Google Offers Personalized Search

Ryan Barrett writes " Google is just overflowing with news today. Along with the recently announced UI redesign, they've launched a personalized search engine on Google Labs. It's still beta, but it looks pretty cool. (Note that it probably uses technology acquired when they bought Kaltix last year.) Other announcements include Web Alerts, a 'numrange' command, and image search built into Google News."

Comments

This looks cool, however....

[adamgreenfield]

I think I'll stick with traditional Google. I like the non-cluttered look of the main page and the lack of Yahoo-ism (read: 50,000 things under the search box). But hey, to each his own and options are great things, as long as you stick with resonable defaults and you can always turn them off.

Google Labs come out with some awsome other things as well like the Google Deskbar and my personal favorite Google Voice Search (Also noteworty is Google Sets, however I can't find many uses for it yet).

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Obviously you haven't even seen the google personalized search thingie. It's as clean as the traditional google search, with a link that allows you to set your search options.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[keep_it_simple_stupi]

Agreed. More options are good - but this search seems significantly slower than the normal Google - I really don't think that Google can get /.'ed can it?

As a side note, selecting computers as your interests doesn't skew any results for the search term "bass" towards computers - I still get bass fishing. The FAQ is wrong man!

Re:This looks cool, however....

[ron_ivi]

When I heard "personal search", I thought they meant I'd be running my own crawler/engine/etc.

That would be cool. I set up my crawler to crawl stuff as frequently as I want - i.e. the PR pages of companies who'se stocks I own, every hour, others, who cares.

One step cooler is if my "own" serch engine could share search databases in a kazaa-like-manner with other people I select, so people with similar interests can share the load.

P2P would be awesome for special-interest search.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[IO ERROR]

It's beta software, what do you expect?

So, I ran two side-by-side tabs, one which contains the "normal" Google search and the other contains the "personalized" search, with the slider set at "max". It seems to do a fairly good job. I set a couple of preferences, and now it seems to rank stuff which mentions Linux higher.

Or move the slider around and watch the search results rearrange themselves on the page!

Re:This looks cool, however....

[ron_ivi]

I've actually written such a thing - minus the p2p part - can tell it a set of "seed" pages, how "deep" to go, and how frequently to go there.

If people think this'd be a cool open-source project I wouldn't mind throwing out the sources (just ugly nests of perl scripts with a postgresql backend) and seeing what people do with them. Not documented yet. If people are interested, feel free to email me at srchengine-interest@cheapcomplexdevices.com , and if more than a few people ask, I'll put something up and let people know when I wrote enough of a doc to use it.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[adamgreenfield]

I have looked it over, I wasn't saying that it is Yahoo. Even with the "personalized" features it is still a clean interface.

Choices are great, just stating a personal prefrence in the fact that I still like basic Google. If this thing goes well at some point everyone will get to choose what they like I'd imagine. Several things have gone from the labs into the Google we know (and love) today :)

Re:This looks cool, however....

[cptgrudge]

(Also noteworty is Google Sets, however I can't find many uses for it yet).

Just as an example, I put redhat, debian, and mandrake into the Google Sets. It returned a bunch of alternate Linux distros. This could be useful for finding targeted information on a subject that one isn't familiar with except for a few starting elements. Not groundbreaking by any means, but it could have interesting uses, even if it's only reducing search time to find relevant information on a topic.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[LostCluster]

Really, this could turn into Google's answer to avoid "link spam" to unrelated sites. By asking the user in advance what categories their query is going to be about, it's a way of being able to declare all offtopic sites offtopic and therefore disqualified from the results.

The ideal web search shouldn't produce 30 million hits... it should do the work of determining the one hit you really wanted to see, with a small handful of few runner ups to confirm the info on the first site.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[br0ck]

From what I've heard the beta versions run on smaller single servers and don't harness the full power of Google's server farms. Note the disclaimer on labs.google.com that says: Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something's not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[xNoLaNx]

You realize the slider bar at the top personalizes it in incriments deafulting to around 0, so at first it will show fish, then as you slide it to the right it will show bass related to computers. Note the special icon next to personalized items.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[notsoanonymouscoward]

its also a way for them to help target marketing

Re:This looks cool, however....

[eclectro]

Note the disclaimer on labs.google.com that says......they may disappear without warning or perform erratically.

In other words, "we're about to get slashdotted".

Re:This looks cool, however....

[tverbeek]

(Also noteworty is Google Sets [google.com], however I can't find many uses for it yet).

OK, this may not be a terribly practical use, but it's interesting: I just put in my first name and the first names of my two sisters, wondering if (against all odds) it would complete the set with my parents' names. Instead Google returned a set of four items: the three names I'd given it, plus a fourth name... which happens to be a name my parents considered giving to my little sister, and would have been on the short list if they'd had another child. It's probably just picking up on name preferences of the 1960's in my parents' culture, but in a sense it "predicted" what my baby sister would have been named.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[David Hume]

Choices are great

Except when choices aren't great. :)

Re:This looks cool, however....

[howhardcanitbetocrea]

Yes, it would be cool. Unfortunately the US Govt thinks that all P2P can do is "steal" music, so they are going to outlaw it.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[howhardcanitbetocrea]

Yes, what a great idea for P2P...as long as the US Govt doesn't decide to make it illegal...sigh...

Re:This looks cool, however....

[jspoon]

10:00 AM Google releases the beta of its "personal search" crawler 2:21 PM Slashdot item on it comes out 2:21:03 PM the internet is Slashdotted.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[xpl_the_myst]

I can imagine how it can get cooler and cooler. Instead of simplistic - 'What are your interests?', they could come up with a more elaborate configuration scheme, say with out-of-100 weights to the interest areas. Best part would be to get the interest areas itself generated dynamically (tie in google sets, perhaps?). And then, some kind of rule-based regex-based filters to find/block specific kind of pages.

And then people get to have these really complex configuration files to tweak the search to their liking. And after a stage, people would start exchanging googlerc's.

The best part would be that anyone who's not interested would still use vanilla google.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[evil-osm]

I really don't think that Google can get /.'ed can it?

Well just in case, here is the cache for it.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Anonymous Coward]

2:10 PM Slashdotter doesn't know the difference between HTML Formatted and Plain Old Text

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Dynedain]

In other words, "we're about to get slashdotted".

Anyone have the link to the google cache?

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Fortun L'Escrot]

i like this idea. maybe words can have their own default config files as well. so searching for a particular thing for example "pictures of horses" can be properly parsed into only returning instances of pictures of horses. or something like "pictures of horses but not brown ones".

Re:This looks cool, however....

[dfn_deux]

Awesome links! Googlesets, returned a very comprehensive list of simpsons characters when fed "homer,bart,apu,marge,lisa"!

Re:This looks cool, however....

[edrugtrader]

ok, so the spam sites just create the same spam site for every category...

OUTSIDE THE BOX...

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Ingolfke]

I'm going to put that warning on the front of my cube.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[owlstead]

No, that would even take google down. But note that google has its own XML soap interface. So you could easily write one yourself that uses google. This makes interpreting the answer from the server a lot easier.

I use it sometimes throught a mail interface which I won't mention before all of slashdot is going to use it. I've got only mail at work due to security considerations.

Here goes (the +1 funny rating for a story, sorry)

Google API's

Re:This looks cool, however....

[ron_ivi]

"note that google has its own XML soap interface. So you could easily write one yourself that uses google."

Can't really use google, because the sites it thinks are worth indexing daily aren't necessarily the ones I think are worth indexing daily.

I know my interests - my friends' home pages, my investment portfolio, my local events, my customers, and my competitors, a couple open source projects - and I want an up-to-date database of that content. The rest of the internet, more than 3 clicks away from those interests, I care much less about having an up-to-date index.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[Jade E. 2]

Anyone have the link to the google cache?

Google updates a bit slow, so the personalized search isn't in their cache yet, but here's the Google cache of Google Labs.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[killjoe]

In practice it's just not that good though. I would have prefered to have the specialty searches (bsd, mac, govt etc) on the front page. There is no reason why those searches have to be two clicks away. Yes I know I can make my own page but that's not the point. Google should give me an option to put them on the front page.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[galego]

You mean like in most political elections, no?

No Safari

[gtrubetskoy]

Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari.

oh well...

Re:No Safari

[millahtime]

"Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari."

Check your cookies and see if they are enabled. I don't see why it wouldn't work in safari. Probubally a security setting.

Re:No Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's more likely that it's due to the pretty intensive Javascript that's used for stuff like the personalisation slider thing.

It's still Beta, and I wouldn't be surprised if they support more browsers in future.

Re:No Safari

[ccozan]

curiously, i am browsing with Konqueror ( based on the same KHTML engine ) and it works perfect...

Strange...

Re:No Safari

[a.ameri]

Interestingly it is working perfectly well with Konqueror. I wonder what Konqueror has, that safari is lacking, that has forced them not to support Safari right now. Google Personalized seems to be using heavy use of JavaScript, and as far as I know, Konqueror and Safari both use KJS for as a JavaScript interpreter. So...

