Google's New Design

smitty777 writes "You may have already noticed some of the changes in Google as part of their multi-month design slam. These design changes include information architecture focus, seamless device integration, and simplifying a number of elements. According to the official Google blog, the changes over the next few months will affect Google Search, Maps and Gmail. The black navigation bar in place right now is also part of the Google +Project."

Comments

The cow goes....

[Anonymous Coward]

moo.

Back in white

[Anonymous Coward]

Greasemonkey script to change ugly dark grey to any color http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105735

Re:Back in white

[Anonymous Coward]

Greasemonkey script to turn hipster into upstanding, contributing, Slashdot poster- oh wait

Re:Back in white

[tkprit]

No seriously, thank you. I love userscripts community for fixing google's 'improvements' so quickly. I'm 'bout THIS CLOSE to dumping google calendar after this bs today.

Too late.

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

Too late. I already found that with Bing I get primary sources rather than the first search result being Wikipedia followed by a bunch of blogs, so I switched. (And I hate Microsoft.)

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Example query?

Re:Too late.

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

No, Bing got caught incorporating Google's results. And personally, I don't care how Bing's doing it. Their results are better. And yes, Microsoft is scum.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bill Gates" -wikipedia -tumblr -blogspot

Re:Too late.

[iteyoidar]

The blogs are my biggest problem with Google. If I'm searching for something technology or video game related and my search query happens to resemble an old news headline or phrase, I end up with thousands of blogs repeating the exact same story with slightly rearranged headlines. And god help you if your search phrase is part of some song lyric. Why do that many lyrics websites even exist?

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just did three searches with Google and Bing. Bing had Wikipedia higher in every one, except the time they both had Wikipedia first. I tried: "sugar", "car battery", and "Andromeda".

Re:Too late.

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

Exactly. For those who think that the results are the same I'd encourage them to try it. I do switch back to Google occasionally, but for primary sources (ie. anything statistical, anything in the government, anything research related) Google just sucks. Unless you want Wikipedia and blogs, then have at it.

Re:Too late.

[synapse7]

I've found on the average when looking for something obscure(IT related) the top search results from Bing are more current, where the same search on Google will produce results 3-4 years old. When I do search with google I also find the "popups" regarding changing my homepage or installing chrome highly annoying.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Example query?

Agreed, sounds like you are just hating to hate.

Re:Too late.

[instagib]

I always use a "bookmarklet" to search instead of Google's page. Create one and include search terms like "-blogspot.com -lyrics" and refine that way your searches.
If have several defined searches and have put them as buttons on the bookmarks toolbar. Here's one for Firefox (one line, will be broken):

javascript:q=document.getSelection();for(i=0;iframes.length;i++){q=frames[i].document.getSelection();if(q)break;}if(!q)void(q=prompt('enter%20keywords%20or%20highlight%20words%20on%20web%20page',''));if(q)location.href='http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&hl=en&num=25&complete=0&safe=off&q='+escape(q)

Re:Too late.

[HaZardman27]

Just did multiple searches on Google and Bing and got different results from both engines on each search. Whatever Bing was doing to copy Google's results, it's not doing it anymore.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do that many lyrics websites even exist?

If any one got too useful and authoritative, ASCAP would just shut them down.

Re:Too late.

[Kamiza Ikioi]

And this is on topic how?

Re:Too late.

[icebraining]

You could just use the sidebar to choose exactly the timeframe you want.

Re:Too late.

[Toonol]

Using Google or Bing will still get you only Google results, since Bing just imports what Google returns.

That is far from the truth. Read up more on the issue; not even Google claimed what you are. Microsoft's toolbar monitored the results of your google searches, and which links you clicked, and the data was incorporated in to Bing's results, as one minor factor. Try a search on both, and compare the results; obviously, neither are copies of the other.

Re:Too late.

[Flipao]

Too late. I already found that with Bing I get primary sources rather than the first search result being Wikipedia followed by a bunch of blogs, so I switched. (And I hate Microsoft.)

If you hated Microsoft there's no way in hell you'd be using Bing, so I'll take your second statement as a lie, and by association the first statement as well.

By staring Google down in hopes that they'd blink, Microsoft managed to all but lose any relevance it might have had in the mobile OS business and barely gained a blip in the search space.

So you can come down to Slashdot and push your shitty search engine til your fingers bleed. It won't make any difference.

Re:Too late.

[jc42]

Actually, it's more accurate to say that Big got caught presenting Google's search results as its own. The difference is subtle, but significant.

The practice of connecting to other search sites and incorporating their results in your own site's results is not only common now; it's also recognized as a separate sort of search with its own emerging standards. Pretty much all the big search sites, including google, are involved in this development, and google has contributed significantly to the emerging standards.

This is really no different that the old practice among scholars of incorporating other's results. The significant part is that you are expected to let the reader know that you've done this. Traditionally, this was done in the footnotes that reference the publication that you've taken information from. If you don't include the reference, you've committed an act of plagiarism, but if you properly credit your sources, you've committed an act of scholarship.

The web-search arena is slowly building a version of the same sort of thing. As with the traditional scholarly system, Bing's sin wasn't presenting results taken from others; Bing's sin was presenting the results as their own, and not crediting their sources.

The computer field has many example of this sort of offense. A big one back in the 1990s was when Sun offended the open-source crowd. Sun had always incorporated a lot of "FOSS" code in their products, with the blessing of the code's authors. But in this case, they stripped out all the credits from the code, making it look like their were claiming all the code as their own. As in traditional scholarship, and as with the recent Bing offense, this was totally unacceptable to the FOSS crowd. The rule is "You can use our stuff all you like, but you must give us proper credit for our work." Sun and Bing both violated this rule, and were properly (and very publicly) criticized for this. Sun eventually apologized and restored the credits, but the incident was never forgotten by the people who followed the story. (Did Bing ever actually apologize for their plagiarism?)

Now if we could just get the "news industry" to adopt similar rules of always crediting their sources. This is a good part of why a lot of the growing online news system feels so little sympathy for the traditional news publications. They almost never included even bylines with their news, only with their editorials. Their web sites mostly continue the practice of omitting source attribution. When they start giving their sources proper credit, they may find that a lot of us will have much more sympathy for their plight.

Re:Too late.

[thetoadwarrior]

Shame Bing's results are shit.

Re:Too late.

[vux984]

You could just use the sidebar to choose exactly the timeframe you want.

Or he could use the engine that gives him the results he wants without having to fiddle with a slider.

I'm curious... if the question were reversed, and someone said:

Microsofts results are 3-4 years old, while google's tend to be current, would you defend Microsoft by suggesting using microsofts 'timeframe' slider if it had one?

Somehow i seriously doubt it.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh... I think that the relevance of search results is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I have never had a problem finding what I want using Google. Usually what I need is on the first results page of my search. But I am sure that other people have problems with Google and that Bing or some other search engine works better for them... Search engines aren't religious things after all, they are just tools. If one works better for you, then go with it - but don't assume what works best for you works best for everyone.

Re:Too late.

