Google Search Bug Shows Blank Page In Firefox For Android
Users of the Firefox browser for Android have been reporting that they are seeing a blank page when trying to load the main Google Search site.
A report of the issue on GitHub confirms that the problem is reproducible on Firefox Mobile 121.0 for Android 13 and additional tests indicate the same behavior on Firfox Nightly 123 and all versions starting v65.
It appears that the trouble occurs when trying to load the international version of Google (google.com) as well as localized Google sites in Germany (google.de), the U.K. (google.co.uk), Brazil (google.com.br) and France (google.fr). Some users aldo report that google.co.in loads the desktop version of the site instead of the mobile variant.
source:BleepingComputer
The bug seems to be specific to Firefox since testing on Chrome for Android did not reveal an issue.
According to Dennis Schubert, a Mozilla engineer who works on finding Firefox bugs and compatibility problems, behind the odd behavior is a server-side problem relating to the User-Agent (UA) sniffing system, which serves an empty HTML document to Firefox Android User-Agents with versions greater than or equal to 65.
UA sniffing is a standard method that web servers use to determine the type of device or browser a client employs when accessing a website. The process involves examining certain strings the client sends as part of the HTTP request headers.
Disabling the Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) in Firefox allows a cookie banner to appear, but accepting it does not get rid of the blank page.
The problem has been rated critical and escalated for diagnosis and resolution but remains unresolved at the time of publishing.
Temporary solutions for Firefox users on Android include using a different browser or considering using alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo until Google fixes the problem.
Advanced users may opt to change the user agent in Firefox to mimic a different browser, which is possible from the developer settings or with specialized add-ons.
Finally, depending on your region, requesting the desktop version of the Google site from within the browser’s settings might result in its successful loading.