On a side note, I think I actualy like the idea of this personalized search. Someone up here mentioned that s/he prefers the traditional search engine, cause it is uncluttered. Well, I can't see how google's personalized pages are any more cluttered than the traditional search page. They look completely the same, just in the personalized page a scroll bar is added to the search result page.

I think this actually opens a new horizon in google. You can have the traditional original search, by just moving the scroll bar to the left, or you can get a specific seacrh on a specific topic that interests you.

They might seem totaly unrelated, but given the current technologies that are comming out of Google Labs, am I the only one who is being reminded of the golden ages of Bell Labs? If the Google guys really continue to push their innovation engine with this speed, I don't see how even a monopoly should be able to crush them.

I know, I sound like a fanboy, but who isn't a fan of google? really...

Re:No Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to work fine with Konqueror.

Re:No Safari

[Roogna]

Specifically, if you load Safari with the Debug menu enabled, and change the user-agent. Then search. You'll see why they don't support Safari yet. The javascript they've got going for the slider doesn't work quite right under Safari.

I'd bet that Safari support will come soon enough, either from Apple fixing whatever their handling of this paticular javascript is, or google simply getting it to work.

Re:No Safari

[Drakonian]

Where do you see this? I'm on Safari and the Personalized Search seems to load up fine for me, and searches seem to work. I didn't see Safari mentioned in the FAQ. What am I missing?

Re:No Safari

[nicky_d]

Well, it kinda supports Safari - if you enable Safari's debug menu and use the Debug menu to set your user agent to, say, MSIE 6, you get the slider. I can move in in crude and fairly arbitrary steps by clicking either side of it, but when I try to drag the slider, Safari just starts dragging the slider image - either the position marker or the background bar - just like it drags all other images.

So it's not really usable, but you can see how it works and get a taste of the results.

Re:No Safari

[Lord Grey]

The searches work, but you can't personalize them dynamically with a slider. Instead of the slider, which should be above the hit list, you see the error message.

Re:No Safari

[.com b4 .storm]

At the top of the search results, it will say "Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari." (right next to the link that says 'Edit Profile'). If you change your User Agent, the page will reload and in that spot where the error message was will be a gauge you can click on for "Min" and "Max" personalization.

It says: Tip: Drag the slider (above) to the right to personalize results. Personalized results are marked by [little google balls here]

It sort of works in Safari, but it isn't draggable, you have to click - and it misjudges where you clicked relative to the gauge. It does seem to change the results though. This is what the "personalized" searching is really doing - if you are in Safari and you can't use the gauge, all you get is slightly different results from a regular Google search. There's not much "personalized" about it. Hope that clarifies what people are seeing here...

Re:No Safari

[System.out.println()]

Use the Mozilla agent, it actually works fairly well. The only problem as far as I can tell is that Safari tried to grab the graphic as a drag-and-drop object, so you do have to move it in small steps.

Re:No Safari

[TiMike]

(Setting your User-Agent to Mozilla may work)

It works.

Re:No Safari

[Drakonian]

Now the Personalize Search link I posted above says "Sorry, Google Personalized does not yet support Safari. (Setting your User-Agent to Mozilla may work)". It looks like they are tweaking it a lot.

Re:No Safari

[jesser]

as far as I know, Konqueror and Safari both use KJS for as a JavaScript interpreter

The JavaScript language is stable and the differences between language interpretation in different browsers is very small. (One difference: Mozilla lets you treat a regular expression as a function, IE does not.) Differences in the DOM, however, are huge, and account for most browser incompatibilities. I assume the DOM is part of KHTML, not part of KJS. But Safari and Konq also share KHTML, so your question is still valid.

I only have one wish,,,

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Google would fix their searching of mailing lists. I would love to see duplicates filtered, messages ordered by date, and indexing by subject.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[Anonymous Coward]

duplicates filtered, messages ordered by date, and indexing by subject.

That's three wishes.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[Coneasfast]

I wish Google would fix their searching of mailing lists. I would love to see duplicates filtered, messages ordered by date, and indexing by subject.

what they need is a new section 'google mailing lists', which functions similarly to google groups, you can search newsgroup items, view the whole thread in a nested format, etc

although they would probably need to archive the mailing lists from various sources, could take quite a bit of work

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[hoist2k]

I wish Google would fix their searching of mailing lists. I would love to see duplicates filtered, messages ordered by date, and indexing by subject.

and a pony, of course.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[Anonymous Coward]

GMANE.ORG offers this already. Alternatively, Google Groups does archive some mailing lists, including linux.kernel.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[Ben Hutchings]

Groups already includes many mailing lists, e.g. the LKML is in there as linux.kernel.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[Fallen_Knight]

Isn't that whats allowed? 3 wishes?

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[G-funk]

I just want a magic "exclude mailing lists" checkbox, it's so annoying the garbage you come up with from mailing lists (and the articles are _never_ where google thinks they are) if you're not specifically looking for list posts.

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[heim913]

duplicates filtered

Maybe slashdot could license this technology?

Re:I only have one wish,,,

[big_gibbon]

And a pony!

Personalized Google News

[glinden]

If you're curious what a personalized version of Google News might look like, take a look at Findory News. Findory learns from the news you read, searches thousands of sources, and finds articles that match your interests.

Re:Personalized Google News

[rjstanford]

Hmm. Uncool, for me at least. I get more than enough personalized coverage from other sources - I already know where to go. What I rely on Google News for is a good snapshot of stuff that I haven't already heard about before. Now, if they would integrate it so that one of the boxes on the standard news site was "Personal" and one was "Local" (to balance out, L-R), that would be cool... but I think that the focus on just showing the viewer what they want to see is out of place for a news portal. Just my two cents, of course.

Re:Personalized Google News

[glinden]

Interesting comment. So, clearly Google News is useful to you since it shows you stuff you haven't heard about. Do you mean that a personalized version of Google News isn't useful to you? Or that Findory News isn't what you would expect from a personalized version of Google News?

The idea behind personalized news is to help you find interesting articles. For example, I tend to be interested in tech, science, and world news, and specifically interested in UK news, news related to Linux, and news about Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. Google News doesn't emphasize these interests, so I have to sort through a bunch of stuff I'm not interested in to find what I want. Findory News tends to emphasize articles that are related to these interests while still showing me important, general news events.

Re:Personalized Google News

[Anonymous Coward]

For many people, the point of reading the news is to broaden their perspectives. There would be no point reading it if it only showed news for a small subject area. You may as well read a specialised new aggregator like Slashdot or Arstechnica.

I have no interest in sport, but I have been interested to read about the cricket matches between India and Pakistan. If Google News disregarded all sport stories, I would have missed this. Also, I like to have a cursory skim through the headlines for entertainment on Google news, even though I usually don't read the articles.

The whole point of Google news for me (and I assume for the original poster) is to see what the important stories are, not to see special interest stories that only I care about.

Re:Personalized Google News

[glinden]

I'd assume you're already missing all cricket matches between India and Pakistan if you look at the sports articles on Google News. Google News features the most popular news articles, those of general interest to the mostly US audience. Findory News would be able to pick up your interest the first time you read a news article on the topic.

But I understand your general concern. You're worried that you'll be pigeonholed, only seeing articles on a limited range of topics and nothing else. It'd be a serious issue if Findory News simply selected other articles in the same small subject area for you, but that's not how the personalization works. Give it a shot and see if it works for you.

Re:Personalized Google News

[Anonymous Coward]

I read news.google.com.au, then news.google.co.uk, then news.google.com every morning (takes about 30 mins while eating breakfast). I like to get my news from the perspectives of several different countries.

So, no. I do not miss articles (like the cricket one) because of regional differences. It was the top sports story in both the Australian and UK editions for two days. If I could set up Findory News to group by regions only, and it had more news aggregation sources than Google, then I would use it.

I have very little interest in cricket, but I just found the story about how cricket was bringing together India and Pakistan interesting. I don't see how one-off stories like that could be found by a personalised news service.

Findory news looks interesting anyway... it could possibly be an alternative. Is there a way to set up multiple profiles so that I can view articles with an Australian focus, then a UK focus, then a US focus?

Re:Personalized Google News

[glinden]

That's interesting that the international versions of Google News work so well for you. I've found that the Australian and UK versions of Google News contain entirely too much local news for me. When I go there, I'm looking for the Australian or UK perspective on international events, but Google News doesn't provide that focus for me.

But we all want something a little different from the news. Which, I'd say, is entirely the point.

Perhaps you'll find Findory News to be useful as one of several news sites you frequent. If you do use the site and have any other comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Contact information is available from the About page on the site.

Hmmm...

[Neil Blender]

Feature bloat?

3 Google stories in one day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, and the day isn't even over yet. When's Slashdot ever going to get a Google icon?

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[NanoGator]

"Wow, and the day isn't even over yet. When's Slashdot ever going to get a Google icon?"

There are too many to chose from. :(

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could just use a larger version of the Favicon, aka the G.

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[AresTheImpaler]

the most interesting is the second one in your search:

not safe for work

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[mike2R]

And on any other day the numrange feature would be worth a story on its own: search for 100...200 and it finds all numbers in that range; very cool, especially if you live in a country with purely numerical Zip codes.. Damn Post Office.

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[The Evil Couch]

that's not a troll. that's actually IS the second search result, and he DID mark it as not safe for work.