[jc42]

If I'm searching for something technology or video game related and my search query happens to resemble an old news headline or phrase, I end up with thousands of blogs repeating the exact same story with slightly rearranged headlines. And god help you if your search phrase is part of some song lyric. Why do that many lyrics websites even exist?

Heh. A related problem I've run into lately is that I've been trying to get a handle on the HTML5 developments. The problem is that by now, there seem to be over 1000 HTML5 "forums", most of which get a handful of questions per month, and which are mostly answered (if at all) by the forum's maintainer. You'd think they'd want to get together and pool their resources into one or a few major "HTML5 info" sites. But it looks like, while everyone agrees with this, they all think "It obviously should be my site." And when you ask google or any other search site an HTML5 question, you get zillions of links to versions of the same question, most of which aren't answered. If you find an answer and bookmark that site, you find that it doesn't have answers to many other questions.

This is a case where old usenet system did a much better job. But we all know that usenet is dead, right? It's been replaced by "much better" web sites, each of which has its own idiosyncratic interface that requires yet another login account and has a different UI from all the others. And a large number of sites dealing with the same topic.

Re:Too late.

[geekoid]

This was the firs results I got using Google when I searched for Galloping Gurtie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)

Re:Too late.

[oakgrove]

Somehow you've made Bing and MS sound even more pathetic. Maybe they should just double down on their new competitive strategy and sue somebody. Maybe they can at least get a few scraps.

Re:Too late.

[geekoid]

Maybe you suck at search? I use it for almost everything(occasional I'll sue a new search engine fro the hell of it) and I never go past the first page.

Re:Too late.

[geekoid]

Absolutely. OTOH, I must use a magic Google because I never have any of the problems these people complain about, and BinG looks like a mess. I just used it to see what I get because of this conversation.

Re:Too late.

[vux984]

I like google's design more than bing too. But I can absolutely relate to all the complaints about google returning piles of worthless crap that's been 'SEO' onto the first page, old results, blog results, "aggregators", and plagiarized sites that are just scraping from each others, etc.

If your google doesn't do that... then it is indeed magic google.

Re:Too late.

[icebraining]

I do have a bias against MS, but yes, I think I would. The slider is very useful in general.

Re:Too late.

[davester666]

Here's a guess, maybe the other guy is using IE...

Re:Too late.

[hesaigo999ca]

You need to learn your google hacking syntax so as not to include blog types in your search.
doing something like "site:msdn.com vb.net " would limit all your searches to vb.net for only the msdn website.
There are many keywords that can be used of which you can apply the not operator "-" the minus sign...so as to say inurl:-blog
although it is not an exact science, you can refine the searches too....you just have to be creative...

here is a quick link http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html

BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

If it ain't broke - don't fix it. They should have left it alone... Now they have added another layer of clutter to the screen. As it is, a good 25 to 30 percent of my screen real estate is devoted to various toolbars and file menus. I think this is secretly part of their plan to drive people away from Internet Explorer towards Chrome. They want the web application to have the menus and tool bars rather than the browser itself.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[halivar]

There was always a menu at the top. Now it's a different color, and has a new item. Not a big deal.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Soul-Burn666]

In case you weren't trolling, the big mistake is having so many toolbars and file menus. I really like the slick design of Chrome and Firefox. More space for the pages, less space for clutter.
The top bar of Google pages has been reserved for ages now. The only difference is that they added added the Notifications and Share buttons.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

secretly

nope

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Dishevel]

Ha.
I bet it sucks having so little screen space left after the tool bars you have installed to enjoy your AOL with.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[tverbeek]

They have (re)invented the color-offset-text menu bar. The same thing that Microsoft has been actively strangling to death in their flagship products. Hallelujah! Someone noticed that it wasn't just a good idea in the 1980s, it's still a good idea!

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

The bar has changed though. Previously you could open new tabs on it, now no longer. Also there is a distinct change in the visual appeal of the website now. A white bar on a white background doesn't look like a bar. A black bar cuts off the page.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

No... there used to be no menu at the top. Then there was an invisible menu that would fade in when you moved the mouse. That was really awful. Then there was the same menu except not invisible. Then there's this version, with a dark background to prep our minds for the idea that the google search page, and all google pages, are "apps".

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

The best companies are always improving, making what is not broke even better.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[jc42]

There was always a menu at the top. Now it's a different color, ...

Yes, but in my case, I think the reason it's a problem is that the new color exactly mimics the bar you get with Firefox saying "Firefox prevented this page from ...", for some particular suspicious value of "...". I use several browsers routinely in my web testing and browsing, but FF is one of my first tools, so my subconscious notices this dark-grey bar and tells me to pay attention to it. Google's use of the same color scheme in the same position is rather annoying, and I've also wondered if I could find a way to make it not so intrusive.

Of course, google and Firefox come from rather unrelated sources, so I don't expect them to coordinate their actions. But I do find this a good example of why so much stuff on the Web is jumbled, inconsistent and confusing. As if I really needed such examples ... ;-)

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[demonbug]

There was always a menu at the top. Now it's a different color, and has a new item. Not a big deal.

Google.com used to look nice and clean and sleek, now they've continued their uglifying+overcomplicating streak by making the top of the page a different color for no apparent reason (except to draw attention away from what I actually go to the site for, the search box). Another example of the need Google seems to have to be seen to be doing something regardless of whether it is actually an improvement.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[oursland]

There was always a menu at the top..

No, there wasn't. Some of us have memories that go back more than a few minutes. The menu was introduced with iGoogle in 2005.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see:
There's a BIG logo in the middle of the screen
There's a text box where you put your search query
There are two buttons to make the search

Ah, now there's a black menu on top.

I don't see why everyone is crying so much. To me, it looks pretty similar. It may be downloading a heck more information, but I don't mind, mainly, because I don't/never use their main page. I use the little boxes provided by the browsers anyways.

If you don't like it, you may as well write your own little box on your own website that performs the same GET method on their page. You get to customize it as much as you want. Some people just like to complain.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Although Google is technically in competition with FF via Chrome /conspiracyhat

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Intrepid imaginaut]

If it works, don't fix it.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[perryizgr8]

what are you talking about? firefox's bar is yellow!

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[Anonymous Coward]

I was extremely upset when they changed the capital G favicon to the current lower case g.

-theodp

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[tehcyder]

If it works, don't fix it.

Never mind sunshine on your wedding day, posting that comment on slashdot really is ironic.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[tehcyder]

The best companies are always improving, making what is not broke even better.

And the worst are always fiddling, making what is half broken even worse.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[jc42]

Hmmm ... In the FF on this Macbook Pro, and also on my Ubuntu box, it's clearly a dark gray (but not quite black). I haven't (knowingly ;-) set it to dark gray. So do you know how to set its color? I've been thinking of digging into the HTML, and see if I can create some CSS that will override the color, but it hasn't been enough an annoyance to sink the time into doing it. Or I could dig into google's HTML and see if I can tweak it. Or both, if I have even more time to waste.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[jc42]

Yeah, I suppose, though the google/FF relationship is a rather cooperative sort of competition. ;-) A new install of FF does come up with google as the default search engine, for example. Unless they've changed it recently.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[perryizgr8]

the new google bar is gray here too (win7) but firefox's own bar that comes up when you enter a password, or when a popup is blocked is yellow, iirc.

