May 18 Information

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) reply

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) reply

@ 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) reply

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) reply

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

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) reply

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) reply

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) reply

@ 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) reply

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