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[Tokerat]

What for? There is pretty much already a Google section. ;-)

How long before Microsoft buys google?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Froogle too!

Re:How long before Microsoft buys google?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until Google buys Microsoft?

Re:How long before Microsoft buys google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, idealistic hippy: I hate you.

Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

[Open 'google personalized']
[Type "I am testing"]
[Hit "Search"]
[30 second pause]
[Results page loads]

Holy shit, we've slashdotted Google Labs.

Google web page

[joeware]

I use the Google toolbar and never really go to the Google webpage. Will the Google toolbar be able to access the personalized profiles for personalized searches? I haven't spotted the answer yet. I'll try the personalized searches, but don't plan on using anything but the Google toolbar for 95% of my searches.

Interesting concept

[Dark Paladin]

I might have to fire up Mozilla or IE, since it doesn't support Safari just yet.

But I could see where this could be useful to me. Right now, my only problem with Google is that it returns too many results. By letting it know I'm not interesting (usually) about sports, religion, and other issues, I can start to specify what I want. And if I need more general, that's what the slider is for.

Nice idea. Be interesting to see how they handle things (like can I make an "account"), and then there's the privacy issue. I don't mind Google sells the data in a generic sense, as in "people interested in Clark also research political books" or some such, as long as they don't say "John Hummel has a fetish for Swedish schoolgirls with giganticly think eyebrows".

'Cause if that information got out, man would my face be red.

Re:Interesting concept

[AaronStJ]

"John Hummel has a fetish for Swedish schoolgirls with giganticly think eyebrows".

'Cause if that information got out, man would my face be red.

Don't worry. I don't think anyone wants to know about that.

I feel dirty now.

Re:Interesting concept

[Anonymous Coward]

you're gonna be missing out on all that kinky roman orthodox soccer pr0n.

too bad for you!

Re:Interesting concept

[ev1lcanuck]

I filled it out, searched for "stuff" and the first personalized entry was Slashdot. Kind of scary actually.

Google Sets

[Nos.]

At my last job I had with a webhost, we were naming our servers after console game players (atari, nes, etc). sets came in very handy when we started running out of ideas.

Re:Google Sets

[tverbeek]

You need to tell it to do a large set.

Re:Google Sets

[owlstead]

Oh, I used it to find more bars in my favourite town, but that might not be /.ty enough :)

Re:Google Sets

[WhiteDragon]

yes, but that didn't include mu

Google updated

[SKPhoton]

Google is of course known for its simple interface and accurate results. Now they're expanding into becoming more of a portal by providing more services. It's nice to see they don't make their pages clunky and overloaded.

Also, interestingly enough, Google has released their new web API. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Working

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to work ok

Is this a good thing?

[Potor]

I am not certain this is a good thing. Obviously, setting up filters in a search by search manner is helpful. But pre-filtering all web searches based on a menu of categories seems to me to be a great way to skewer, not filter, your results.

Re:Is this a good thing?

[rmohr02]

Perhaps you should look at the search before commenting on it. It does not filter results when the slider is at "Min", but filters nearly everything when the slider is at "Max". You don't eliminate the ability to get to some results with it.

Re:Is this a good thing?

[Potor]

Um, I did go to the site first (that's why my post in not near the top of the page). And second of all, I did not claim that you would receive limited results, but that they would be skewered (ranked according to all-encompassing preferences). Third of all, the slider is in essence another filter, and will channel your results accordingly.

Of course, there are good sides to this. But the beauty of the web is the ability to dig up the info you want from as many sources as possible. Honing your searches according to general preferences, and not accrording to logical criteria, seems to me not to be the smartest search method. To each his own, I guess.

Re:Is this a good thing?

[M. Silver]

skewered

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(Either that, or it means something I don't think it means.)

Re:Is this a good thing?

[Potor]

skewered: obliquely presented; distorted ranking.

Re:Is this a good thing?

[M. Silver]

skewered: obliquely presented; distorted ranking.

Not unless it's a slang usage I was previously unaware of. As Google would say: "Did you mean skewed?"

Re:Is this a good thing?

[Potor]

oh, you object to my orthography. i would accept that 'skewed' is perhaps more standard (we all have our verbal ticks, but at least i do not say 'orientated').

cheers, potor

Re:Is this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

"oh, you object to my orthography. i would accept that 'skewed' is perhaps more standard (we all have our verbal ticks, but at least i do not say 'orientated')."

It has nothing to do with spelling, it's the wrong word. If you knew anything about orthography, you would know that it is as much about correct usage as much as spelling.

As far as `orientated' is concerned, it's a perfectly cromulent word. If however you meant, "I don't say `orientated' when I mean `oriented'" it would make more sense, but you didn't; therefore you are a troll.

No registration!

[InfiniteWisdom]

One of the coolest things about Google, IMO is the amount of customization they can offer storing content locally using cookies without needing any kind of registration. Nothing more annoying than having to fill out a huge form on every other website you visit, especially given that most of them ask for WAY more information than is really needed.

Google groups, where they do need registration has a form that asks for:
E-mail
Password
Password confirmation

Google rocks!

Re:No registration!

[MushMouth]

They don't need a registration, they know who you are already. Probably more about you than you would feel comfortable with. One question. Is there any way for me the user to erase my user trails on google?

Re:No registration!

[InfiniteWisdom]

Who said anything about trails? I don't want to fill out registration forms because they're annoying, not because I don't want to give out information. Claiming that you're a 94 year old female hispanic construction-worker in Afghanistan who makes $500,000-$999,999 per year stops being funny after some time.

I couldn't care less if someone sees my google searches. I assume that anything I send out unencrypted and/or to an unauthenticated destination is world-readable anyway.

Re:No registration!

[juhaz]

Well, not needing registration has the bad side of not being able to get your preferences if you happen to use another machine. Or change browsers. Or need to reset your profile (and cookies) for some other reason.

I wouldn't mind ggroups type very small registration form if it allowed to get settings everywhere, especially now as something like this has something bit more tedious to repeat than the simple things they've have had before. Especially if it would be parallel to the current system instead of replacing it.

Re:No registration!

[ahector]

I agree with you and also dislike having to register at so many web sites just to get access to content. But for some applications like personalized search, it would be nice to be able to access your own settings (i.e. search preferences) from places other than the computer with this data stored in a cookie. I wonder if Google will come up with a good way of doing something like this?

Re:No registration!

[spood]

One of the scariest things about Google, IMO is the amount of information they can collect by storing content locally using cookies without needing any kind of registration. Nothing more invasive than not filling out a huge form on a Web site I most commonly visit, especially when they collect way more information than is actually needed.

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

I'm not a typical tin-foil hatter, but it does pay to be aware of what's going on behind the scenes.

Oh yeah,

Google rocks!

Re:No registration!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just erase their cookie.

Re:No registration!

[jesser]

No, but you can anonymize your cookie to prevent them from tracking you in the future. Anonymizing your cookie using that bookmarklet doesn't screw up your basic preferences (language, number of results per page, etc) since those are stored separately from the ID in the cookie.

Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Faust7]

Okay, so the categories are:

Arts/Cinema
Business/Industries
Computers
Health
Home
Kids/Teens
Music
News
Recreation
Science
Society
Sports
Regions

There should be a subcategory of "Porn" under each and every one of those.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[wanchai]

in the regoin category: > Africa > Asia > Caribbean > Central America > Europe > Middle East > Oceania > Polar Regions > South America > United States so where's Canada?

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[LGagnon]

Personally, I'm a bit dissapointed I couldn't find Billiards under either Sports or Games (and, for your information, it should be under "sport").

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[corbettw]

Kids/Teens

There should be a subcategory of "Porn" under each and every one of those.

You are a sick, sick man.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[finkployd]

Kids/Teens

There should be a subcategory of "Porn" under each and every one of those.

Pete Townsend? Is that you?

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Enjoy your free pr0n via Google.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[bdan]

I remember that I saw once a category named Adult, just search /. for references.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Dark Lord Seth]

• Arts/Cinema : Regular porn
• Business/Industries : Secretary porn
• Computers : Geek girl porn ( Interesting! )
• Health : Yoga porn?
• Home : "Amateurs"
• Kids/Teens : Kiddyporn
• Music : Regular porn movies with background music instead of repeated moans as sound overlay
• News : nakednews.com
• Recreation : Outdoor porn
• Science : Zero G porn
• Society : No clue with this...
• Sports : Cheerleader porn
• Regions : Canada porn, Euro porn, Russia porn, etc

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, what he's looking for is porn targetted towards kids/teens, not porn featuring them.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Krojack]

They're anticipating for when the USA invades and takes over Canada =)

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[elFarto the 2nd]

Society : No clue with this...

Oh you missed this one, Group porn

Regards
elFarto

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Otter]

so where's Canada?

"Polar Regions", I guess. I'm not sure which would be more amusing -- if they lumped it in with Antarctica or if they just left it out altogether.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

we have allready taken over why would we invade?

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Blimey85]

Did you look at the categories? Gay, Bears (69) which goes to: http://directory.google.com/Top/Adult/Image_Galler ies/Gay,_Lesbian,_and_Bisexual/Gay/Bears/Free/ That's just wrong!

