if i don't sign into google on my chromebook, google operates like it normally should. however, as soon as i sign into the chromebook, the google ui completely breaks. at first, i thought it was somebody hacking my router again, but it wasn't acting that way more broadly. after a fair amount of testing, i'm concluding that the problem is not on my end, but rather that it is google that is doing this intentionally, apparently by blocking javascript from working. specifically, google is blocking java from working on search only; everything else works fine. the cookies from the google server are set to no javascript.
i've sent google some complaints. they're going to need to figure out what's going on and fix it. unfortunately, it might be because the chromebook is expired, and that might be how this works nowadays on expired chromebooks.
i think i'm going to be more likely to switch these devices to linux than buy a new chromebook, as that is why i bought them in the first place. in the mean time, i need quick access to gmail, particularly.
i'm going to try a few things. can i spoof from guest mode? what if i actually log into the device?
in the mean time, i basically can't search anything without logging off. so i'm going to need to log in on this chromebook and set up a second chromebook that is not logged in so i can search on it.