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iGoogle Users Irate About Portal's Changes
bhhenry sends in an InformationWeek report on a recent unannounced change in the iGoogle portal. Quoting: "Google insists that its revised iGoogle personalized home page generates better 'happiness metrics' than the old design, but a vocal group of users isn't happy about the changes." The recent change introduces what Google refers to as "canvas view," which the Official Google Blog claims "... makes iGoogle a more useful homepage and a better platform for developers." Unlike the last major change made to Gmail, there is no option to revert to the old version of iGoogle. iGoogle users are reporting that widgets and themes are broken, Gmail attachments don't work, and valuable screen space is wasted. The Personalizing Google section of Google Groups is full of thousands of complaints about this sudden and unannounced change. Many posters have have stated that they are using the Canadian or UK version of iGoogle or even moving to NetVibes.com to get their preferred layout back. It seems that Google and Yahoo are moving in lockstep in springing forced changes that users hate.
Firewire, Y! Profiles, and now iGoogle. What is the world coming to?!? ;-)
What do you mean the cake is a lie. Google lied to me??? So much for 'don't be evil'...
i do not use igoogle, but just checked out my page, and it looks like i remember it looked last time i looked at it, over a year ago (i'm guessing on how long ago that was ...).
am i missing something here?
Live whiners? Why not!!
iGoogle users iRate iGoogle an EPIC FAIL?
Irish Google seems to be the old style for now, too.
http://www.google.ie/ig
uh, didn't they do this weeks, if not months, ago? I've had the side tabs layout for a loooong time now anyway.
I don't really use iGoogle because I found the previous interface clunky - so unless I am not seeing what others are I think I will hence use iGoogle more often...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I'm bailing on iGoogle, moving on to 43marks.com
i need something trivial and pointless to bitch about, minor layout changes in websites are infuriating
I have to agree about the wasted screen space. Now that they have that bar on the left (with the links to all your pages items), it makes the home page itself quite a bit smaller. And, I don't want to have to click on each one of those items to see them in their full glory. I liked the home page to have quick bits of information and I could deicde what I wanted to read.
Hopefully they will listen and let users revert back.
...news at 11.
Welcome to the future of cloud computing. This is what it means to give up control of your software for the convenience of a net-based service.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I noticed my iGoogle page changed very briefly the other day, but now it's back to normal... except now "Gmail" is called "Google Mail". Perhaps that's because I set the language to UK. :P (I'm Australian.)
I would be one of those unhappy about the change - tabs migrated from top to the left side (*). It added nothing new to the page while added something (occupying precious screen space) what I do not like.
Overall the change is bad. It is bad mostly because it is not optional. I spent half of an hour to try to put my tabs where they were before, but found no such option.
And since most of the Web sites are still not wide screen compatible, resizing my window wider is really annoying: on other sides I start to see more of the empty side bars. And it's not that on google.com/ig the space is occupied by something I need...
It's not the end of the world, but the change is bad.
(*) Also I think left-handed people would have preferred the tabs on right side of page. But you can't move them, you can't remove them.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Google was even asking for beta testers.
I think the new iGoogle has some problems, but it's generally better than the old one. I don't think Google should have switched over yet.
Everybody complains about Google and Yahoo, interesting that nobody complains about the changes made my Facebook.
It's a free service. You get what you pay for.
Self awareness - try it!
They've since been forced to revert the RSS changes that got rid of the plus icon in widgets such as the /. summary, which is good. It looked awful with the first 20 words thrown in there with the title, you couldn't get any information from that and it just cluttered the screen.
That aside, my biggest remaining complaint about the interface itself is the side tab. They also expanded my weather widget so it takes up about 4x the screen space. It's fine for users that like to go crazy about their homepage, but for me the most useful widget is the simple "Bookmarks" one, that I use the most. All these other changes just clutter up my screen.
If people actually USE more than 1 tab, sure, give them side tabs, but why the hell do I have to have a side tab WHEN I'VE ONLY GOT ONE TAB TOTAL. It's completely useless, and there's no way to revert. It massively changed the formatting of my 3 columns, so they are far more "squished" in now and extend farther vertically.
In fact, the worst part about the side tab is it makes the default text in the movies widget TOO LONG. The line that includes the movie theater, times, and a "more >>" button extends onto the next line by a mere ">>", meaning three MORE lines of wasted vertical space.
And what annoys me about the gmail widget is that it "sticks" to the email popup even after you change the page. What, am I not trusted enough to know when I'm done with an e-mail by navigating away from the homepage? Why do I need to be visually assaulted by it every time I click "HOME" in my browser bar, instead of actually going to my full HOMEpage.
Why do I need a popup on the same page anyway? If I want to check my e-mail, what's wrong with the old way, where it actually opened up GMAIL to check GMAIL messages. It makes it much more of a hassle to check more than one message at a time compared to the old way.
