[thelist] [OT] Breaking Google...

Roger Ly evolt at matchpenalty.com
Thu Oct 23 15:34:08 CDT 2003


So, I tried it in my Moz build, and like everyone says, it doesn't throw
an error when loading the page.

Trying to invoke the onclick handlers that were defined does cause a
Javascript error in Moz though.

In both cases, (IE and Moz), the onclick handler's function is invalid,
and has a prematurely terminated string.  In the case of IE, it actually
catches that error when it originally loads and parses the page.  In
Moz, it only catches the error when you try to invoke the function.

Try it for yourself:  Search for anything with an apostrophe (Roger's,
for example).  In IE, you'll get a bunch of errors when you view the
results page.  In Moz, it will load.  But, if you click on any of the
tabs at the top of the result page in Moz, you'll see the javascript
error in the console.  (The tabs are the Web, Images, Groups, Directory
and News tabs).

Offending onclick function is this:

return
b('http://groups.google.com/groups?q=roger's&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
&sa=G','wg',event);

Which has its first parameter prematurely terminated by the single
quote.

Roger
 



More information about the thelist mailing list