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[jc42]

... firefox's own bar that comes up when you enter a password, or when a popup is blocked is yellow, iirc.

Not with the FF that's on this (Macbook Pro) machine, or on my Ubuntu box. I just did a quick test, by opening a new FF window and entering "microsoft.com" in the URL field. I've found that a useful example because it seems to always do something odd. This time, I got a "Firefox prevented this page from automatically reloading" message, which is white text on a dark gray background. I have no idea why it picked those colors, or how to change them.

Yes, I did look at the page's source, but it doesn't contain that message. In fact, the entire body of the message is:

<BODY><P></BODY>

This strikes me as very odd ... But when I refresh the window, I do get the microsoft.com home page, without the dark-gray bar at the top. (So I closed the window. ;-)

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[perryizgr8]

heh! software is FUCKED up!!!

Re:BIG MISTAKE

[perryizgr8]

look at my screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/vJMbA.png
its a yellow bar.

Is this why I am getting worse results

[h4rr4r]

I have a bad habit of reusing the same google queries to find the same websites again. Suddenly I am getting results that are not the same and in fact much worse. It looks like they are trying to guess more what I want. I wish google offered a version that respected punctuation and basically let you search the web the way google code can be searched.

Re:Is this why I am getting worse results

[Bieeanda]

Swear to god, I just plugged 'shit' into Google to see if they got rid of cache links (like the last experiment they foisted off on a number of users).

Safe Search was off. Totally, 100% off. The results I received were for shih tsu dogs, and the search bar had the temerity to suggest that 'shit' was misspelled.

Christ almighty. When I turn safe-search off and enter a query like that, I know what I'm getting into! What's next, showing me pictures of nannies, billies and kids when I search for goatse?

Re:Is this why I am getting worse results

[xaxa]

My results for "shit" are
- Wikipedia
- internetisshit.org
- shitbrix.com
- urban dictionary
- youtube -- random funny shit

http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&rls=en-GB&q=shit&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

But Google's results are influenced by so many things (in this case: by my IP geolocating to London, UK; by my choice of google.co.uk; by being logged in to Google Mail; by whatever cookies are on my machine... although I think I blocked them)

Re:Is this why I am getting worse results

[swillden]

the search bar had the temerity to suggest that 'shit' was misspelled.

How did the search bar suggest that?

Well, it is a bit different

[Winchestershire]

It isn't awful by any means, but I think they need a lighter color font for the black bar at the top. Also, I swear they have shrunken the size of the font and search box on the main google page. Is anybody else encountering this?

Re:Well, it is a bit different

[shutdown -p now]

Black looks very out-of-place; it may be just me, but I have always associated Google with colors-on-white design (such as their logo) which gave their websites an overall light and clean feel.

jumpy scrolling

[magarity]

I cut way back on Google usage a few months ago when they took over the arrow keys' normal smooth window scrolling and made it jump from one search result to another. That just makes it hard to read and track which entry is next when it jumps like that.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Aaaand... makes it way more usable without a mouse.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Amouth]

turn off google instant and that goes away too..

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Colonel Korn]

I cut way back on Google usage a few months ago when they took over the arrow keys' normal smooth window scrolling and made it jump from one search result to another. That just makes it hard to read and track which entry is next when it jumps like that.

From www.google.com go to the little settings icon, select search settings, and turn off instant search. No more blue arrow. Enjoy!

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it really doesn't. As a guy who actually doesn't use a mouse (I use tiling window managers and browsers like luakit), it is extremely disconcerting to suddenly have h,j,k,l hijacked from their normal "scroll 40px" behavior.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[shimage]

Setting is stored in a cookie, so I (and anyone else that clears cookies on browser exit, for example) have to do this every time I start up my browser. It gets old pretty quickly.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[flibby]

I wouldn't mind if it did a better job of showing which result is selected, but it's just a tiny little arrow that isn't at all eye-catching.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Osgeld]

I hate this argument cause it always comes back

its not paying attention to my preferences if I am logged into google, its based on cookies

firefox loves to just at random blank out old shit and I have 3 computers at home and 2 at work, its actually more of a pain in the ass to turn off instant search every fucking time at least once a month

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

So... I have to turn off a feature I like just to get rid of a misfeature I don't?

Awesome.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[swalve]

So whitelist that cookie. Is that really hard to do?

Re:jumpy scrolling

[thegarbz]

So you're complaining about the design of a webpage because of a browser specific bug?

If you have an issue why not put your money where your mouth is and do something about it rather than whining about a feature which seems to work perfectly fine for other people.

Seriously entering something into that database isn't hard, and probably takes less time than reading this very post.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Osgeld]

browser specific??? it happens in chrome firefox IE9, 10 and Opera, it only goes away in links 2 and IE4.5 mac ed from what I have seen, and no fucking wonder cause it doesnt support javabloatscript (and on that note slashdot can accept a right click without jumping up 8 fucking pages too!)

so go eat my ass

Re:jumpy scrolling

[thegarbz]

Sorry I stand corrected. It is now clear to me that this is USER SPECIFIC.

Cry and you cry alone.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Amouth]

i have had zero problem with it coming back with chrome or opera

Re:jumpy scrolling

[shimage]

Maybe not, but it's easier to use http://google.com/pda/ instead.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

You could use NoScript. Google Instant doesn't work without Javascript.

Re:jumpy scrolling

[Uzuri]

If you use AdBlock on Firefox, I believe that blocking *extern_js* gets rid of that and a lot of other crap. (I stopped using AdBlock for blocking ads years ago; now I use it for blocking poor UI design :p )

I personally just leave scripting of via noScript for all of *.google.com, whitelisting only maps and mail since they actually have some useful stuff going on in the AJAX realm, but I realize that's not for everyone.

Looks like SHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of the black navigation bar!

Re:Looks like SHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Greasemonkey script to change ugly dark grey to any color http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105735

Re:Looks like SHIT

[ThePhilips]

Or the stylish's script.

Re:Looks like SHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this hilarious. When I noticed the change, I said "Huh, it's black now." and my life continued on as normal.

How about Google Classic

[Jeng]

How about a Google Classic page, just the little friendly box that we type our queries into, hit enter, and get our results. Nothing else.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

+9001

Re:How about Google Classic

[Grizzley9]

How about a Google Classic page, just the little friendly box that we type our queries into, hit enter, and get our results. Nothing else.

Sounds like you are wasting effort already by going to the google.com search page. Why not just type it in either the search engine bar or super bar in FF/IE or the address bar in Chrome? There's no reason to go to Google.com with modern browsers.

Re:How about Google Classic

[twocows]

You might like Scroogle, though it usually goes down for a few days whenever Google changes something.

Re:How about Google Classic

[twocows]

Er, sorry, that should be Scroogle.org, not .com.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's never change or progress ever!

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a Google Classic page, just the little friendly box that we type our queries into, hit enter, and get our results. Nothing else.

Sounds like you are wasting effort already by going to the google.com search page. Why not just type it in either the search engine bar or super bar in FF/IE or the address bar in Chrome? There's no reason to go to Google.com with modern browsers.