Overall though, the thing that pisses me off the most about it is that there's no way to go back. Oh, and thanks for the tip about google.co.uk, I will be using that site for my homepage from now on.
I commend the wisdom of the Daily Mash on this topic: Carnage As Facebook Moves Everything Slightly To The Left.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There's an obvious pattern emerging here. The same "outrage" with the New Facebook, Yahoo! Profiles, and iGoogle? I think the bigger question is whether or not these UI overhauls are actually "outrageous," or whether users are just extremely opposed to change.
And if these changes are really so horrible (or even if they're not), what purpose do they serve - to improve upon a service that users don't want improved upon? It could just be a vocal minority. On the other hand, what's the point of user feedback when it gets blatantly ignored? All three of the sites I mentioned have been pretty hard-asses about users accepting these changes in stride.
And therein lies the difference between software that runs on the user's local computer, under the user's control, and software that runs in the cloud, under the service provider's control.
Google is a private company. They can make changes they believe will make their offerings better.
If they do make a mistake, it is entirely up to them to do so.
so complain, yes. However if you are using a free service, you can only hope they will listen.
tsk tsk
One of the users quoted in the article wasn't angry about tabs being on the side. He was angry about tabs plain and simple. My iGoogle page always had tabs! People like to complaing for every silly little thigns these days. I'm getting used to that, but they should at least make some sense.
Is it just me or is a canvas view a vertical menu bar, containing duplicate information, taking up, taking up precious real estate? Insane. Hopefully, the Firefox plugin, CustomizeGoogle will remove this garbage.
I like the new iGoogle. People always complain about these kind of changes instead of just letting it sit for a while!
"I'll just keep using these sites and those who can't stand the changes can go elsewhere."
Or start using Greasemonkey.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Anyone know why they took "hide preview" away from the Gmail gadget? On the Gmail gadget's blog, almost all the comments are complains about this change. I've stopped using it because of this. It might now seem so important at first glance but I think a lot of us use iGoogle as our homepage and leave our browser on it. I don't want someone passing by to glance at my email. When I click and go to Gmail, there's only a brief period when someone can pass by and see it. Knowing this, I would only check my email when I have some measure of privacy. However little that privacy is, it's better than none. I'm not trying to guard against intruders or determined snoopers. I just don't want innocent glances reading my email.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Now Google is thinking with portals.
less complaining and more solutions. I was forced into the "new" igoogle just like everyone else and to my shegrin I found no option to toggle on/off or revert just like everyone else. Then less than 3 minutes after I decided that it sucked I found the "rockmaster's igoogle sidebar collapse" userscript here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/30414 and I stopped bitching unlike everyone else. Enjoy.
I saw the new layout and will admit that some of the changes are good. Being able to maximize the gadget and get a view similar to the full website is great, but after playing with it for a little bit I found two things that I cannot do: 1. Move items from one tab to another. I'm sure it is there, but the old drag-n-drop method did not work for me. 2. View labeled emails in gmail. Yes, technically you could not do this before, but you could click on the gadget title and bring up the full gmail client. Now you click the title, get a maximized view (without labels) and then have to click on the Open Full Gmail link. I'm sure I will get use to it over time, but finding bugs like those above means it is not really ready for prime time yet.
A Greasemonkey script that does this:
document.getElementById('col1').style.display = 'none';
should get rid of that troublesome tab on the left.
... and it doesn't show the correct channels at all. There needs to be a way to customize it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They have rendered my homepage almost entirely useless in one fell swoop, to the point that I am actively looking for something new (meanwhile I have to use the UK site: www.google.co.uk)
The worst part? They are doing this with developers in mind more than users. Some Google article I was reading discussed advertising and developer freedom instead of user experience, with a couple of vague mentions of "happier users." I don't want to sound like Marx or anything, but this switch was to make the powerful minority happy instead of the masses. I would be pissed if they snuck ads onto my widgets - I already click on plenty of search and text ads!
The ironic thing is this is one of their only truly "beta" products, and it's one of the few not labeled so.
On the whole, I enjoy the changes. I just really wish there was a way to turn gChat off. I know you can stay logged off, but I'd really like to be able to get rid of it entirely.
Log-in to iGoogle through www.google.co.uk and enjoy...at least until Google forces the new layout on UK users.
The new sidebar, weather gadget, and Gmail preview take up too much space, even on my 24'' monitor.
And what I like is that Google actually gives you choice. If I don't like their GMail interface, I use my email client. If I want information snippets, I can put some widgets on my desktop. If I do a Google search, I just enter "gg" in my address bar followed by a query. If someone makes a Google calendar, I can give a URL to my calendar application, and it will keep an up-to-date copy.
Of course it's sometimes convenient to use the web version, but is that really a bad thing?
