on the first results page, which is what I want so that I can scan my search results quickly. Google still does that best, but as I keep saying, it screwed itself by putting that instant crap in the way. I'm still missing the "Sites with images" option from Google. I use that very frequently. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Kamilah: I wasn't entirely being snarky. If the Yahoo interface makes Bing's results work better, I think that's worth knowing. And I appreciate your response: I just learned something, or at least something to check out. - Walt Crawford

I'm running into this now on my laptop. (I forgot how I set up the don't use Instant on my desktop. =P) Anyways, I had to add the https version of the Adblock rule, for what it's worth. Hope that works. I've tried just changing my Google preferences, but I've had to do it three times already, just today. - Andrew C (✓)