I use IE4 on Solaris you insensitive clod!

Re:How about Google Classic

[instagib]

http://www.google.com/pda/ :-)

Re:How about Google Classic

[daeley]

Death to all extremists!

Re:How about Google Classic

[Inda]

Firefox will let you use JS as a homepage

e.g.

javascript:document.write("YOUR_HTML_HERE")

Wish I had the time to write the image and form HTML. Maybe someone else can help ;)

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to the main page and I saw a toolbar at the top occupying space otherwise unused on the old "classic" versions of the page. This toolbar is not mandatory. Underneath it is a box. If you start typing it is auto-focused, though you can certainly click it if you want. If you hit enter, you get your results.

What about the current design, exactly, doesn't conform to your wish? How was this an Insightful comment?

Re:How about Google Classic

[shimage]

The main google page isn't the problem. It's still very simple. It's after I get the results that's a pain. l have to deal with crap like their interface stealing my arrow key inputs. And then if I want to edit my search terms (instead of starting a new search), I have to deal with instant search constantly pulling up nonsense and slowing things down every time I make a type (and then again when I fix the typo). I'm a bit slow (ie, stupid), so my brain can't handle looking at the results as I'm typing (I can't even type without making typos, after all), so it really serves no purpose to me. I know I can turn all this crap off, but those settings aren't tied to my Google account, so I need to set them every time I start up my browser (I like to clear the cookies on exit). I used to like google's search and layout, but now I'm wondering if there's something that doesn't suck as much.

Re:How about Google Classic

[shimage]

Thank you!

Re:How about Google Classic

[demonbug]

How about a Google Classic page, just the little friendly box that we type our queries into, hit enter, and get our results. Nothing else.

Sounds like you are wasting effort already by going to the google.com search page. Why not just type it in either the search engine bar or super bar in FF/IE or the address bar in Chrome? There's no reason to go to Google.com with modern browsers.

I've used google.com as my homepage for years, long before the introduction of the search bar or super bar. I see it whenever I open a new browser window. I, too, wish for a return to the clean, classic Google look.

Not that I care that much; I just think the latest addition of that black bar across the top is really ugly and distracting. It's great if they want to add the ability to change the color (I don't know why you would want to, but I don't mind them offering it); I just question why they push out changes like this that offer absolutely nothing positive and in fact give me a negative impression of the site.

Re:How about Google Classic

[houghi]

And bring back the classic google pics. Sure you can add &sout=1 or scroll 3 minutes down to click on 'Switch to basic version'.

Also nice to see how they try their hardest to break workarounds.

But then when we see how they raped DejaNews, it is clear that they are just another company looking out only for them selves and in second place for their customers (we are the product they sell)

Re:How about Google Classic

[Jeng]

How was this an Insightful comment?

That is a very good question, all I did was ask the same question many others had, I really didn't add to the discussion, but it did spawn some useful information.

shimage and instagib deserve more mod points than I do.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Osgeld]

technology is about making human lives better or easier

its not easier to tun off instant search on all my computers at random whenever the cookies clear, I reinstall an OS or log in as another session

it also is pretty fucking annoying when your using a old computer, like my one at work and it chokes 3 letters into a search phrase.

And just who is this helping? does anyone actually read the bullshit pages that pop up as your typing in? Fuck no! lets say I am looking up polyester, wow great google I needed to know the Korean definition of poly while you take your sweet fucking time updating 100 pages of hits every damn letter

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's on slashdot, he's probably using Lynx .

Re:How about Google Classic

[gottabeme]

So make your own simple HTML page that has nothing but the Google logo and a search form. Save to your hard disk. Set as home page. Done.

Re:How about Google Classic

[JAlexoi]

Turn the damn thing off... It's not like instant search is the only way to use Google.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

"l have to deal with crap like their interface stealing my arrow key inputs."

Could you explain? I just tried a google search, and the arrows are acting just like they do in all other web sites - they scroll by whatever amount Firefox does by default.

How is google "stealing your arrow keys"?

Re:How about Google Classic

[Stauf]

DuckDuckGo is pretty much this - https://duckduckgo.com/

Re:How about Google Classic

[jc42]

http://www.google.com/pda/

Thank you!

This is becoming a common solution to the "designer bloat" of so many web sites. The top-selling computers are now "smart phones" and other small portables with limited screen space. This puts pressure on web sites to supply a second access path that has most of the wasted screen space stripped out. Very often, you can add "/mobile/" to the URL, though "/pda/" is also common. That often also strips out most of the ads, especially the cpu-chomping video ads.

People on the go who are rapidly consulting their handhelds don't tolerate such bloat very well, and tend to hit "Back" rapidly when they see such things, so we can expect that these space-efficient pages will continue to spread. I've worked on a number of web sites recently where I created this second, stripped-down version of most of the content, triggered by "/mobile/" in the URL.

Almost all the mobile/pda web sites work quite well on a large screen, so it can be worthwhile to try to find them for any site that you want to visit more than once. Why allow a single site's web page to claim most of your screen, when you can use the "mobile" version and fit several sites on the screen?

Re:How about Google Classic

[scruffy]

NoScript would give you back control of the search, but would mess up other things Google.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Danny Rathjens]

Ha! If you click the "classic" link on that page it takes you to the new dark gray bar version.

Re:How about Google Classic

[swalve]

Because the address bar is for addresses, not searching. (Which reminds me: Dear Fedoraproject, please stop pausing for one second and suggesting packages to install when I make a typo on bash. Thank you.)

The key to good computing is to have each thing only do one thing. When I type in "media" in the address bar, I want to go to my internal media machine, not to a fucking search engine. If I wanted a search engine, I would have asked for that.

Re:How about Google Classic

[swalve]

It's like turning on your VCR and getting a picture of a VCR across the top of the screen. Useless eye "candy".

Re:How about Google Classic

[shutdown -p now]

It used to be that, when you press up/down keys, the page would intercept that and scroll to next/previous search result rather than the default browser behavior. This has been the case for the last few months, at least. But then I've just checked it and it's not there anymore - score one for the good guys!

Re:How about Google Classic

[cavebison]

Why not just type it in either the search engine bar or super bar in FF/IE or the address bar in Chrome? There's no reason to go to Google.com with modern browsers.

Oh yes there is. a) it's not big enough, b) the typing-history dropdown mixes all search tools together - dictionary, thesaurus, etc. Completely useless for serious searches. My awesome solution: go old school. Save the google search page as a html file. Strip out all the funky javascript, except for initial text box focus. With a keystroke it pops up instantly - why wait for it to download? The form text box shows all my history. And I'm immune to redesigns! :) Perfection.

Re:How about Google Classic

[cavebison]

How about a Google Classic page, just the little friendly box that we type our queries into, hit enter, and get our results. Nothing else.

Too easy. Do what I did - save the search page to a html file, edit it till you have what you want and bookmark it. Best of all worlds. Comes up instantly, no wait.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a shortcut to http://www.google.com/?complete=0 which turns off the autocomplete and instant-stuff.

Re:How about Google Classic

[AmiMoJo]

Just turn off Insant, restores the simple search results.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to google.com once everyday just to see if there is a new google doodle. That's the only reason I ever go there. If I'm on google.com and want to do a search I still do ctrl-K and type my query in the awesome bar.