(I know there are some companies that don't offer choice, but Google is actually pretty decent)
happiness metrics
It's a Sunday night at home, I've just finished a Linux kernel compile and now doing a bit of PERL scripting with the occasional look at Slashdot.
Then someone starts speaking like my manager at work... SHUDDER!!!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I'm not a fan of the change because I do not use the tabs. Instead of complaining, I created a greasemonkey script to remove the tabs.
I don't like it either, fwiw. It does take away space on the page to try to cram in the existing widgets. Everything feels very cramped now and looks horrible.
-Kinsey
...when you can't commit changes to fix things?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Just make your own web page if you dont like the igoogle one. Embedding google search in one you make is easy.
For fucks sake, I've never heard so much bitching about free software and services in my life.
Unfuckingbelievable.
You don't like it? Move on. For every one of you who gives up your precious Burger King "I want it MY way" skinned interface/lifestyle on iGoogle, they'll be 10 more discovering it tomorrow to replace you.
Damn, it only seems like yesterday when I was making fun of those glued to AOL who couldn't manage to find anything online without using both hands and a "keyword".
Thanks Google, for taking the 'Net to a whole new level of addictive retardation.
Now, excuse me while I go check my Gmail.
Isn't this the say layout they used before going to that lovely interface with the links on the left side? I really liked that one and thought I had borked something to get it to revert back to this, or perhaps they reverted the server when they were working on the big gmail snafu recently sine I noticed the change right after that made news. A "revert to previous style" link would have been nice, as they did when they rolled out the side-tabbed one. But seriously, it's not the end of the world.
This, the Yahoo change yesterday (which just seems like a silly thing to hate), and a million other things like nerfs in MMOs all go to show that there is an inherent disadvantage when one moves from local, "single player" experiences to "clouds." In doing so, the user gives up control. There are advantages to using an internet-hosted service, obviously, but those who want to take advantages of the portability this affords should get used to the threat of serious changes coming down without warning.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
... movable like everything else. Also make them configurable vertical, square, horizontal. Problem solved!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a regular user of iGoogle I find the revamp horrifically bad. My biggest three complaints are:
Frist, the left tabs waste real estate.
Second, the gmail widget is so broken now as to be unusable.
Third the whole "expand a widget to fill the screen then save the state stuff" is ridiculously bad design and ruins the usability of the site as a whole.
All that said, it's pretty clear that this is an example of developers doing something cool because they can not because it is useful in any way. In fact, it completely ruins the usability but as a developer myself I can see how some of it is very technically "neat". Unfortunately they destroyed usable in favor of neat. This is why developers need architects and designers to direct what they build and make sure it aligns with user needs. Purely technically driven development, while fun and cool, often leads to high quality but useless products. It is rarely as useful as when the various disciplines work together to produce something of both quality and value.
...it's still in beta, like everything else at Google.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I was not one of those people who followed the beta testing and wheel out of iGoogle. I discovered it one afternoon when I tried to reload iGoogle from that morning, it changed. When I expressed surprise, my coworker who uses Google.cn was like, umm, my iGoogle always looked like that.. I wonder if she is aesthetically blind or this was just a migration.
.0001% of its population. I will admit, though, it might have been nice to offer a) the option/ability to revert, b) left-hand navigation minimization
:P
But do you imagine that everyone would like changes? Thousands of annoyed users might sound significant except when we consider the millions? of iGoogle users. Google isn't going to base it's decisions on
To be honest, I am one of the happy users with this interface. I do not think the navi takes up such a significant part of the screen and on my laptop real estate is an issue. I do not understand why ppl dislike how the GMail gadget operates because the last one was about intolerable. Privacy is an issue? I would have top open a tab to read an email, in order to keep iGoogle open, and it would occupy larger, more obvious/readable screen area than its behavior does now. How huge is your monitor and font that someone could innocently glance part of the 1st line of your email body? Do all of your friends open emails with "f#(k1n $h1t!!!"? What am i missing?
As for updates- Adobe, Firefox and iGoogle routinely clash anyway. Stuff breaks, they fix it. Ppl complain that things don't work as though we should believe that this would be a permanent situation. Give them a minute, get some air. It will work, and probably, in short order.
"Moral indignation is just jealousy with a halo."
Haven't you people learned anything yet about sniffing out true motivations, even the usually obvious corporate variety? The key phrase here that identifies Google's motivation here is "... and a better platform for developers." Did you notice that Google doesn't say "more useful homepage for users"? That's probably because it's more useful to developers and Google itself rather than end users.
That's why the changes have been rammed down users' throats: they're not for the benefit of users but rather for the benefit of Google and its partners in evil.
I prefer the update, everything looks clear on my page than it did before, the over all feel of the site is good and the improvements to the gmail section are also welcome.
