• 20 January, 2021
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Google Search Bug Freezes Tabs When Using A Custom Date Range

A bug in Google Search is causing a browser tab to freeze when searching between a specified range of dates.

Google has a search feature under the Tools > Any Time drop-down menu that allows you to search for content published within a specific date range.

According to users’ reports, this bug started a few days ago and is affecting all sections of Google Search, including News, Books, Images, Videos, etc.

https://twitter.com/whatuptkhere/status/1350978290689990658

In a quick test by BleepingComputer, we were immediately able to hang a Firefox tab by merely pulling up the ‘Custom date range’ feature, as shown below.

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According to the Firefox developer console, this issue appears to be caused by JavaScript associated with the feature.

Google is aware of the issue and is hoping to resolve it soon.

We're aware that using the Custom Range option to restrict search results by date may cause a browser's tab to freeze. We hope to resolve this soon. In the meantime, the before: & after: commands can be used for date restriction. More here: https://t.co/5l4HON1pxB

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 19, 2021

In the meantime, Google recommends using the ‘before:‘ and ‘after:‘ search directives instead.

For example, the [solarwinds attack site:bleepingcomputer.com] after:2021-01-15 search would search Google for BleepingComputer stories about the Solarwinds attack published after 01/15/2021.

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