Re:How about Google Classic

[Walter Carver]

Block JavaScript for google.com ;-)

Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[chemicaldave]

Soon after my co-workers started logging into their workstations the cacophony of whining lasted about five minutes... mostly about the new black background color for the toolbar, a striking contrast to the previous white.

People I know, myself included, aren't happy with the change, but that seems to be Google. They tend to change things and users get used to it. But this is a bit different. With no way to change the color of the toolbar -- other than a developer extension or script -- users are stuck with black.

Unless there's some setting that I'm not seeing...

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[zegota]

"People I know, myself included, aren't happy with the change, but that seems to be Google. They tend to change things and users get used to it." I think that's the case here. Google's counting on the fact that once you go black, you never go back.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[earls]

I have a sneaking suspicion that once Google+ goes live, you'll be able to skin most of Google's apps with a theme of your choosing.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[Soul-Burn666]

I feel this is done on purpose to direct attention to it.
Previously, it "just was there", as a part of the page. Now they want it to be like an application toolbar - something which lets you select between your apps which appear below it.

I like it quite a bit. Gives a fresh look to the whole Google experience.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[cmiller173]

I already "skin" gmail and iGoogle with a fairly dark theme and have a fairly dark "persona" on firefox. The new dark color looks better for me.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[The Great Pretender]

I hear Apple was awarded a patent on using a white background in the toolbar. Google obviously will not pay the license (Ummm, I'm joking btw...it's obvious, but you can never tell with this crowd)

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[Anonymous Coward]

Slowly make the default theme more and more ugly, and pretty soon you can track everyone's search habits personally (and you don't have to infer it from browser/os/habits any more).

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. All this new stuff sucks. I hated it when Google switched to the new logo. I use DuckDuckGo for searches now, but unfortunately am still stuck with Google for gmail and reader. I wish they had a "go back to the way things used to be" button.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[SnicersX]

I am enjoying that Google is evolving, the no logo is a better, it is softer and easier on the eyes. Seems everyone is complaining, Google has my full support on this.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I agree that I'm not happy either, I find that the black line is annoying and distracting. Can we please have a way to get the old page back via a setting or cookie somehow.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[Anonymous Coward]

They changed google news to force "spotlight" and "fast flip" and "most shared" on you with no option to remove them. I stopped using google news completely after a few days (and only looked today to find the names of the crapola). If they change mail and other stuff very much I'll do the same.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[gilgongo]

I feel this is done on purpose to direct attention to it.

I wish they'd make up their minds. It wasn't a year ago they were hiding it completely by default until you moved your mouse. Not even Larry Page himself knew what THAT was all about.

Re:Hearing negative feedback over the toolbar

[kwoff]

I tried DuckDuckGo recently, but the results SuckSuckNo.

Being Slashdot this will mean...

[jellomizer]

They will hate it.
Anything that changes they hate.
If someone tries to lighten things up a bit they hate it.

They want the product to stay the same every day and never improve them, until it gets so outdated that it not used at all... Except by them.

For being tech people, I am surprised how resistant to change we are.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which are these "they" that you are referring to? Us, as in Slashdot readers, including you?

I don't get it.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[SniperJoe]

You weren't a part of the Gawker redesign (or any of their subsidiary blogs) were you? Bah, what am I thinking? You realize that people are resistant to change and that perhaps people don't like to be TOLD what's better sometimes. You're WAY ahead of their design team.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only with design changes that make the UX/UI worse... E.g. Facebook UI updates. Google's are minor refinements or actual improvements. I almost didn't think this was possible from a larger (web) company any more.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Geeks love things new but they are relentless in weeding out unecessary changes. They more than most are aware that a change that provides little or no new and useful functionality is going to slow them down. And geeks HATE to be slowed down.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[YojimboJango]

I'm torn by your comment. In one sense I quit using Gawker all together when they applied their new redesign (because it broke if obscene amounts of javascript wasn't enabled). So it's not like a bad design hasn't made me quit a site...

However they changed a white bar to a black bar. WTF people. Based on a lot of reactions a sane man would assume that they murdered your cat in front of your children. Breathe.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

We is usually self inclusive.... sooooooo

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Threni]

Speak for yourself. But I think you're confusing `some people` with `everyone`. Given there are, who knows, perhaps tens of thousands of people who read this site every day, and probably hundreds or thousands who post every day, you're going to get a range of opinions. When it comes to a new site design, what are the options? Like, dislike, don't really care?

Personally I think it's barely worth talking about a redesign if it's just `the stuff at the top has a black background now`. I'm more concerned that I've paid for a domain, pointed it at a 'Google Apps' account, but cannot use it to access Google+. I'm also limited in how I can use Google Reader for the same reason. I get hilarious messages like: "you need to create a profile" and then "your organisation cannot create a profile". Duh! Oh, and I'm not an organisation, just a person with the regular free 50 email accounts per 'google apps' account.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[jellomizer]

Translation: Someone else did a bad redesign so all redesigns suck. Too bad you lack the ability to think and take some time to see if the new thing is better or not.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[SniperJoe]

I quit using their sites altogether as well, for exactly the same reasons as you did. I was merely trying to comment on the fact that I think you captured a bit of both sides of the issue here. On one hand, developers are trying to force change in the name of "process improvement." On the other hand, people want things to stay the same, even if it leaves them behind. In many cases, people are taken aback when they are TOLD that the new product is better when that improvement isn't quite apparent. As a developer, you have to weigh the value of improvement with the disruption that you are causing.

In Gawker's case, they majorly screwed the pooch. They massively broke their site while adopting the condescending "we know better than you, so deal with it" tone of voice, which caused many of their previously loyal readers to leave. You at least realize the fact that users are afraid of change and that some (including myself) are very resistant to that change. That puts you WAY ahead of the curve compared to the Gawker team.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[maxwells_deamon]

If you have a vision issue (or just a crappy monitor) it becomes about 10 times harder to read. What advantage does it provide beyond eye candy?

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

In many cases, people are taken aback when they are TOLD that the new product is better when that improvement isn't quite apparent. As a developer, you have to weigh the value of improvement with the disruption that you are causing.

Allowing users to keep things the same while adding new features is hard. Google changes a bit about once every two weeks. Suppose they allow users to avoid change for a year. This means they have to test and update the new and 26 old versions (1 year / 2 weeks = 52 weeks / 2 weeks = 26). And that just delays the bitching by a year.

No one is making you use Google. If you think there are a significant number of people who care, find (or found) a search engine that never changes. Heck, use Google's search API to make a page that never changes.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[DemonGenius]

"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." -- Albert Einstein

I really honestly don't think your comment deserves to be modded Flamebait. Sometimes, even us nerds need to take a critical look at ourselves to determine if we are needlessly hanging on to pointless ideologies. Sometimes change is good, even if it doesn't seem appealing at first. However, being able to choose change is more important.

