Comment by salted-fry
2 days ago
I just tested changing user agents in Chrome - setting UA to a random string like "fff" gets a search page, but setting it to "Links" or "Lynx" gets "Your browser isn't supported anymore" - which is to say, this doesn't look accidental, but more like these UAs are specifically being blocked.
EDIT: Forging user agent in Links (with links -http.fake-user-agent) gets a usable homepage, but the results page just sends you to a turn-on-your-javascript page.
Google loves to search the result with a real URL but since I make any click on that result Google replaces it with some referral link. For example, if I want to open the result not from my connection but from Tor I need to clean each link by hand or even type it from scratch. I am sure this ban was made for poisoning UX for console guys too. What a pity I didn't know I could search from console browser and having more easy life.
My impression is that support for less common browsers and other unusual uses of google products has survived due to pet interest by individual googlers and not any sort of widespread policy.
A lot of those individual googlers are longtimers who are now leaving after 15, 20 years. Google has been offering voluntary exit packages this year and I suspect the kind of people who would value Google.com working in Lynx are also the type who have made plenty of money and are disillusioned by what the company has become.