This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Why does the search result not display the author's profile picture in Firefox, when the exact same result shows author's picture in Chrome?

more options

I used Google to search for "bici bucerias couples biking tour"

I get the exact same results in both Chrome and Firefox, but in Chrome, the search result of interest to me displays the Google+ profile picture of the blog post's author. In Firefox, however, the search results are exactly the same, but the same listing I am looking at does not have the author's Google+ profile picture.

Why is there a difference in how the search results are rendered for the exact same term using the exact same search engine?

I used Google to search for "bici bucerias couples biking tour" I get the exact same results in both Chrome and Firefox, but in Chrome, the search result of interest to me displays the Google+ profile picture of the blog post's author. In Firefox, however, the search results are exactly the same, but the same listing I am looking at does not have the author's Google+ profile picture. Why is there a difference in how the search results are rendered for the exact same term using the exact same search engine?

All Replies (5)

more options

In case it has an effect, are you logged in or logged out on both browsers?

To rule out the contents of saved cookies, could you compare the results in a Firefox private window vs. a Chrome incognito window?

more options

Thanks for the response, jscher2000.

Curiously, in a Chrome incognito window I lose the profile picture.

The search result in a Firefox private window is exactly the same -- no profile picture.

I hope this helps.

Thanks again.

more options

I see author pictures on some results in Firefox when I am logged out and even in a private window, so at the most general level, you don't have to be logged in to Google+ or have previously set Google cookies to see them.

However, Google appears to make some decisions about displaying the photos. It says "Google will only show authorship in search results when we think it will be useful to the user." (1306778). Maybe the author of interest to you does not have a level of authority that Google feels warrants showing the picture to everyone, but if you are in a related circle then you see it??

more options

Thanks again for looking into this, jscher2000.

I can understand that Google may choose not to display the author's profile picture. But one would expect that when this happens, then the resulting search results listing should be consistent -- no profile picture displayed -- regardless of the browser used.

In this case, the profile picture displays on Google Chrome, but not in Firefox nor in Internet Explorer. I may be wrong, but this leads me to think that this may be a browser-related issue.

Unfortunately, there's not much mention of it on the web.

more options

I absolutely believe that Google sends different results pages to Chrome than to other browsers. But to get to the bottom of the reason for the difference, I think I would need to find an example where I get different results in order to explore it in more detail.

If you want to explore this further, consider posting an inquiry on Google support forum:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!categories/websearch