Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 May 18

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 18

Highlighting on web pages after search

When I search (using Google) and then click on a result, the first few sentences on the page, the ones that shewed in the search results, are sometimes being highlighted. I can right-click and select "remove highlight", but I'd rather it weren't highlighted in the first place. Is there some way to achieve this? I use Edge on Win11. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 01:51, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

I have found a clew. This Verge article about the highlighting has a comment at the bottom saying that it uses "Scroll to Text Fragment", a feature of Chromium (web browser), on which Edge is based. Here is a guide to disabling Scroll to Text Fragment. (Briefly: go to edge://flags/#enable-text-fragment-anchor and select "disabled".)  Card Zero  (talk) 12:24, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@Card Zero: Thanks... but when I go to edge://flags I don't have "enable-text-fragment-anchor". DuncanHill (talk) 13:44, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the #enable-text-fragment-anchor part is some trick that only works in Chrome. Can you find "ScrollToTextFragment"? That seems to be what the section with the setting is really called. Edit: I found scrolltotextfragmentenabled as the name of a "policy", but I'm not sure what you (or "your organization") are supposed to do with a "policy" (I think these are for the admins of groups of computers) and this may be overcomplicating things.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:57, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@Card Zero: No, can't find "ScrollToTextFragment" either. Nothing with "fragment" in it, nothing with "anchor". DuncanHill (talk) 14:16, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Darn. The way these work is pretty simple, by the way: Here's a demo. You just put "#:~:text=" on the end of a link, and then the text. But that's not what you wanted to know (although it does suggest that an extension to intervene and rewrite links to remove the "#:~:" could be easy to write). I am still hunting around. I hope this doesn't entail setting a group policy because I don't understand them.

The Local Group Policy editor is called gpedit.msc, and you can launch it by typing that in the run box accessed via the start menu (or windows key + R). This thing has an old (and oddly slow) interface, and I'm still looking to see where the relevant policy is hidden, if anywhere. I think it should be under Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Microsoft Edge, except it's not, or at least I couldn't see it there. (Never mind all that.)

Oh, here we are! Reddit thread about how to do it via a registry setting. Try that. (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge add DWORD ScrollToTextFragmentEnabled and leave it set to 0.)  Card Zero  (talk) 14:26, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh blimey - I haven't got "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge"! I've got "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft" and various \whatevers, but NOT \Edge. Anyway, registry settings are a bit above my pay grade! DuncanHill (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Try creating \Edge, then. These changes are being well documented (here) so you can always undo them again if they do something unexpected. (Though I think the two likely outcomes are: 1. it does what you want, 2. it does nothing at all.) To create it, you do edit->new->key and type in Edge. (I don't have this key either, by the way.)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@Card Zero: Bingo! (I think) - I found some instructions on adding registry values, followed them and added the \Edge and then added the DWORD and it seems to be doing the trick. Many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Splendid. :)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:52, 18 May 2022 (UTC)