A while after Google purchased Dejanews, they changed to format to something much more awkward... I think to promote their own Google Groups, which as far as I know haven't really ever taken off. For a while, you could log into Google Groups in other countries to access the old format, but it was like chasing a tiger; eventually, they converted every country over to the clumsier format. It's the only time I ever emailed a complaint into google.
Complaints won't help on this issue if Google is doing this as some sort of strategic business plan; when they deliberately screw something up, it is no doubt with the intent of forcing consumers to act a certain way, or to promote one of their services that normally wouldn't get used. When enough of that sort of stuff accumulates, Google will go the way of Yahoo, and another upstart company will take their place.
Am I missing something because my Google ig page looks the same as it always has or is that because I'm using google.co.uk?
Haven't really used iGoogle all that much. Had a layout that I liked and decided to log back in and see what the fuss was about. Some of the widgets didn't quite work right -- so I deleted them ... and when looking for replacements. Found some and decided to keep looking through them to see what is out there. Very shortly I get this error (and can't do anything else right now):
Google Error
We're sorry... ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.
There's links there for the spyware and viruses which goes to CNet downloads for ... Windows applications. Too bad I like OS X for my GUI (and their widgets certainly don't cause me this trouble). Curiously I did a clamscan (anyway) and guess what ... found nothing as expected.
Bah. Bad Google. DO NO EVIL.
Didn't you get the memo: The cake is a lie.
If you don't like the new iGoogle, try replacing .com with .ca. the Canadian version of iGoogle has not has this "upgrade."
This may or may not work. But I use the Canadian iGoogle and have not noticed any difference.
Assuming that you are running a browser that works with greasemonkey, you just need to install Rockmaster's iGoogle Sidebar Collapse - http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/30414 And you can make it go away or come back whenever you want it.
Better than it was, but still some improvement to be made. Back when they force beta tested it I really hated it particularly because of the lack of the story expand and a contract option but they replaced it now so I am much happier but there is still room for improvement. At least they are listening in putting back features and making it more adaptable as they hear the complaints unlike those bastards at facebook.
Change happens, its a constant. Change is often good and people are certainly resistant to change but when it comes to computing there needs to be both a desire for change and a reason for change. If users are happy with a product, changing it in a way that makes them unhappy is stupid and unnecessary. Today so many technology companies seem to make decisions in some sort of a vacuum ignoring the feedback of their users and customers. This is completely backward strategy. If people were happy with iGoogle and then I would want to maintain that and support it if I were google, I would at least want to do a wide spread open beta test if I were going to make a sweeping change and I would want to base my changes on what the greater majority of my users want. Corporations are becoming more and more insulated from their customers and more and more indifferent to their wishes just as government is these day (see a connection there?). Its not good for consumers and its not good for business, well unless you have a monopoly that is and customer sentiment is meaningless to you.
ya, because finally being able to manage a gmail inbox or google calendar from iGoogle far better than before is a bad thing? Or even the web-games available for it, where selecting a particular game suggests others like it?
Ok, so I have 2 computers, one running Linux and the other XP. How is it that one of them is the old format and one is the new format, when they are both logged into the same account? Is it only targeted towards linux? I spoofed the headers on linux to appear like Vista, but it's still the new layout.
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
From a UI standpoint this change is pretty awful. I have one tab, and now it occupies a big portion of my screen, giving me links to gadgets that are already open. Another thing is that minimize gadget button doesn't minimize anymore. Instead it brings up a context menu. For claiming to want to save clicks, they really didn't think that one through
The layout wastes space and is only marginally usable when doctored to death with greasemonkey.
gmail is broken: instead of launching the gmail application, it now launches a mini app that's crippled: no save capability, no autosave, etc..
An otherwise productive Monday will now be spent trying to find a substitute home page. And frack, my RSS newsreader is Google Reader, so I guess that's gone too.
Get off my lawn.
This was exactly my first thought, as well.
If you really like the interface and find, say, Office 97 does everything you need it to do--you can just keep using it.
But if any part of your program (whether it is a word processor, a game, or even an OS) or your data (be it emails or a movie) resides somewhere else, you are not in control and "upgrades" will eventually be forced on you, whether you want them or not.
This is a good "for example" to point out when people talk about the magical wonders of AppleTV or BluRay's online components or what have you. Sadly, this is seen by many companies as a possible alternative to DRM--just forcing everything to have an online component, so your programs (if they reside on your computer at all!) are calling home every five minutes.
This is a problem with the user more than the supplying company. If the person doesn't stay current and accept change, they will always have this problem regardless. How long can you keep your Windows 98 running the version of MS Works that you like before you are forced to upgrade to a version of the OS that doesn't support it? Software is never under your control simply because it's not made around YOU, but rather the entire client base.
I've used the American version for a long time, simply to get those changes.
Only in this way is there enough room for gmail and reader inside igoogle.