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadas just america junior, or, according to the simpsons last nite, englands other gayer son.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[jesser]

UrbanDictionary: bear

Now you know.

(Or were you referring to the number of items being 69?)

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Blimey85]

Thank you for the link... I assumed it was beastiality or something... now I know.

Google Sets

[Nos.]

At my last job I had with a webhost, we were naming our servers after console game players (atari, nes, etc). sets came in very handy when we started running out of ideas.

(Please ignore (or mod down) the same post further down, this is where it was meant to be)

My Preference Not listed

[ralf1]

"Place hard core lesbian porn at top of search" really should be an option.

Re:My Preference Not listed

[Anonymous Coward]

Joey: Tell Ross to come over. The monkey Puked. Rachel and I will later to go to the concert. Open your cell phone!

Re:My Preference Not listed

[Carnildo]

You know, in the context of your post, your sig takes on entirely new worlds of meaning!

Numrange + Froogle = useful product search?

[expro]

If you can use numrange to search for a certain price range in Froogle, that would make Froogle much more useful, which presently does not even have the ability to sort by price.

Re:Numrange + Froogle = useful product search?

[Captain_Frisk]

If you can use numrange to search for a certain price range in Froogle, that would make Froogle much more useful, which presently does not even have the ability to sort by price.

Perhaps its new, but I was just using froogle this morning, and saw that it had the ability to sort by price, as well as filter with min / max price settings.

Re:Numrange + Froogle = useful product search?

[Brigadoon]

I've used Froogle several times, and for quite some time now, it's had the ability to sort by price and limit to a certain price range.

Re:Numrange + Froogle = useful product search?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it has that feature now. Go look/try it? :)

Re:Numrange + Froogle = useful product search?

[jeet]

Interface for www.google.com and www.google.co.in are different. the Froogle link does not appear on main page as well as in searches. though a 'more' link is now coming and the interface has otherwise changed for .co.in site as well.

466453 = Google

[LostCluster]

Google seems to registered has registered 466453.com for Google Number Service on cell phones. The idea is that users just send the numbers on a phone keypad for their serarch query, with Google doing the magic of figuring out what you meant. The number 466453 was selected because it's the number you get if you type out "Google" that way.

Re:466453 = Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... I wonder if some 1337 H4X0R already took 600613...

Re:466453 = Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that be 900913.com

Re:466453 = Google

[Anonymous Coward]

The number 466453 was selected because it's the number you get if you type out "Google" that way.

That's a log nicer than 4666#66655533, like I do now.

Re:466453 = Google

[adamofgreyskull]

Man would that "1337 H4X0R" be upset when someone got 5318008...

Re:Doesn't support Safari

[autiger]

Firefox on Windoze is just fine.

What makes Google so different

[alphakappa]

inspite of adding so many features over the years, is that none of these features clutter the front page. Google.com is still just as simple as it was when they first came out - yes, they do have different categories such as images/newsgroups etc, but the interface is still almost the same and the extra stuff never cries for attention.
Even the local search feature and other features like the Google calculator etc kick in only when you make a search by making intelligent (almost) guesses - so it will be interesting to see how Google implements the personalized search when it finally goes out of beta.
More power to you Google!

Re:What makes Google so different

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this too. But let's see if this lasts after they become publicly traded!

Google

[scraphorn]

I like the traditional Google. I have found things on Google like old IBM hard drive platters, this is stuff I can't find on other engines. No portal stuff.

I may not know art, but...

[moviepig.com]

So I pre-bias my search to concentrate on information sources with which I'm already well acquainted.

Isn't this a bit like watching the Fox News Channel?

Re:I may not know art, but...

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

Not really, just trying to making better choices about what you mean when you use words. Like i entered the word "Cocoa" in the search engine. Since it knows i'm interested in programming and politics, it downplays stuff about the foodstuff cocoa (unless about the politics of cocoa trade) and focuses on the math and programming interpretations of the word. Wierd thing is, when i entered it, i meant the programming topic, but the page about the politics of cocoa trade looks pretty interesting.

My first impressions are pretty good. The links that im not interested in on the first page drop pretty fast when i use the slider. But i hope the extra time its taking to do the searches are just a beta thing.

Since it is almost everybody's homepage already...

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one welcome our new Google Overlords.

Region Search - No Canada!

[ashitaka]

Under Regions:

Africa
Asia
Caribbean
Central America
Europe
Middle East
Oceania
Polar Regions
South America
United States - (Points to individual States)

OK. So how do I choose Canada?

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Anonymous Cowtard]

"Polar Regions" of course. /yes... this is a lame attempt at humor

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the hell would you choose canada for anything?

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[DR SoB]

In the future it'll probably be added as google.ca/personalized

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

Think... Where can you find "mooses", "eskimos" and "hockey stadiums", all in the same world region?

Right, "Polar Regions".

Another option, Canada might be the 53rd state of the US (after Puerto Rico and Mexico).

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[gnu-generation-one]

"OK. So how do I choose Canada?"

"Polar regions"

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Vadim Grinshpun]

polar regions ;)

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[tgd]

You sure its not listed as one of the states? ;-)

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[CGP314]

Should be under US ;)


-Colin

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[akiaki007]

It's probably under the individual states of United States. I'm guessing right before Puerto Rico. :-P

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Rets.kcirt]

Polar regions, i guess

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try going to google.ca

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

is there something wrong with me, why has nobody pointed out that the US is in North America

Re:Region Search - No Canada!

[owlstead]

Dunno much about geology, but Canada is definately not under the US.

No, not even if you count in Alaska.

yup

[SweetAndSourJesus]

See this article for info on changing the default search engine. It's kind of a drag to have to do it every time Safari is updated.

Wish: Google Groups -- Where # of Posts n

[dasunt]

I wish that google would add an ability to limit their usenet archive searches by # of messages in a thread.

Many times, I only find one solitary question (1 message) posted, without any answers. :(

Another great thing about Google

[alphakappa]

I dunno if it's just me, but I'm constantly amazed by Google's ability to make beautiful interfacew while sticking to very ordinary fonts and graphics - completely debunks any theory about beautiful interfaces. The best part is that it looks good even on the 100,000th visit, which means that the beauty is subtle enough to make you appreciate it, while still not overwhelming you.

And I wonder who creates those beautiful Google logos for different occassions, and also the beautiful icons.

Re:Another great thing about Google

[chris462]

<i>And I wonder who creates those beautiful Google logos for different occassions, and also the beautiful icons. </i>
<br><br>
Your answer:<br>
<a href="http://wk.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_d ir/2002/03/22/200203220003.asp">http://wk.koreaher ald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2002/03/22/2002032200 03.asp</a>
<br><br>
Article found by a link from <a href="http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html">htt p://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html</a>.

Re:Another great thing about Google

[chris462]

And I wonder who creates those beautiful Google logos for different occassions, and also the beautiful icons.

Your answer:
http://wk.koreaher ald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2002/03/22/2002032200 03.asp

Article found by a link from http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html.

What about Canada?

[fyzix]

If you look in the "Regions" settings, there's nowhere for Canadian users to check:

Subcategories of Regions

Africa
Asia
Caribbean
Central America
Europe
Middle East
Oceania
Polar Regions
South America
United States

The "United States" option expands into the individual states. I know this is beta, but c'mon :(

Re:What about Canada?

[Sensitive Claude]

If you look in the "Regions" settings, there's nowhere for Canadian users to check

Is Mexico in Central America?
I've always thought of Central America as that between Mexico and South America.

They should just say North America, or maybe Norte Americano. Eh?

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you try "Polar Regions"? ;P

Re:What about Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look under Axis Of Evil

Re:Very Strange

[platypussrex]

Not just that, but it's intentional. If you go to the debug menu and pick a different user agent (I picked Mac MSIE) it works just fine. Why would they break it on purpose just for Safari?

Can't you

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you get Safari to lie about it's HTTP-AGENT string? I seem to remember there being some way to do that using the `defaults` app. But maybe I just imagined that. Anyway, if you do that it shouldn't be able to tell you're using Safari... see what happens when you do that.

Re:Make Safari not support Google

[Unregistered]

Chill dude. Google is in a tough position to fight page rank spammers since they are the only search engine worth optimizing for these days. And personalized is still in pretty early beta so it prolly will support safari when it goes gold.

missing from google

[molo]

There's only one feature missing from Google that I would really like: use of the HTML tag with relations of "prev" and "next" for the search results page. That would enable easy navigation via the Mozilla or Opera site navigation bar.

Maybe next time.

-molo

Re:missing from google

[Anonymous Coward]

So easy to add, in fact, you wonder why it's not there already...

Hey Google, do you read Slashdot? Add those tags for previous/next page already!

Thanks!

Google google google, Google.

[happyfrogcow]

I was hoping to enter some deranged parallel googleverse by googling "Google" and viewing the cached version, then googling "Google" again from that cached google of Google.

But no, nothing interesting happened. It would have been sort of cool if all the returned results were all cached instances instead of fresh instances.

Re:Google google google, Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the same thing once and I went forward in time 5 minutes...

Weird...

Re:Google google google, Google.

[No Such Agency]

I did the same thing once and I went forward in time 5 minutes...