Disclaimer: Not 100% it was Einstein who said it given how people love to falsely attribute quotes nowadays but the sentiment still applies.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. This being Slashdot, if Google does it, they will love it. It will be innovative and original. It will be in the best interest of the user. If the same thing was done by somebody other than google, it would be a travesty, and an indication of just how out of touch the company was with their user community.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Going by Slashdot's redesign I would say re-designed don't have a good track record.

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god you have got to be fucking kidding me. How much worse are you gonna make this site?

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[shutdown -p now]

However they changed a white bar to a black bar.

Small changes can make a big difference. In this case, the background of the bar being so different from the background of the rest of the page, it suddenly turned from an inconspicuous design element that you know is there when you need it, and in the background otherwise, to the most "heavy" element on the page, giving it too much undeserved attention, and distracting from the important stuff (i.e. search results!).

Re:Being Slashdot this will mean...

[schnipschnap]

Unless your vision issue is the opposite of the one you have in mind, in which case it would make it easier to read?

The black navigation bar in place right now

[Anonymous Coward]

The black navigation bar in place right now has given me headaches, as I thought I had some issue with my drivers... [shame on me]

What's the difference?

[Daetrin]

Are there any good before/after screenshot comparisons? (As in comparing now with a couple days ago, not the now and 1997 comparison in the linked article, and full screen rather than individual elements like in the other article.)

They already had some kind of bar at the top before, so the only difference i noticed is that it turned black. I figure if i don't immediately notice the change it _probably_ isn't that bad. Not like when they switched to the ugly new favicon or made the font size huge.

Re:What's the difference?

[Hadlock]

the difference is that you have a black, oppressive cloud hanging over your search experience

Ugly ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else thinks that this new black bar is incredibly ugly ?
My reason to have google as my home page was the fact that (almost) all the page was purely white !

Re:Ugly ?

[Anonymous Coward]

sooooo tape a piece of white paper over your screen, since you're obviously more interested in having a white screen than actually using your computer

Whine

[firewrought]

Blah blah I hate the black status bar at the top WHAT THE HECK WERE THEY THINKING ARGhh blarghfla flagh flarh...

Okay... now that we got the obligatory b*tch & moan out of the way that people seem to do over the trivialist of changes, perhaps we can focus on interesting topics, such as Google's endgame for this redesign, or how they expect to use WebGL.

Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any search engine left that doesn't suck. I'm looking for one that,

1. Searches for what I want it to search for instead of what it thinks I wanted to search for. Google is always wrong on this one and has been getter worse and worse since they implemented it.

2. Actually presents relevant results. Google used to present relevant information but now I kept the same handful of pages.

3. Has an uncluttered interface. One like google used to have.

4. Has a maps that don't suck. What retard thought it was a good idea to make the scroll wheel zoom?

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[0123456]

Searches for what I want it to search for instead of what it thinks I wanted to search for. Google is always wrong on this one and has been getter worse and worse since they implemented it.

Yeah, pretty much every time I use Google now I start wondering whether there's a better search engine out there because every update makes it less useful. Why should I have to tell the search engine to actually search for what I specifically asked it to search for and not try to guess what I really wanted to search for?

It's particularly problematic for technical searches which often have acronyms which are close to real words and Google 'corrects' them for me.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Searches for what I want it to search for instead of what it thinks I wanted to search for. Google is always wrong on this one and has been getter worse and worse since they implemented it.

I agree that this sucks.

3. Has an uncluttered interface. One like google used to have.

It's not THAT bad.

4. Has a maps that don't suck. What retard thought it was a good idea to make the scroll wheel zoom?

Wait, we're talking about a search engine. Why don't we stick with that?

In any case, try DuckDuckGo. You may prefer it, and they don't do #1, nor do they track you.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Jeng]

I'd like that also, but I imagine a lot of the changes with Google search results is due to spammers trying to game the system, and Google trying to fight them.

Curious though, what would you prefer to point # 4? What do you expect the wheel to do when you scroll it on a map? It's not like you can scroll sideways.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Toonol]

Duckduckgo.com? I haven't used it that much, but it looks promising, and I'm contemplating switching to it as primary. If only it had a shorter name...

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[thetoadwarrior]

I like duckduckgo but it does need to improve its results to make me switch. As much as people complain about Google's results it's easy to remove the results you don't want.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[MachDelta]

What's wrong with DDG's results? If you search for something with multiple meanings, the box at the top basically lists them all. Click on the right one and you're into relevant results. With google you have to clarify your search manually.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can scroll sideways. http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/ http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/

  On my Macbook I expect scrolling to move the map like scrolling does in a window.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[thetoadwarrior]

Don't get me wrong it is pretty good and it has a lot of good ideas like it's push towards privacy and not doing filtering / personalised results. But if I search for my username I get a lot of my stuff and comments by people who use the same username. There is no mention of the movie. I've never seen the movie btw so my username has nothing to do with it but it should show up rather than a load of comments from blogs and gaming sites. I know I'm probably like one of a handful of people that would search for that but people are complaining about how google returns a lot of blog results. Well returning comments on blogs some of which are coming up on being a decade old and completely ignoring a movie (admittedly a low budget one) that all the other engines pick up seems a bit off.

Searching for Nintendo 3DS handheld didn't show any Nintendo sites in the stop results. Searching for 3DS did bring Nintendo owned sites in the top results but oddly enough nintendo.co.au was the top result. Japan, Europe and US are larger markets so putting the Australian one on top and giving it a big 'official site' button isn't going to be terribly useful to a lot of people.

The search for nintendo 3ds handheld brought up wikipedia and a bunch of blogs - the things people complained about Google doing. The thing is blogs and wikipedia are very prominent on the internet. They will fill up a lot of search results no matter which search engine you use. I don't hold that against Google or DDG. But because DDG can bring up some stuff that seems a bit less relevant and because I can block domains from showing up in Google for the moment I rather stick with Google.

Again I like what DDG is doing and I even like the things like the Jabber bot and I would tell people to consider it but it's not quite there for me to make it my main search engine.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[NeutronCowboy]

Use quotation marks around the problematic words? I find that I mistype things more often than I use abbreviations that are close to a real word. As a result, it's a net win.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Overzeetop]

4. Has a maps that don't suck. What retard thought it was a good idea to make the scroll wheel zoom?

Well, as an occasional CAD user, the scroll wheel as a zoom is actually very useful. Actually, I prefer that clicking the scroll wheel allows the drag-pan option rather than a right click, but it's not the end of the world.

Actually, once you get the hang of it, you'll find that a quick scroll-zoom-out, recenter mouse on your target spot, scroll-zoom-in is faster than practically any pan option you'll use. It's a little disconcerting at first to finesse the zoom-about-the-cursor, but you'll never want to go back after you get used to it.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Hatta]

but I don't know what words will be problematic until I submit the query once. So now I have to submit most queries twice, once as a test, and again with "" or +. You may be used to this if you mistype a lot, but I don't and I expect it to work the first time if I've constructed what should be a precise query.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Scroll to zoom no longer makes sense when you can scroll in 360 degrees.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

It's particularly problematic for technical searches which often have acronyms which are close to real words and Google 'corrects' them for me.