I love it. I can now delete mail from the homepage. All my things work still- i have no idea what weird things other people are using.
With all the widescreen computers today, who could possibly say having the tabs on the left doesnt make sense?
Seriously? People are starving and this is the best rant you can come up with? Did your FREE homepage operator decide to try something different without asking you... you don't like it? FINE don't use it! Trust me the 300 people who stop using igoogle won't even scratch big G's bottom line. Grow up and deal with the fact that other people might see things differently.
People hate change, news at eleven.
I've been using iGoogle since forever. I switched to the new developer's sandbox as soon as they made it available for users. I didn't really like it that much. I used it for some time, realized I didn't need some of the new functionality, and just modified an available Greasemonkey (Firefox) script to get a hybrid layout with the best of both worlds. Now that the new version is live, and many users are complaining, I guess some will take similar action.
At the end of this Portal there's cake.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
The layout wastes space and is only marginally usable when doctored to death with greasemonkey.
gmail is broken: instead of launching the gmail application, it now launches a mini app that's crippled: no save capability, no autosave, etc..
An otherwise productive Monday will now be spent trying to find a substitute home page. And frack, my RSS newsreader is Google Reader, so I guess that's gone too.
Bitch, Piss, Moan, and Complain. Four qualities I now know you excel at.
To be quite honest, I expected a bit more from a /. user.
And quit trying to fool us about your "productive Mondays", it's Sunday and where are you posting?
I love the new Facebook, like the new iGoogle (I even feel it uses the space more efficiently), love the new MacBooks, and didn't like Firewire anyways and am looking forward to USB 3.0. But I'm an open-minded individual who enjoys trying new things and improving things. I assume most people don't feel the same way.
How long can you keep your Windows 98 running the version of MS Works that you like before you are forced to upgrade to a version of the OS that doesn't support it? Software is never under your control simply because it's not made around YOU, but rather the entire client base.
I can keep it running as long as I have compatible hardware. Software doesn't expire. It's not like I can only install it five times and then it goes bad. Oh, wait...
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
For most people this is not blind resistence to change. Not so long ago they changed Google Docs completely and it was an improvement, people did not complain AFAIK. But this iGoogle switch is just plain bad. I am off iGoogle already and promoting alternative ways to the people I did convert to Google before.
But no software is supported forever. Especially corporate software. Once the vendor stops supporting Office 97, your organization will be forced to upgrade to the next version or try something else (generally speaking). This is one similarity between traditional software and SaaS.
I know you're talking in terms of individual-owned software rather than organization-owned. A SaaS analogy of your point could be that SaaS providers provide an option for users to keep using a particular version/snapshot of the software. The provider may or may not charge these users for usage of online resources(servers), but not for software updates/upgrades/support. I'm no expert, but isn't virtualization supposed to make this real easy?
The new igoogle layout is terrible. i Dont see how anyone can defend it. Theres huge wasted space all over the place now. and the weather app is now gigantic. they should have left the old design in place or at the very least let us choose between the two.
Most of the people here complaining about people complaining probably dont even use igoogle
There is about 15% of my screen width wasted. horizontal real estate is finite on a screen since no one scrolls right. The old design was a better one. Those 'happiness metrics' are not accurate. Who did they even poll? not me.
Some of my widgets don't work anymore. My favorite widget of all, the carp pond no longer has carp. Some of the other game widgets don't work. from what I've seen a lot of flash widgets don't work.
I'm, overall, not happy with the new design.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I think you've been sucked in. Your scenarios, such as accessing Gmail with an external e-mail client, is exactly the problem.
Analogy to Blu-ray player: you bought your own Blu-ray client (player), but it still fetches some of the data it needs from the Blu-ray content servers.
Gmail: you install your own e-mail client, but it still needs the data from Google's servers.
I'm no RMS fanboy, but this is exactly what he warns about when talking about cloud computing. It provides the illusion of you being in control, but really, it is dependant on the data coming in from an external source, which is not necessarily under your control, and is not necessarily an open system.
You won't be in control of your e-mail until you run your own mail server. And iCal server. And search engine.
you are all whiny baby sissy pants.
its fine. rearrange your RSS feeds and quit your bitchin. It's working better if you ask me.
It really pisses me off when something I use daily gets updated without my consent. And it has nothing to do with resistance to change. I'm still using KDE3 because 4 needs work - but on the other hand I'm running a beta Firefox that I had to compile from source. The point is, I get to choose when I upgrade.
I hope it works out, but I fear that this crapfest is the future of computing if this "cloud" thing catches on.
There is petition for "opt out" from this new design on: http://www.petitiononline.com/igoogle/petition.html
Previously, I loved the iGoogle design. The new stuff really drives me nuts.
Gmail always previews at least one e-mail. I had prefered to show 0 previews since I like to check iGoogle regularly and only want to review my e-mails when I am at home.
