Booking.com ad in omnibar breaking basic functionality
-
A Former User last edited by A Former User
Currently, when I type in the term washingtonpost.com, a website I visit frequently, the first entry that pops up is an ad for Booking.com, which is very sneaky behavior and not welcomed. Additionally, I cannot remove this ad from my search results.
Please remove it.
EDIT: I checked. This is not in my search bar. I removed any bookmarks related to Booking.com. Booking.com is not a website I use. This is being added by Opera, and I cannot remove it.
-
A Former User last edited by
Confirming that Opera is letting Booking.com take over the omnibar with a number of terms, including:
As a big fan of this browser I'm incredibly disappointed by this. I would rather pay for a premium version than have ads forced into my omnibar.
-
jeremyhise last edited by
@ernie I agree. This is what software writers do when they get desperate for money. I really thought O was my browser, now I see it is gimmicky. I know FF is doing a lot of good things. Maybe they wont try to pull stuff like this.
DANG!
-
A Former User last edited by
I've been an Opera user for a good 7-8 years now, switching over once Chrome and Firefox became too bloated and leaky. I really love Opera, I do, I've never stuck with a browser as long as I have Opera. Heck I love it enough to have created this account now just to plead for it not to die.
This "Feature" on top of a growing list of changes that has hindered usability is enough to make me switch browsers. Yes some users will complain and threaten to leave every time anything is changed but this sort of blatant anti-user browser hijack in all but name is on another level. Who thought this was a good idea and wouldn't lead to complaints and eventually a declining user base? I just now experience this for myself, I was already frustrated with booking.com's unwanted adware, yes I'm going to call it that, speed dial links returning randomly. How long are we going to keep calling that a "Bug"? Is this a "bug" that'll be on the to-do list to fix forever too?
-
A Former User last edited by
Also happens to me when I'm typing in "news". It immediately starts wanting to send me to New York listings on booking dot com, and I have to sit and wait a second or so after typing out all of "news" before it stops doing so and starts wanting to send me to what it used to always want to send me to with far less of the word typed in. This is aggravating the heck out of me, and I'm getting tired of all of the intrusive ways they're trying to shove their ad partners down my throat. Consider me on the fast track to another browser, as well.
-
makoruu last edited by
Having poured through the settings, myself, there doesn't appear to be a way to disable it, either.
-
A Former User last edited by
@makoruu I went through everything, including the profile folder. They buried this deep.
-
A Former User last edited by
@mgeffro Thank you for responding. At this point i'm still seeing the Booking.com results come up. Is there a way I can "force" the pull?
-
frd3 last edited by
Same thing here, it's still there and extremely annoying. It is also "hijacking" sites like Couchsurfing. When I start typing "couch" I'm automatically redirected to booking.com...
-
rfj1862 last edited by
Still continuing. NY seems to have been fixed, Washington no, "the" no.
I don't know if this is a mistake or not but one more day and I'm going to Chrome.
-
A Former User last edited by
I have the same issue. It is extremely irritating.
This was a very poor decision on the part of Opera to include this.
It must be making them good revenue, but it doesn't make me happy.
-
A Former User last edited by
I updated to 53.0.2907.106 several hours ago and this is still occurring. Typing in "dis" to go to discogs.com, for example, instead shows me a booking.com advertisement for "disneyland hotel", which is what is opened if I press Enter instead of the actual site in the omnibar. This has a disastrous effect on being able to rely on muscle memory while browsing.
If that wasn't the intended behavior, then I'm not really confident that the actual intended behavior is really any better. Adding sponsored links to Speed Dial was one thing, but constantly injecting ads and unwanted sponsored search terms into basic UI elements in response to user input is extremely intrusive and I'm strongly considering switching browsers because of this.