Yeah, so did I. It took 5 minutes though.

Web Alerts

[manmanic]

Interesing... the Web Alerts looks like a simple version of the Google Alert service, based on Google's Web APIs - is this the first example of Google drawing inspiration from the developer community they've built?

The sad thing is

[Anonymous Coward]

Google can add cool new features every day, but when MS begins to integrate it's search engine into their OS, google will have a big problem. And it won't even matter if the MS search engine does suck (as it probably will, at least after they have forced all the competition out of the market) and google is a lot better.

Only positives? What about negatives!

[broothal]

I think this is a great idea, although I'd like to be able to check boxes of stuff I don't like to see. Imagine being able to tick off commercial sites as a negative. Then, when I'm searching for info on my new digital camera I won't have to wade through dozens of commercial sites offering it for sale.

Re:Only positives? What about negatives!

[Sabalon]

And reviews of the item. And reviews of the sites offering it for sell. And sites that link to sites offering it for sell. And everything about KX-234KR. And products related to KX-234KR, etc...

That too is my biggest google beef - try to find info about a product and all you can find is how to buy the product.

Re:Only positives? What about negatives!

[Cyno01]

Just add "review" to your search, you'll either come up with actual reviews or a sales website featuring customer eviews, like amazon or newegg has.

Re:Only positives? What about negatives!

[Quobobo]

How are reviews of the item unhelpful when you're trying to find information about it? It seems to me like you just said "I don't want to buy it or know about it, but give me some information anyway"

Re:Only positives? What about negatives!

[Sabalon]

I guess I have bad luck and come across the most useless review sites, or most of the things I see listed as reviews are just reprints of the manufactuers specs.

I like finding reviews from other average joes that have bought the item. I hate when some trade rag or something reviews something - always feels like there is something more there...here's a freebie, tell people how great it is kinda thing.

Quick use experience

[FiloEleven]

I just created a profile (which consists of checking boxes that match your interests) and tried some searches.

There's a slider that tells Google how much to skew the search - all the way to the left and I believe it matches a standard Google search. All the way to the right and the results are highly skewed to match your preferences.

It seems to work pretty well. As a test case, I checked only Music (general) and searched for 'coughing.' When I moved the slider to 'personalized,' 9/10 results were for 'soul coughing,' a now defunct band that was known enough to have a significant presence on the web. With the slider to the left, 4/10 results were for Soul Coughing. Personalizing the search filtered out sites about the act of coughing and left sites that had 'coughing' and a music theme (not sure how it was done - have only looked at descriptions of sites).

This is by no means a real display of the accuracy or usefulness of the personalized search; it was just a little test.

Re:Quick use experience

[Anonymous Coward]

This has some really annoying side-effects.

e.g., just because I like software and bioinformatics, doesn't mean that I want to see 1) some lame web special effects software package and 2) the website for some bio-lab which uses Java heavily, instead of the sun reference pages, everytime I search for "java".

In the past, google's useful results have almost always been either on the 1st page or not there at all. This doesn't seem to change anything, except for the number of serendipitous distractions I can now call up just by wiggling a slider. Which is k00l enough, I spse.

Re:Quick use experience

[Stuwee]

Well I went off and read the FAQ; and I noticed they mentioned setting your interests to Astronomy and then searching for ATM. Okay, I'll admit I've no clue what an ATM means to you astronomers, but I certainly do know I can use one to get my money out of the hole in the wall, and I can also stream nice fast multimedia over one.

Anyways, just for fun I went and set up my profile to prefer Computer Hardware, Financial Services, and Astronomy: something quite reasonable if I was working in technology for an investment banking company and happened to have a penchant for astronomy.

Yeah, it turns out this search is just as good personalised as it is non-personalised. Not that I'm surprised, but what I'm getting at is that the topics as they are at the moment are far too vague; there are many options that I have an interest in and may well be searching for at any time.

Not to say it doesn't work; I just think the topics need a slight re-think before it's 100% useful.

Where is Google going with all of this?

[suziewilkes]

Google does seem to be offering something for everyone in this latest set of releases.

- Their new look is much more graphically based.

- Their new Web Alerts are neat, and seem to be a scaled-down version of the well known Google Alert service, based on Google's API's.

- The personalized search is sure to be a hot space in the future.

Looks like they're gearing up to cover all their bases in the Search Engine Wars.

Re:Where is Google going with all of this?

[WallaceSz]

Google is being very ambitious indeed.

If not now, when...

Re:Where is Google going with all of this?

[markkellman]

We've seen a lot of activity with MSN and Yahoo recently as well, all pushing into every corner of the search related space.

This is definitely high season...

Re:Where is Google going with all of this?

[manmanic]

I'm still waiting for the much-rumored Google Hotmail-style service to come out - combined with contextual advertising that could really be a killer.

Needs more constraints

[polyp2000]

Hmm ... There are no options to remove SCO or Microsoft from the results :(

nick ...

Re:Needs more constraints

[nicky_d]

Seek, and ye shall not find ;)

Re:Needs more constraints

[Anonymous Coward]

Well , i kinda know that already :) it would have been nice if there were a box in the personalize screen where you could omit certain keywords from every search.

Im off to watch trevor macdonald:)

6006l3?

[InfiniteWisdom]

They forgot to register 600613.com!!!! Is some 1337 haxor going to beat them to it?

The new look of Google

[alphakappa]

Google has changed its looks drastically. Methinks this is due to the following reason:

1. Every search engine copies the original google look - i.e., tabbed sections for images/groups etc

2. Every search engine also copies the sponsored results look, i.e, Adwords in blue/green boxes on the right and ad results on the top.

So Google has gone ahead and implemented a distinct look by removing the tabbed sections (dunno if this is good or bad) and removing the boxes from the Adword results, and instead just separating them by a thin blue line (looks good in my opinion).

Re:The new look of Google

[KD5YPT]

I think it will be very good, less graphic mean faster load time. How much faster? NO idea.

Google mirror

[SKPhoton]

I've put up a mirror of Google's front page. Old Google

Wildcard searching

[startup.cmd]

Another useful Google feature is search globbing. It works just like command line wildcards. Use the * operator inside of quoted phrases when searching, and Google will substitute any word in its place. Here's an example:

"* processor"

Re:Wildcard searching

[Drakonian]

Hmmm. Those search results are very similar to a Google search for juts "processor". Not exactly the same, but quite close.

Personalized start page

[pen]

If you're looking for a simple start page, try Yavista.

Google Accounts? When

[DoorFrame]

I've been really wanting a google account for some time. The ability to actually log into an account and change settings that will stay set. I don't want to have to turn off their adult content filter every time I sit down. I don't want to have to tell the image search engine to default to the smallest pictures. Why can't I say that I don't ever want to see PDFs? Adding a user account to google would significantly increase the functionality for high frequency users and I think it's about time they implemented it.

This personalized searching is a far cry from what I want. Google, are you listening?

Guess I am Alone in this?

[Merlinium]

Am I the only one that seems to have seen a rather disturbing trend of late with Google searches? Seems like every time I do a search nowadays, I end up with the first few pages (sometimes every page) of websites that are only interested in selling me the Item I was trying to find more information about, to me this is annoying as hell, as all I wanted was some specs on the product, I don't need to be shown 50 different websites that sell the damn thing and have the same Stupid General Info sheet.

Maybe its the way I am doing my searches, but I seem to recall last year about this time doing some similar Research on New items and Was getting Manufacturers, Forums about, Tech info Sites about, Reviews, etc. Not anymore though, now I get Buy it here, or we have lower prices, or Best price on the Net, etc. I have just about given up using Google for any kind of serious research searching. I shall give this Personalized Search engine a Try, and maybe I could stop getting tons of sites trying to Sell me some product that I am only interested in trying to figure out if it will work for me.

Signed, One Pissed Off Searcher.

Re:Guess I am Alone in this?

[KeeperS]

This probably has more to do with the terms you're giving Google than Google itself. The more generic of a term you give Google, the less it has to work with. If you give Google a really generic term, you're going to get broad results.

For example, say I'm looking for information on a printer. If I put in something like Printer I get a bunch of generic sites on printers. Putting in a specific printer, such as HP PSC 1350, helps, but I get a bunch of people trying to sell me that printer. Since I'm looking for reviews and not a place to buy it, a search for HP PSC 1350 review -buy gets me even better results. There might be better searches still, but you get the idea: the more specific your search terms, the better your search will be. Google is good, but it can't read your mind.

Re:Guess I am Alone in this?

[norkakn]

Companies try to figure out how google ranks pages and then they try to get themselves ranked more highly

So, I don't really blame google for it, especially since I think that they are trying to help the problem and penalize people who try the tricks

Re:Guess I am Alone in this?

[ax_42]

Try adding "-buy -shop -shopping -auction" to the end of your search (without the quotes, of course).

Re:Guess I am Alone in this?

[stickyc]

It shouldn't have to read my mind. I should just be able to check a box to ignore commercial sites. Heck, if I could squelch epinions, bizrate, and amazon, that'd help oodles. It'd help more if I didn't have to add -buy -amazon -epinions -bizrate to every single query as well. I would think it would be in the industry's best interests to allow itself to be categorized like this. Maybe now that they have a froogle link on the home page, e-businesses and users will begin to target that more for sales and leave google for information.