CNN, FoxNews, BBC, etc. are now way too wordy. Before, the amount of information was right for me. Now, each of these links is an eyesore.
The Sidebar is clunky. I am the type of person who had used tabs and had filled my "home" tab with three columns of information. Now, I have a sidebar that is overfilled with a list of each item that I cannot turn off.
In short, unless iGoogle changes back, I'm switching to NetVibes or MyYahoo.
Go to http://www.google.com.au/ig For now anyway...
If you want to return to the old iGoogle:
- go to google.com/ig
- paste this in the address bar:
javascript:_dlsetp('v2=0');
;)
I switched to protopage.com It took about half an hour to setup, but it works pretty good. It might be a good substitute for anybody looking for something that's like the old iGoogle.
In addition to the left margin hog reducing my real estate by 15 to 25% for links that are actively getting in the way, the last time I used iGoogle.com (U.S.) the length had more than tripled on mine (from 3+ pages to more than 10) and the headlines were difficult to scan because they are buried in the cruft. It wouldn't have been so bad if I could figure out how to turn off the summaries.
I decided I would use .uk or .ca until they, too, were forced to change, then I would find another service, but checking today to see how many pages their bloat had become, it looks like they have made the headlines-only mode possible again.
That was the worst part.
Quoting an old saw, though: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Or at least give your loyal customers the option to go back to the working version.
When something happens concerning technology, for every 100 people who see it I'm guessing that 20 really like the change, 60 neither like it nor dislike it, and 20 absolutely hate it.
Those twenty make it their life's work to spew on every blog and in every message board, making it seem like "EVERYONE" hates it, when in fact it's a small number of people who type fast and have a lot of time on their hands.
I saw the iGoogle changes. I liked how the gadgets looked but I disliked the wasted space with the Home tab. When I played with it a bit and saw how they designed it as an index to your gadgets, letting you "zoom in" on any one you wanted, I began to understand (I think!) why they made the changes they did. So I wound up not really loving it, but not really hating it either. I suspect that I am in the VAST majority, yet you will not see one one-hundredth of a percent of messages expressing the opinion that the changes are "just okay."
This is typical of the Geek Intelligentsia who consider the internet their personal playground, where all the cools kids like to say stuff sucks. Why? Because the cool kids know what the absolute best is for any given thing (just ask them!) and they're PISSED that the people making stuff don't come to them first and beg for design parameters, nor do the companies making the tech spring into action immediately an execute any changes the cool kids propose (demand!).
Furthermore, the cool kids are afraid to say that maybe they actually sort of LIKE something, or at least it doesn't suck, because then all it takes is for one other cool kid to say "No, man, that sucks!" and suddenly YOU suck by proxy since you didn't condemn it first.
The sad thing is, blogs and message boards have the potential to be a real grass roots wonder for dispensing information and collecting feedback. Instead, they're a platform for propaganda and a breeding ground for venomous children.
Yeah, I'm Anonymous. Kiss my ass. :)
I love the update. I didn't even notice the change until I clicked on a Gmail conversation, so the "massive wasted space" argument seems silly to me. It's really nice to have Gmail embedded in the page now, instead of opening in a new tab, something that bugged me a little come to think of it. Plus, the RSS reader is very improved with the ability to maximize widgets, as applies to the weather widget too. Basically, the update retains all the old functionality (minus bugs that active developers will surely fix in due time) and gives us some genuinely useful new features. Why the fuss?
I guess my question is, if iGoogle were originally released as the updated version stands, would there be all this hatred?
And therein lies the difference between software that runs on the user's local computer, under the user's control, and software that runs in the cloud, under the service provider's control.
It's only a "service" if it works in a way that's acceptable to The Customer. If it doesn't, it's incompetence or a bait & switch, ie fraud. A little melodramatic, I know, for a redesigned iGoogle page layout, but the reasoning that we ought to be grateful for corporate commodities that consistently function substantially below advertised quality is offensive. I'm just commenting on the reasoning, not the iGoogle story that it's applied to. The fact that funds are transferred via producers of other products, called advertisers in the online business model Google and others use, doesn't change who is ultimately The Customer.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
Thanks to everyone who mentioned using the UK version of iGoogle. I just made the switch :) Hopefully Google will notice users moving to different Google domains, put it together, and allow the user more options for their iGoogle homepage. I still can't believe they added that stupid lowercase "I" to the front either, and you think it'd been long enough for me to adjust.
Face it, people are hostile toward change. So am I. The real proof comes three months later when the complaints are gone from the news. At that point will everybody be settled into the change? Likely, even those who yelled about it. Last month the popular thing was to scream about getting the old Facebook back. Years back people were screaming they wanted Windows 95 back instead of the new Windows XP. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good points both for and against change. Ultimately things will change and it won't be at a rate you like or in a way you like. I suggest accepting the change and running with it, to focus the "screaming" energy into something more useful.
