Tell HN: Google search no longer has a link to maps in Europe
Probably many of you already know, but I have lately noticed that there is no map button in google searches. Also if the search shows a map, it's not clickable. At First, I thought this is a dark pattern because I use Firefox, but later I understood that it's a new rule in the EU.
More on this:
https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/261655134/google-maps-not-being-linked-from-google-search-results-page?hl=en While whatever EU regulation root cause of this is likely annoying and overbearing, I personally hate the embeddings of Google Maps into Google Search results. This is true for both maps and photos of restaurants which expand in a tiny popup rather than the full screen view you get on maps. Because as is always the case with these kinds of product embeddings, the UX is always subtly different, and a bunch of features are missing. If ever I search for something that I realize I'd like to view in maps instead, I click the top bar "maps" to redo the search in maps and then have a consistent view. So at least in this particular case, i don't think it's a big loss. The problem is that "maps" in the top bar is also missing. The only way now to search for a map is going to maps.google.com and search there. I find it actually very annoying. OK that's ridiculous.... I created Chrome extension that tries to fix that. Works also in Opera. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-maps-quickcl... Very good. Space for compétition. What in gods name are all these bots spammers?