Great

[Gandhian_Rage]

When are they going to start working on a filter that discards all the bogus pr0n sites that abuse PageRank (eg. hot-wet-teens-who-fuck-up-search-results.com)?

Personalized search is inevitable

[glinden]

Search engines currently use one highly optimized relevance rank for all users. The relevance rank functions have improved tremendously, but it is increasingly difficult to make further gains with a single relevance rank function because not everyone agrees on how relevant a particular page is to a particular search.

To get further improvements, you will need many relevance ranks. With enough different relevance ranks, search results effectively will be customized to each person's definition of what is relevant. At that point, you have personalized search.

Re:Make Safari not support Google

[cptgrudge]

I'm finding google less and less useful thanks to Google not being the slightest bit successful at fighting the companies tweaking their ranks...

That's right, blame the companies actually innovating new technology and leave the scum that take advantage out of it. That'll teach them to come up with new things. Any search engine will have tweaking problems once it reaches sufficient popularity as Google has.

Dangereous developments

[wondercool]

Mmm, I am a bit surprised that everbody is so enthusiastic about Google and all what the company does.

1) The de facto monopoly in the search market makes us all very vulnerable. Just like /. moderatio points, internet user will often overlook interesting links or think that if Google can't find it, it does not exist.

2) Google already knows a lot about what each IP address is interested in. With personalized items, it is going to be even more knowledgeable.
Could mean less diversity in the eco-internet advertising and information world.

Personally, I like to be surprised by some search results I did not anticipate (where are the they days of internet *surfing*?)

Tip from me, disable cookies on domain google.com For a bit of assureance...

Re:Dangereous developments

[KeeperS]

Google might be the big dog in the search market, but I'm not especially worried. Unlike certain other monopolies, if you have a problem with Google, there's absolutely no cost to switching. I hear there's plenty of other search engines out there. Privacy is an issue, but if you're not going to trust Google, I'm not sure why you would trust another search engine.

As for finding results you didn't anticipate, are you saying that you'd rather have less accurate results?

Re:Dangereous developments

[wondercool]

You are absolutely right, that there are more search engines. But nobody seems to use them.

That could mean 2 things:
1) the results from other search engines are not good or worse than Google. Or,
2) we don't know better than Google is our search engine, brainwashed after 4 years of googling.

I good be wrong but it seems slowly those ads come into Google. Slowly the once trusted search engine is selling it's soul. I wonder if we will change as Yahoo and others are not any better.

It also seems that Page Rank has had it's longest time, blogs and the advertisers have discovered how to beat it. Google bombing and whacking is standard nowadays...

Just some caveats, there is nothing better at the moment, but for me, no personalised searching. I don't want to state my preferences in life to a commercial company...

About accuracy, yes you are right, I guess if you search you want to find the most relevant link and not some 'noise'.

Re:Dangereous developments

[KD5YPT]

I would agree, but you must understand one thing.
Compare to other company, Google is doing very well.
I won't say Google is perfect (I would bet there are some website google didn't find), but at least they try to be. Secondly, the Personalized feature isn't mandatory, you can use it if you want or not.

Re:Dangereous developments

[KD5YPT]

I'm gonna have to counter that. "Selling out their soul?" How do you think Google can pay for their operation cost and make money if they're not going to have ad? They actually made it their point not to include flashy graphic ads already! How much more do you want? Persoanlly, I don't mind about those text ad. Speaking of selling out soul (I don't want to start a flame... but here goes), how about Slashdot? We have big flashy ads, but I don't hear people complaining. As for pagerank and advertisers trying to beat it. For one, blogs bomb it by accident sometimes, but that could be easily remedied in the future (create a "gray list" of blog sites, and user get to say whether they want blog result or not). As for advertiser, I don't think they're quite successful at Google bombing Google (they just make the webpage they're google bombing with on the black list... BANG, no more lousy advertisers, remember SearchKing.com lawsuit?).
As for your argument how other search engine got neglected, how about Google when they start out? They got where they are now through their reputation alone, doesn't that count for something?

Re:Dangereous developments

[doorbot.com]

The de facto monopoly in the search market makes us all very vulnerable. Just like /. moderatio points, internet user will often overlook interesting links or think that if Google can't find it, it does not exist.

Well, considering the knowledge of most "internet users" I would guess that if Google can't find it, it might as well not exist (from their perspective).

And, at the risk of offending, let me make this perfectly clear: If the average user can't find something through Google (or any search engine), how else are they going to find it? Randomly typing in URLs until they stumble across the one they wanted? If there are billions of individual pages on the Internet, one user searching for one particular page is going to have one hell of a time finding it if that page isn't indexed by a search engine at some point in time.

Re:Dangereous developments

[wheatking]

...and the amida simputer (covered elsewhere on /, recently) has a hardwired google button -- for all those users, if it doesnt turn up on google, it doesnt exist... "Google Integrated: Google is just about every Internet user's favourite way to find new websites. Which is why Amida's Internet Browser has a one-tap hot-button to take you straight there"

Re:Dangereous developments

[VisiX]

Loosen the chin strap on your tinfoil hat.

Other languages' sites

[melendil]

Seems not to work properly with non English words. When I look for pages in other languages, I can't find them with my profile. Maybe it's becaouse I'm not searching German nor French words (I don't know those languages), but words in not common languages.

Redesign? No, just a MINOR TWEEK!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

recently announced UI redesign

Actually, hadden't noticed it. The "changes" are so insignificant, I'm not sure how it can be called a "redesign".

Re:Redesign? No, just a MINOR TWEEK!

[kaiynne]

You obviously don't visit google 50 to 100 times per day.

Re:Redesign? No, just a MINOR TWEEK!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

You obviously don't visit google 50 to 100 times per day.

No, I guess I need to get a life because I only visit Google 20 or 30 times a day.

Re:Very Strange

[nomso]

I just tried the same. I tried User agent: Windows MSIE 6.0 and Mac MSIE 5.22

Drag the slider (above) to the right to personalize results. Personalized results are marked by (symbol)

What I found was that the slider thing doesn't work perfectly: it seems that there is a misalignment on the position of the slider.
If I however use the Mozilla user agent, it works perfectly.
Funny that. They are probably compensating for a poop in the MSIE code.

Debug info: Mac OS 10.2.8, Safari 1.0.2 (v85.7)

Old school Google 534|2(|-|

[BrGaribaldi]

If any of you are missing the way google looked last week you can still use Hacker Google at: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-hacker&ie=UT F-8

Re:Old school Google 534|2(|-|

[MrTheBunny]

n0, 4c7u4|y, 7h3y u9d473d 7h47 |00k 45 w311. :)

Oh my god!

[Anonymous Coward]

you /.-ed google, you bastards!!!

Google Sets

[jaaron]

Google Sets rocks.

Though, you have to check out the results for "Yes, No, Maybe". If you've read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you'll know what so funny about the results. :)

It don't work

[Laith]

I went in a tested it.
personalization "Robotics"
searched for home built
1 robotics hit
many others
home-built chastity belts
home-built scram jet (I question that one)
home-built 2 meter amtateur radio (good link that one)
etc...

didn't seem very personalized to me

Google STILL does not work!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google still can't do error-free phrase searching. The litmus test for this,
"to be or not to be"
(entered complete with quotes)
turns up 2 bogus/irrelevant results in the first 10.

This is an obvious bug. Producing only the asked-for results should not be hard for a search engine.

Re:Google STILL does not work!

[KD5YPT]

I think the reason is that that phrase is used by other website with better link/connection (not link farm) with other websites, plus they might have updated quite frequently. I don't think Hamlet/Shakespeare website get updated a lot. Add another term such as Hamlet or Shakespeare gives you a good result on top.

Re:Google STILL does not work!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Add another term such as Hamlet or Shakespeare..."

But that is not what I wanted. When I search for phrases, I typically search for pages containing the exact phrase.

"I think the reason is that that phrase is used by other website with better link/connection (not link farm) with other websites"

That is clearly a bug and produces irrelevant results. If you read Google's own description of how it works, it says it produces results containing what you are looking for not, the irrelevant/sloppy "pages that link to pages containing something similar to what you want".

Re:Google STILL does not work!

[darien]

Informative??

This idiot troll (or one very much like him) has posted this complaint before. It's nonsense. The 2 "bogus/irrelevant" results are a site called "2Bee or Nottoobee" and one called "To Be Or Net To Be." That's clearly not irrelevant. Presumably people have been linking to these pages with "to be or not to be" and Google's picked up on it. In fact, I imagine a site which didn't feature the phrase at all could still come top of the list if enough people had read it and found it to be sufficiently valuable and relevant to that phrase to be worth linking to. Personally I think this is a major strength of Google: it finds things which are relevant even if the pages themselves don't emphasise your search term.

If this troll wants to be taken seriously he needs to come back and explain precisely how the current system is causing him problems. "It should be able to do a plain-text search" is not a meaningful complaint.

Searching Mailing Lists

[jaaron]

what they need is a new section 'google mailing lists'

You mean like The Mail Archive or MARC?