Yes! Yes! Yes! A million times 'Yes!' to this. I just recently searched google for nfs and it automatically added [need for speed] as keywords. ARGH! What? It didn't even offer me one of those "is this what you meant?" messages with a link to search again for exactly what I typed in. Google has been returning brain dead results as of late by trying to be smarter than the user.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[unil_1005]

DuckDuckgo.com is useful and fun

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[lothos]

check out http://duckduckgo.com/

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[zeroduck]

You did a 3 letter search across a search engine that indexes... pretty much the entire internet... and you're mad that it didn't know exactly what you mean?

At least for me, the first page for a search for nfs on google is mostly about NFS (Network File System), with the top and 1 other link being Need For Speed, and one for Nuclear Fuel Service.

Really? Going to be mad that your ambiguous query didn't return what you wanted as the top result?

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Just Some Guy]

Why should I have to tell the search engine to actually search for what I specifically asked it to search for and not try to guess what I really wanted to search for?

That bugs me, too, but's lets face it: we're in the minority. Most people want to know that they've misspelled "lolcats", or appreciate help when trying to guess a song's title. For that matter, so do I! 95% of the time, Google's autocorrect is right about what I actually meant to search for, even if it's really annoying that other 5%.

I think they just need better heuristics. For example, it's one thing to correct "hotel californya" to the right spelling (146M results the usual way to 35K hits when spelled with a "y"). It's another to correct a long alphanumeric part number with 2,000 results to a similar string with 3,000 results.

Re:Looks like time to find a new search engine

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

You did a 3 letter search across a search engine that indexes... pretty much the entire internet... and you're mad that it didn't know exactly what you mean?

No, not at all. I don't expect google to know exactly or even vaguely what I mean. I expect google to return results from its index which match 'nfs'. Google trying to figure out what I mean is exactly what I don't want. I don't want them to add results for 'need for speed' or 'nuclear fuel services' or 'no fear shakespeare', I want exactly 'nfs'. What's worse was that my original search was for something related to NFS speed and latency. So the vast majority of results were 'need for speed' related, not NFS related.

Now if the vast majority of webpages used NFS in their text to mean 'need for speed', then I would understand. But that's not what's happening. Google is taking it upon itself to translate 'nfs' = 'need for speed'.

Weird GIS / toolbar anomaly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird.

With Javascript disabled, a GIS for foo works just fine with cookies enabled, but if I use the same URL, without cookies enabled, fails.

With Javascript enabled, the same URL for the GIS works whether cookies are enabled or not.

Censorship Statement :)

[pavon]

The first time I saw it, I was using the SSL version of Google, which doesn't have links for the other search types at the top because they don't have SSL support yet. So I loaded the page and saw a big black bar across the top of the page, with almost nothing in it. My first thought was that the firefox notification bar had crashed. My second was that Google had put up a "redacted box" as some sort of statement against censorship, like the colored ribbons you see. Then I saw the "Sign in" text at the far right of the screen and realized what it was.

Re:Censorship Statement :)

[Medevilae]

First time I saw it nothing went wrong.

Re:Censorship Statement :)

[monkyyy]

LIES, it must have done something

Give The Act A Rest - Bing Is Garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

"(And I hate Microsoft.)"

"Microsoft is scum."

Dude. You're trying way to hard. Give it a rest.

Bing is absolute garbage. Everyone can, and have seen, for themselves.

Re: Use a Dev Fork

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think techies are resistant to useless changes. If you want to make superficial changes, fine; if you want to make changes that some will love and others hate, fine. Just do it on a fork, and leave me something that works reliably until evolution has a bit of time to work on the fruits of your creative genius. Yes, that's right: I believe services like Google should have dev forks for all the whizzbang new features that will go extinct before I give a crap.

Soon the Google's front page will be your desktop

[ingo23]

So start to get used to the black bar at the top with e-mail notifications, IM pop-ups, battery status, 3G and cell signal strength.

Then when your OS application bar and browser toolbar/menu will gradually disappear, you will not be surprised.

I suppose...

[davidc]

... I'll get over it.

Re:I suppose...

[earls]

You think so... Until Google changes your mind!1

Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail...

[overnight_failure]

...where it used to be one. And now you have to navigate a menu to do it.

K.I.S.S.

So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[carrier lost]

The black navigation bar in place right now is also part of the Google +Project.

// ==UserScript==
// @name HideTopBar
// @namespace http://.google.com/*
// @description Gets rid of annoying black bar
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {

1. document.getElementById('gb').style.display="none";

})();

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[panaceaa]

Completely hiding the Google bar is not the best idea: You can't log out, you can't navigate to Gmail or other application settings, and you can't see your notifications. But you can change the Google bar to have a white background and black text with just some simple CSS changes:

#gbx3, #gbx4 {
    background-color: white;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #DDD;
}

#gbz .gbzt, #gbz .gbgt, #gbg .gbgt {
    color: black!important;
}

I don't know how you put these on top of Google's CSS with Greasemonkey, but if you can find a way, it should look how you'd like.

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[carrier lost]

Completely hiding the Google bar is not the best idea: You can't log out, you can't navigate to Gmail...

You can if you're even marginally adept at the whole computer thing - that's why I consider the Black Bar an annoyance.

I can find the Google stuff when I need it - I don't need it in my face all the dang time.

All snark aside, your suggestions offer yet another choice for people.

If I had more time, I'd make a button you could put in the menu bar of Firefox to toggle the Google Bar - heck, there's probably one already.

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[carrier lost]

Less obnoxious, still visibile:

// ==UserScript==
// @name HideTopBar
// @namespace http://.google.com/*
// @description Gets rid of annoying black bar
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {

1. document.getElementById('gb').style.backgroundColor="white";

   var el;
   var barEl=["gbx3","gbx4"];
   

   for( var idx in barEl ) {

   • el = document.getElementById( barEl[ idx ] );
     el.style.backgroundColor="white";
     el.style.color="black";
     el.style.borderBottom="1px solid #DDD";
     

   }

1. barEl=[ "gbz", "gbzt", "gbz", "gbgt", "gbg", "gbgt" ];

   for( idx in barEl ) {

   • try {
     document.getElementById( barEl[ idx ] ).style.color="black!important";
     }
     catch( err ) {}

   }

})();

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[Bromskloss]

Is this script out there somewhere so I don't have to refresh how you set up your own scripts and then maintain it myself?

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[carrier lost]

Unfortunately, I don't know how to wrap up a Greasemonkey script for distribution.

If you are running Greasemonkey however, and you have enabled the editor in about:config, you can cut and paste the snippets above to install the script.

Choose "Greasemonkey" from the "Tools" menu in FF and then select "New User Script"

Give it a "Name" and use "http://*.google.com/*" as the Namespace, ignore the "Includes" and "Excludes" and you should get an editor window you can paste the snippet into.

Hope this helps...

Re:So Sayeth the Grease Monkey

[Bromskloss]

Thanks. That "New User Script" thing lowered the barrier just enough to make it worthwhile. :-)

Black bar

[tecnico.hitos]

Among the changes, Google announced that it's new motto is "Be evil". The black bar marks its new corporative mentality, that involves new goals such as using it's privileged position to take over the world and kicking puppies.

Re:Black bar

[jellomizer]

Puppies often like being kicked. Just be sure that when you kick them it is not in a way that hurts them.