They turned a long time ago - why don't people accept that instead of modding me down as a troll?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Check it out on lifehacker: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/tips/2008/10/18/igoogle_sidebar_collapse_removes_the_new_igoogle_sidebar-2.html
I hated the change the minute it came out, and I still hate it. However I've achieved at least a statemate with it. First I started using the UK version which brought me back to the old way, which frankly did everything exactly correct. Except now my conversions are in metric, my suggestions are localized, etc - but that's a small price to pay to have the rest of it work the way it's supposed to. For those times I need to use the US version, I installed Greasemonkey on Firefox for the sole purpose of collapsing the left sidebar. And after a couple of days Google did finally put back the expandable RSS feed stories and got rid of the two line summary. So here we are a few days later and I've got a semi-working home page again. However it's one of those things that I never had to think about before, but now I have to babysit to see what else changes for the worse. This is not how a company is supposed to treat it's users. So much for "don't be evil".
In general, the bitching and whining is over something that's A) free (no "ads" do not mean you're paying for it, only that you have the opportunity to), and B) is perfectly optional (you're certainly not forced there). If you don't like it, whatever, if the majority of people _do_ like it (and it appears they do), then I don't see how the change was a bad idea.
Is this new iGoogle Gmail gadget using https when opening my emails?
I, like many, many others, can't stand the useless waste of space along the left side of the new igoogle.
So, as a firefox user, I installed a plugin called 'Remove It Permanently'. It was really easy to right click on the annoying blank space and nuke the entire bar into oblivion.
I did have to then open up RIP and set the change to affect anything google.com/*, but now my page looks more or less the way it used to albeit with more roundy corners.
bend like the reed
...and here was me thinking that I'd screwed up my igoogle by tinkering around with greasemonkey too much.
Well that was a wasted two hours. I guess I should read the blog more.
Damn.
There was a LONG LONG LONG thread on the Google discussion groups about this new interface when they forced many users into the Beta version. Of the hundreds of people who took the time to post, I don't think I read a single person who was happy with the change.
Many of us found a way to opt out of the experiment, much to our delight.
So apparently Google took all of those complaints (about 99% against the change, maybe 99.99%) and decided it was a good change because nobody threatened violence. Well, a couple did but the Google reps discounted them as fringe users.
So where is everyone moving too now that Google has decided that UI means User Interference.
-- Should there be smoke coming out of my CPU?
If you really like the interface and find, say, Office 97 does everything you need it to do--you can just keep using it.
Right up until the computer dies, and you find you can no longer buy Office 97, or 2000/XP/2003 for a new computer, and your old install media is corrupt (and not legal to use on a new computer anyway).
You are never in control when you use closed source applications, local or net-based.
Well, it is not really evil if Google conspirates with their partners to create a product so usefull that they'll have you hooked. For me "a better platform for developers" means that.
And, just for completeness, when MS was after "developers, developers, developers", that was also not evil. Most of their other actions were, this one was not.
Rethinking email
...I don't find myself affected by these sorts of changes, because I still take the old-school approach. I have a home page I wrote, hosted on a server that isn't going to change anything in my directory without my permission.
Sure I don't have any Web 2.0 coolness like live Gmail preview, but (a) it doesn't take more than a few seconds to fire up Thunderbird, and (b) I don't spend all my time complaining that the company offering me free crap on their search portal had the gall to make changes to the page I am not paying anything for.
Really. I find it pretty damn funny that so many people scoff at the idea of still having a "home page" and then scream bloody murder when Yahoo or Google make changes to the free home page they insist they don't need in the first place.
They forced this new interface on me a few months ago as a "beta" saying they were trying out a few new features. But despite repeated requests they would not change it back to the old system, or let me remove the side menu.
The problem with it is that the whole point of the canvas idea is an object based interface, but they then force a menu system on top of it, unnecessarily wasting space, and reneging on the entire point. Unless you have a truly huge amount of crap on your page, there is no need for that extra chunk of navigation.
My only hope is that now that they've pissed off a larger chunk of their user base, maybe they will listen and let us disable the damn thing. My voice alone wasn't enough. Which begs the question of why they bother to beta at all if they don't listen to the people.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
1. Design does not agree with the Google design style 2. Fonts and spacing on the new navigation are done sloppy and look novice 3. I really enjoyed the Tabbing up top. Google's search page is horizontally centered, placing the tabbing all the way on the left now undermines this design. 4. Too much content, too cluttered.
I don't use iGoogle or any portal, so I don't have an opinion as to whether or not the new or the old version is better. One thing I do know is that people hate change. Even if they made iGoogle a million times better, people would be crying and complaining.