Or if you like a newsgroup view of mailing lists there is always Gmane

This does not bode well...

[ajutla]

I like Google precisely because it doesn't have creeping featuritis like Yahoo or portal sites. I go to google.com, I type something into the box there, bam, I find what I'm looking for. I don't need a personalized search! I don't need to search for images within Google news; I don't need five billion options on the main page telling me I can "personalize" Google. I just want simplicity.

Re:This does not bode well...

[bmantz65]

I agree, but some people feel they can get things easier if its personalized and in one place. I never go to My Yahoo page because I get better content at different places then what I can choose to have one web page on Yahoo.

AC makes a disturbing point:

[Anonymous Coward]

the generation of "crack babies" the media warned us about in 1985 are just coming of age to vote. And post on slashdot!

Re:Google Accounts? When

[value_added]

"Why can't I say that I don't ever want to see PDFs?"

Maybe "-filetype:pdf" ?

For more info, do a ... Google search.

Is this filtered?

[jonhuang]

Search for 'Naked', search for 'sex' -- even with preferences set to minimum, porn doesn't turn up. That's actually an excellent feature.. but a little surprising. Actually, the first 10 results have a very "yahoo" hand reviewed look to them.

Re:Is this filtered?

[st0rmshadow]

Sorry, all I got from that sentence was hand reviewed naked porn sex.

Needs more languages, but looks good

[Zarhan]

This is going to be a real killer app for me, as soon as they add more languages besides english.

Lot of my searches are in my own language, that is Finnish. Naturally, they cannot really guess what pages are related to computers or astronomy (my interests) when they are not in english.

For example, when I search for "Austin" I get (depending on the slider) either the city page for Austin, TX or the local astronomy society. For my hometown of Tampere, Finland I get either the town page or Tampere University of Technology (because it has pages in english). My local club is not listed.

Hope that they will add more languages soon.

I need a Personal Google, not personalized google.

[-tji]

I use Google constantly.. This works great for the huge amount of information available on the Internet.

Then, when I need to find some personal data.. something lost in the dark recesses of my hard drive, I realize just how much easier it is to find public data than personal data.

I need a personal google search engine that will run on my linux server, and index all my garbage, including:

- My gigabytes of mailbox files
- Doc's from work, Word, PowerPoint, Excel.
- Text files, PDF docs, HTML files.
- C code.. maybe?

Wake me up when they can handle regexps...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember AltaVista used to be able to handle
the "*" wildcard, and had the NEAR operator.
When is Google going to support Perl-like
regular expressions?

And yes, I know this is hard, but cute new icons
are hardly impressive.

Re:I got stoned with my mom...

[Anonymous Coward]

as opposed to...

mom stoning her children

Can you differentiate NET from .NET yet?

[Kazoo the Clown]

The only thing that has stymied me on Google is the periodic need to include a period as a critical portion of the search term-- doesn't matter how you quote it as far as I can tell, the period symbol gets edited out. Now and then, it's a crucial filter on the search term...

Google pages

[paithuk]

It says on Google's website that they are currently caching 4285199774 pages... I was just wondering whether they're scared to go over 2^32, Millennium bug all over ;-)

Needs Javascript... Arggghhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for visiting Google's Personalized web search! Unfortunately, you
must have javascript enabled for this product to work correctly. Enable javascript for your
browser and then come back to try out Google's Personalized web search product.

Re:Wish: Google Groups -- Where # of Posts n

[Anonymous Coward]

You could try looking for "Re:" in the subject?

Google having a parking lot party today, too.

[Leomania]

A buddy just told me over lunch that while he was driving past the Google facility in Mountain View, CA he saw they were having one heck of a party. He said it looked a lot like one of those "We're gonna IPO" parties.

Or maybe it was just a "Happy Monday" party. Yeah, that must be it.

- Leo

Kaltix

[Nalez]

(Note that it probably uses technology acquired when they bought Kaltix last year)

The google image name is google_kaltix_results.gif so thats a good hint that it is from the Kaltix technology

Re:Kaltix

[MBraynard]

Good eye; I saw that too.

MSN smacked down again

[bangular]

Everytime MS tries to push their search engine forward, google smacks them down like a couple of bitches.

Browser problems?

[anubi]

On my system, I am seeing the text of the search results overflow to the right onto the sponsored links area. Then upon scrolling the page up and down, the text gets snipped off as the sponsored links area overwrites it.

I know this is probably something to do with my old Netscape 3 browser, but the later browsers seem so bloated I haven't wanted to mess with them. As another thread on Slashdot was discussing, I considered Netscape 3 good enough and never messed with updating it.

Re:Browser problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

This post has got to be a joke. Nobody in their right mind still uses Netscape 3. You might as well use lynx. You are also the nightmare for any web designer who wants to use CSS or any standards for that matter.

Re:Browser problems?

[anubi]

No joke, and I did not intend to troll.

It is quite true I still browse around with the Netscape 3 / Proxomitron / ZoneAlarm combo. I tried some other browsers, Opera was the only other one I liked. I tried to use the later Netscape and ( God Forbid, IE ) and just got plastered with popups. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. There is a lot of stuff I had just as soon not see.

Its been my observation that once the browsers passed a certain point, further "improvements" were done for the benefit of the business advertiser and marketing data-gatherer, with such "improvements" coming at the expense of my bandwidth and privacy. Given the choice of having my old car, which I control, or a fancy new car which gets permission from its maker everytime I want to go somewhere, and its always telling its maker where I go, I will take my old car.

No Safari Support

[crackshoe]

yes. sez it may work if you set your user sometyhing to mozilla. i assume that they'll fix it by the time its actually finished.

Searching predefined sites

[FrenZon]

Bit of self pimping:

Similar to the personalized search, I built a bookmarklet+backend to allow you to easily build a list of predefined sites, then search just those sites.

It was built after noticing that certain sites generally hold all the results I want (eg experts-exchange, wikipedia and libsdl.org), and allows me to cut a whole lot of crap out of my search results.

Re:MODERATORS!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of bullshit. He posts a two word bullshit troll post and he deserved his mod. There is not feature bloat since the traditional search engine works just the same as always. Actually it is more efficient because they got rid of the extra crap in the new design. The other stuff is just bonus.

Google's Directory / dmoz is dead

[Psychic Burrito]

I'm reposting this here because it's important:

Dmoz is dead. I myself was rejected about 5 times in the last 4 years. But the really important point is
- quality went down, way down
- the way dmoz works is against changing stuff quickly
- there is no peer review. Once you're an editor, you can pretty much do what you like. There is a master-subordinate system at work though so your category's parent's editor can control you, but this is wrong on so many levels:
a) those people are often lazy
b) those people can't look after everything
c) the system makes people eager to climb the ladder as fast as possible instead of working on things
d) leads to building of factions that work for each other.

In short, the basic rules of dmoz automatically lead to the mess we've got now.

But the biggest problem is: there is nothing better at hand, so Google and dozens of other website use its still the best thing around yet really bad.

I'd suggest to build something new along these lines:
- wiki-style editing to ensure fast updates
- slashdot-style modding to ensure good + fair quality
- meta-discussion forums to argue wheter any entry/mod/move/category-creation is correct with polls to decide otherwise
- Various anti-spammer/anti-troll methods, like relying on metamod-karma to ensure a safe and fair operation
- A final editorial team that gets out of the way in 99,99% of all cases, but tries hard to keep stop spammer from taking over the platform by constantly reworking the platform (like Slashdot, too).

Sounds interesting? Any work in this direction already on track? Somebody interested in starting it?

(old message here, posted earlier today 3 hours after topic went live and nobody commented on it - but we all know that on slashdot 3-hours-old topics old are old news :-/)

Re:Google's Directory / dmoz is dead

[Ingolfke]

No doubt the first submission to this new site would be goatse.cx

And it would be accepted and filed under petting zoo?

Re:Google's Directory / dmoz is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me the Wikipedia people have a pretty good model. Perhaps you should suggest Wikidirectory to them as another type of Wikibook.

Later they might make a DMOZ compatable export format.

Re:Google's Directory / dmoz is dead

[danila]

Actually one can start doing the directory with Wiki as it is without changing the engine. You don't really need a badass database backend if all you need is categories and name/link/description items. The freeform structure of the articles also allows for better flexibility in presenting and organising the results. After all, it is no longer enough to just list the search engines, today one may need to write several paragraphs to introduce the reader to each group of search engines and to their S&Ws.

clap clap clap

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome back.

Re:Google Accounts? When

[startup.cmd]

Good idea, but "-filetype:pdf" would have to be entered into every search query. A more permanent solution would be to create a Mozilla keyword bookmark with the url:

http://www.google.com/search?q=-filetype:pdf %s

Set the keyword to something like g, then type g search terms in the address bar and that should resolve the problem.

Another recent addition -- the ~ operator

[Jugalator]

I think that operator was quite lately added too.

If you type google ~directory, it will search on words similar to directory as well. Not only directories and so on, but also actual synonymous or semi-synonymous words like listings. Pretty neat and great to catch both singular forms and plural forms in one term. :-)

get fucked

[Anonymous Coward]

Personalised search spelt with a fucking 'z'? Yeah, I'm really going to be using that bullshit.

