Google animations that get in the way

Google search UI has degraded so much in recent history. It's become almost comically user-hostile. I say comically because I would be laughing if not for the fact that real humans use this service every day and are subjected to this abuse and that is in no way comical. The quality of Google search results have seemingly declined as well, based upon numerous anecdotes found in any recent discussion of these results.

I encourage everyone to stop using Google search (I personally recommend https://duckduckgo.com). You don't have to put up with being treated this way. Alternative search engines are likely to return results on-par with -- if not superior to -- those of Google search. For those other times, if you're using duckduckgo (for instance), prepend your duckduckgo search query with !g and duckduckgo will forward your query to Google search for you. All your needs met with none of the abuse.

The second one is a constant annoyance for me. Glad to know it’s not just me

Purpose of this one is to get you to click to a sponsored ad.