This is why companies like Apple make very tiny and largely insignificant changes. Tech people like us complain about all the features that are missing and take way too many years to add. Instead, they just slowly add one tiny feature add at a time. They change enough to stay in the game, but not enough to make anyone upset. They also never make a change that will have people upset. Every change either makes people excited or at worst, people are indifferent towards it.
People hate change, even good change. To make the world a better place, people are going to have to suffer a lot of bad medicine. We have to force huge sweeping beneficial changes, and people are just going to have to get used to it. Otherwise, we'll stick with luddism forever.
Popular online service issues patch, loud whiners threaten to cancel, drown out happy users. Film at 11.
0 1 - just my two bits
I too have noticed that my comics widget gets screwed up by thier "widget suggestions". i haven't been able to read the first 5 comics since they did that. Maybe I just didn't read all the comments, but I know that just about every facebook user i've spoken to is very unhappy about the new facebook, in fact, people that like it seem to be in the minority? But what are people to do? Boycott, complain? Thus far none of it seems to be working for facebook. The groups are filled with people against the new facebook and whatnot..and there's not just one, no, it seems the very intelligent users can't feel one is enough, so there's about as many anti-facebook groups as there are users to go around. But facebook seems to be completely unresponsive about this. They've made no comments on the complains, they've changed NOTHING about the new site despite the fact everyone hates it and seem to be unresponsive to any options. They even went as far as to let people choose the old facebook if they wanted. It seems to be a case of, the new formats don't suck..but it's the fact there's a lot of widgets and layouts already based around an old format that won't work with the new...and it's hard to tell if the developers of the widgets are at fault or whoevers in charge of the backend of the site. I say it's partially irresponsible for a company to drastically change the backend of their site and cause things to break..wasn't it 10 years ago people actually, i don't know..TESTED things before they committed them to make sure the user expierences wasn't damaged? I say the biggest problem is the internet has gotten sold to corporate america more than anything..let's face it, these are the guys who've got the money to buy the servers and hire the people to do this...but just like any corporation, they're not going to do it becuase they care? Do you think these sites really care about thier users? No, they got a bottom line to care about, and if these new layouts let them get on 5% more advertising while pissing the users off...well..they're going to yield to the advertisers.... afterall, it's corporate america....you're expected to bend over upon entry.
There, I said it. I like the new version of iGoogle.
Why? Work has had my Gmail blocked forever now, even though it's one of the safest webmail options out there. All I could see on iGoogle is the first 9 subjects and senders.
Now. . . a nearly fully functional Gmail. Sure, I can't work with attachments, links, etc., but I can get information I need quickly without having to run offline and go to a wi-fi hotspot in the middle of the day.
It's a free service. Suck it up.
~EEE~
I think it is a step in the right direction. With more and more displays coming in widescreen it is a smarter use of screen area. horizontal menus take up precious real estate on your screen. vertical menus make more sense in the widescreen world.
Google and other web services better enjoy their ability to control your experience while it lasts, because the days of such control are numbered. Various technologies exist, though most in their infancy, to allow the user to customize their own experience and override the decisions made by the original providers.
In fact, ultimately, when providers decide to change their interface from something standardized, it will be merely perceived by the user as broken. Your home page may have elements of Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Slashdot, et. al., merged into the experience controlled by YOU, not by the content providers.
What's problematic about this is that these providers are supported by advertising, which most likely won't make it to the eyeballs under such a system. It is a problem, one that the providers are *already* beset with, as many of us currently do not see these ads.
I predict that what will happen eventually, is the ad revenue will have to either 1) be satisfied with access to only users of low sophistication who haven't bothered to reconfigure their experience, or 2) find ways of incorporating advertising into the content they provide [just let me put down this can of New Mango-Strawberry Coke so I can finish typing this...:-)]. More and more users will gain sophistication, and new capabilities will arise making it easier to customize your experience. As the subset of sophisticated users increases, the demand for standardized interfaces to available content will increase. Providers who insist on maintaining control of the presentation of their content will eventually end up marginalized-- "for dumb users only," or at least sandboxed or quarantined, cordoned off into an area reserved for rogue applications.
Even those who "own the phone" (iPhone, GPhone), are on borrowed time in that regard. Fully open phone systems are on their way, and will not be restricted as to what kind of applications they can run.
Many of you may whine "but these guys are supported by advertising! They'll go out of business, (blah blah woof woof)..." To that I say fine. Any company that thinks that I should give up my eyeballs so they can survive has another thing coming. They couldn't pay me enough to want to watch their ads. I've found ways to screen most advertising out of my life, and that's the way I like it. Take away a service, and I'll just find something else to do with my time. It's not like there's a shortage of things to do out there...
I would not have cared if they had at least told me they were going to do it. I just woke up and was like WHAT HAPPENED? I thought I had accidentally broken something. Even a tiny little notice at the top would have improved the situation.