[crazygringo]

Searching for "Google stock" shows me correct results. A stock chart followed by various search results.

There's no news of a widespread Google failure. Maybe you have a browser extension interfering? Or there's some kind of very localized hiccup.

In any case, your experience right now isn't even close to representative. For its scale and complexity, Google search is probably one of the most reliable services ever built.

[lhorie]

Small update: It's definitely not extensions, it's giving the same result on two different devices (mobile and laptop). I've narrowed it down to there being something going on w/ being logged into specific accounts. On my work account, I get no results (and this is a query that used to return results under the exact same setup just last week). Trying on an old personal gmail account, I'm getting the UI localized to what seems to be mandarim for who knows what reason (I don't speak mandarim, and don't even use this account on a regular basis).

As for why this happens, I have no idea. I've had Google Maps completely black out on me and then eventually magically fix itself many months later.

As for reliability, I would probably have agreed if it was a "simple" system (which the original Google was). Today, I'm not so sure. I at least understand that Google today is made up of a large number of subsystems, and subsystem failures like the ones I'm experiencing (and bad search results as others have also reported) do in fact erode my trust in the product. "Your 99.9% is not my 99.9%" feels like an apt quote here.

[bradley13]

Possible. I noticed recently that Google search no longer works with NoScript. It used to work. Not sure when this changed, since I don't often enable NoScript.

[crazygringo]

[Deleting -- I thought I was replying to the same commenter. Never mind, bradley13! Thanks.]

[bradley13]

I'm not the original commenter. I was just tossing in a hypothesis based on my experience.