Re:I need a Personal Google, not personalized goog

[BigGerman]

To do just that in a small company environment, try enterfind

My preferences

[hgh]

After editing my profile, I checked to see what results would come up when I searched for 'news'. With minimum personalization the first entry was CNN. With maximum personalization the first entry was slashdot. Seems good to me.

The category chooser has a bug.

[Anthony Boyd]

If you go into a category that has 2 columns (in other words, you click a "more" link and a right-side column appears) and then you click options on the left column, the right column disappears. It's not a level 1 bug, totally recoverable by just clicking the "more" link again. But it's interesting to see a not-fully-debugged interface on Google.

How can they be so smart...

[dghcasp]

and not understand geography?

Click regions, then tell me how in the heck to select Canada?

We're not part of the united states... and despite the stereotype, we're not a polar region...

Central America gets its own check box... I guess being the second largest country in the world doesn't mean very much.

Re:How can they be so smart...

[KD5YPT]

There could be a possibility that the only way they can search for geography is through IP. And perhaps Canada and US shared so many IPs that Google can't distinguish it.
You can't look at physical geography. You need to look at Internet "geography".

Maybe they did list you under Polar region. Canada is pretty close to the pole (I think part of Canada is in the pole...). Maybe they include Canada because Polar region encompass so little population or internet, that they decided maybe including Canada can boost that number up. Then again, there's Russia... I don't see Russia... is it in Europe or is it in Asia?

Re:How can they be so smart...

[fyeles]

You are second largest only in size. Are you bigger than, say JAPAN in tech? Don't think so. FYI, I'm South African.

Where am I?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I wanted to limit my search to Canada only. WTF?! The polar regions get a nod, but no North American countries other than the US?!

I'm just glad they didn't list us as a U.S. state.

profiled "interests"

[bl8n8r]

where the hell is the pr0n checkbox?

numrange, hrm

[jcuervo]

That's one way to do ranges in Perl...

$\ = "\n";
for (0 .. 10)
{
print;
}

Thought that was interesting. *shrug*

numrange needs work

[Anonymous Coward]

tried the following search
female stripper 34c..36dd

got 0 results

The google news image search needs some work....

[wo1verin3]

I searched for Roxio and the pic is a box from Nero.

I know it was taken from one of the articles which talks about both... but still....

Just imagine the reactions...

[Woy]

... if it had been msn search offering this service!

Package Tracking!

[Cyno01]

I'm suprised nobody posted about some of googles other new features, like package tracking, which has been a godsend. With hotmail (i only use it for shopping online) screwing up links like it does, the tracking links in the confirmation almost never work, but i can just c&p the tracking number into the google bar in opera now and have my summary in 2 clicks.

Blame it on the rise of affiliate sites...

[Ayanami Rei]

there really aren't that many sites out there trying to sell you the product, but there are TONS of sites out there who are looking to cash in on some ebay and amazon referral cash, which spam search results with hundreds upon thousands of domains who only serve as thin proxy to the shopping sites. But google can't "tell" these are referral sites vs. a real online store since they're self contained and the magic goes on behind the scenes.

Google is trying undercut some of this business with "froogle". I hope it starts to erode the referral market, because then your search results will become much more informative.

Excellent quote

[Animaether]

"John Hummel has a fetish for Swedish schoolgirls with giganticly think eyebrows".

Maybe that'll end up here :
http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=John+Hummel& type=1

The key to not have search engines return results like that is by avoiding it being written in the first place ;)

Google's Logo!

[Sparr0]

And yet the logo is still a *GIF*. Ignoring the very nice possibility of making the shadows alpha transparent and doing away with the solid white background color (which looks out of place when I am using a brightness-inversion bookmarklet), there is still the much lamented patented nature of GIFs, as well as a size penalty. What are they thinking?

Filtering Domains

[tiny69]

It would be nice if you could personalize a list of domains to exclude from search results. This would make it easier to ignore domains that you know are useless (about.com) and filter out the growing number of link networks.

But you'll have to re-enter the preferences...

[ajdecon]

Every time you try to use this on a different computer, you'll have to re-enter your preferences: with no login or registration, your preferences are no more than a cookie.

Not implying this is a huge problem, but it does have a downside.

I think that is...

[Anonymous Coward]

... extremely interesting, very. Not sure why, but the odds are probably high against it. Reminds me of some program I was reading about that allegedly increased your psychic power by practicing against some random number generator thingee.

Kaltix

[Anonymous Coward]

The personalised search definitely uses Kaltix technology. The yellow ball in the slider is called "kaltix_ball.gif".

http://labs.google.com/images/gp/kaltix_ball.gif

Where is Google's "new web API"?

[tungwaiyip]

Where is Google's "new web API"? Following the link to the release notes, it shows a date of 2002 2002-08-30: Bug fix release for beta2.

Re:Where is Google's "new web API"?

[SKPhoton]

Click on download in step 1 and download the zip file in which you'll find the API.

Hey - what happened to Craig Silverstein?

[sushi5000]

He's not on the list of execs anymore!

Did Brin and Page fire their first employee?

What I'd want: link-back rating and cross-rating

[MickLinux]

Here's what I'd like: link-back rating, and cross rating.

Essentially, with link-back rating, I hit the Google Cache. However, at the top of the page, is a link "This is appropriate" / "This is inappropriate" / "Never show me anything on this domain [enter domain]."

Now, that gives me my own rating system. But my ratings are stored along with a public ID. If I want, though, I can also say "Include my friend's ratings at [60%][50%][...] strength, along with mine."

So now, the ratings come back with not only my own limitations, but the limitations of those I trust.

Of course, this might be too processor - intensive for even Google. But it might, alternatively, work with something that was locally based, and internet-sync'ed.

89.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Question is: Why search google anyway?

Blog search?

[Indomitus]

Whatever happened to Google splitting blogs off onto their own search? Sometimes I just want to search for what people have to say about certain products without having to wade through 5 pages of 'Buy XYZ Here!' links.

Re:Google's Logo! = GIF

[Fuzzums]

BTW FYI AFAIK the GIF patents will expire somewhere in this year.

pretty fast....

[xot]

Even though google uses a few thousand servers to manage the searches, the personalised search is still 'very' fast for a beta product.I guess beta for them means that its been tested for at least a year :-)
And i especially like pesonalise slider which gets all the personalised results.Thats what keeps these guys as pretty much the top search site ever.
PS : Ever heard of google getting slashdotted?

Re:Google's Logo! = GIF

[Anonymous Coward]

For the USA (where Google is), they already have. The patent expires in Europe and Japan in June.

Re:Wish: Google Groups -- Where # of Posts n

[Nimey]

Why not tell them that?

groups-support@google.com

Sure beats bitching where they won't find your suggestion.

Re:Google's Logo! = GIF

[Yottabyte84]

Already did in the US. Last year. Linkage

Re:Wish: Google Groups -- Where # of Posts n

[DrEasy]

Sometimes though, the lack of answers to a question can be just as informative: you know this way that just maybe nobody knows the answer to your question and that you're not alone in being stuck...

That or the question was so stupid nobody bothered to answer of course ;-)

Better examples

[jesser]

Putting * at the beginning or end of a phrase doesn't do much. Better examples of how to use * as a wildcard word.

Home Page...No Tabs!

[RazorX90]

When I went to Google today and the tab things weren't there, I freaked out. I mean, I didn't know wheatear to think the apocalypse had finally come or what! So after not finding anything about the home page alteration on Google, I crawled to a corner and curled up into the fetal position until I just had to have my /. fix and found this article telling me everything was going to be OK.

Thanks /. for saving my sanity!

That personalization

[Anonymous Coward]

of google is very, very very, VERY COOL. WOW!

Firefox Search

[tyldis]

To use this with search field in Mozilla Firefox, edit the file google.src in the searchplugins folder of your Firefox installation.

Make the action field look like this:

action="http://labs.google.com/personalized/sear ch "

Restart Firefox and wee!

My complete google.src (note: remove whitespace before the ending " as /. insists on adding it):

# Mozilla/Google plug-in by amitp+mozilla@google.com
# Modified to fit Google Labs Personalized search

<search
name="GoogleP"
description="Google Search Personalized"
method="GET"
action="http://labs.google.com/personalized/search "
queryEncoding="utf-8"
queryCharset="utf-8"
>

<input name="q" user>
<input name="sourceid" value="mozilla-search">
<inputnext name="start" factor="10">
<inputprev name="start" factor="10">
<input name="ie" value="utf-8">
<input name="oe" value="utf-8">

<interpret
browserResultType="result"
charset = "UTF-8"
resultListStart="<!--a-->"
resultListEnd="<!--z-->"
resultItemStart="<!--m-->"
resultItemEnd="<!--n-->"
>
</search>

Trust

[talaphid]

Privacy is an issue, but if you're not going to trust Microsoft, I'm not sure why you would trust another operating system.

The search is cool...

[Snaller]

....but the new interface sucks - god i hate that shit, why do they always have to change things for the sake of changing them..

Re:Very Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that. They are probably compensating for a poop in the MSIE code

yes, this beta software doesn't work in a browser used by a small number of people, obviously, it's Microsoft's fault.