Re:Black bar

[ThatsNotPudding]

The constant, heavy mechanical breathing is a bit much, though.

Just goes to show...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show how cyclical (and somewhat silly) trends are. Black, then white, then silver, then neon (or the contrary dull colours) - and finally back to black. Repeat every 10 years. Apple is a perfect example of this. :-)

real change is the mobile version

[phaserbanks]

the mobile site got a huge overhaul by comparison, complete with bloaty icons. just what I needed. slower load times when I open my phone's browser.

Doing it right

[Anonymous Coward]

They are making our lives easier, granted search has changed from "simple query's" to return the always the same information. But honestly, times change, of course a query is going to change relevant results as time goes on. Additionally, the abilities Google has integrated into it's engine has made my life easier and smoother month after month, not once have I seen something and completely lost the ability to search and find relevant information.

Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[CmdrPorno]

Dear Google, please stop using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It drives me nuts every time I use it. Better yet, give us an option to use the wheel to pan (which would be the logical mapping of that function) instead of zoom.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[BradleyUffner]

Dear Google, please stop using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It drives me nuts every time I use it. Better yet, give us an option to use the wheel to pan (which would be the logical mapping of that function) instead of zoom.

No way, I love scroll wheel zooming and get frustrated when it doesn't work on other maps. Sounds like it needs to be an optional setting.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Mouse to zoom makes a lot more sense. If the mouse panned, which direction would it go, just up and down? Then you need a different interface option for panning side to side, which would make it more disjoint.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[jandoedel]

How to pan in 2 easy steps:
1) push scroll wheel
2) move mouse

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[CmdrPorno]

Control + wheel is the standard convention for zooming.
Most newer mice have left/right tilt on the scroll wheel, which would move the map left or right.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[frank_adrian314159]

A lot of graphical-oriented apps use the scroll wheel to zoom. Google is not the first to re-purpose the scroll wheel for this purpose. I'm sure they see driving you crazy as simply an added benefit.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[geekoid]

amd how to you pan E/W with a scroll wheel? Zooming is the logical choice.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Google, please stop using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It drives me nuts every time I use it. Better yet, give us an option to use the wheel to pan (which would be the logical mapping of that function) instead of zoom.

Screw you! The scroll wheel zoom is just perfect! That it drives you nuts proves this!

Panning is, as it should be, done by dragging the map around. Using the wheel to pan is a crappy idea as it allows only a single axis and there would be no similar and intuitive way to tilt.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with you. A mouse wheel doesn't make sense for panning because if you used it in that manner, it would only pan north and south - a different motion would have to be applied for east and west, thus becoming worse in usability. Thus, the scroll wheel instead becomes about zooming.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[BluBrick]

Dear Google, please stop using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It drives me nuts every time I use it. Better yet, give us an option to use the wheel to pan (which would be the logical mapping of that function) instead of zoom.

The scroll wheel maps to only two directions. Would you to choose east-west or north-south for the scroll wheel panning? Either way, you'd end up with a completely different type of action to pan east-west than north-south. And what do you do on machines without a scroll wheel? Sorry CmdrPorno (IF t, I reckon Google got this one right.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Tordanik]

Dear Google, please stop using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It drives me nuts every time I use it.

Using the scroll wheel to zoom is a widely known standard with online maps, not just Google-based ones, but also with open source alternatives like OpenLayers (used on openstreetmap.org and for many other OSM based maps) or Khtmlib. The wheel is also used for zooming by other applications where zooming is a major component of user interaction, such as Blender.

And I actually think it makes sense: The most common actions with online maps are Move (-> Drag), Zoom (-> Wheel) and Activate (-> Click). All of them should be available on the mouse. And while the double-click also usually zooms in, there is no equivalent for zooming back out.

User interface elements such as zoom sliders can also be an alternative, but they are somewhat inferior: You need to move the cursor there first, and they always zoom to the center of the currently displayed section of the map. With the wheel, you can zoom towards an off-center point, too, and don't need to move the cursor back towards your focus of interest when you want to click on it.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur!

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

There are mice and track pads that can scroll in 360 degrees.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Drag to move is pretty intuitive (especially for the smartphone generation). So is using the mousewheel to zoom.

How would you want zoom in/out to be handled? Some funny CTRL+something combination where people need to read a manual first? Use the "draw a box approach" that only ever supports zoom in intuitvely - leaving users to wonder how they can zoom back out? Or would you require users to use the slider on the left? + / - buttons?...

Right now, to get from one place to another (no matter where on earth), all it takes is "move scroll wheel down, drag the map, move scroll wheel up". Berlin - Cincinnati in less than 10 seconds. Try that with (+ / -) zoom buttons or sliders and scrollbars.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[UnanimousCoward]

Using the wheel for zoom (and click-wheel + mouse movement for pan which, BTW, Maps implements) is the standard navigation technique for canvases that enable zoom/pan functionality. So they've done the right thing here...

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the scroll wheel to zoom is a widely known standard with online maps, not just Google-based ones, but also with open source alternatives like OpenLayers (used on openstreetmap.org and for many other OSM based maps) or Khtmlib. The wheel is also used for zooming by other applications where zooming is a major component of user interaction, such as Blender.

And their all wrong. It's a stupid interface design.

Scroll should scroll.
Pinch should zoom.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

wheel is the common tool for zooming.

i will laugh at your idiot request because google will not change this, ha ha.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Google, please keep using the scroll wheel to zoom in/out in Google Maps. It makes me happy every time I use it.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Mouse wheel zoom is the single best thing to happen to maps, ever. It actually makes online maps usable.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

You're waay in the minority on this one. Don't hold your breath dude.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[tweak13]

I have never used control + wheel to zoom. In fact I've never heard of it being used that way. In my experience, just scroll wheel to zoom is very common, in everything from 3D modeling applications to strategy games.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[CmdrPorno]

Have you ever used a program called Mozilla Firefox? In that program, control + wheel increases or decreases the size of the text, which is analogous to zooming a map.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Logical mapping? Sounds like you need to use AutoCAD more. Anyway, now you can zoom with the whel and pan by left-clicking and dragging. If you used the wheel to pan, then zooming would become much more inconvenient (how would you do it? By pressing another key at the same time? Dedicated buttons, which are already there? Inconvenient!). Plus you would only be able to pan in two directions rather than in any direction, unless your mouse had one of those weirdo Mac-style mouse nipples.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

As wheel to pan would only go North/South I think it is better used as a zoom.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[thegarbz]

Better yet, give us an option to use the wheel to pan (which would be the logical mapping of that function)

Yeah! ... Wait what? You can't be serious.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[shutdown -p now]

Control+wheel is used for zooming in all browsers to date (even IE6 has that, I think), and many text editors.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[theCoder]

There are two dimensional scroll "wheels" -- often the trackpads on laptops can scroll horizontally along the bottom as well as vertically along the side. Some real mice can also do two dimensional scrolling by tilting the wheel.

Of course, I'd prefer that Google maps not do anything with the scroll wheel, at least in the embedded version, since it's very annoying to be scrolling down a page, come to an embedded map and have the page scrolling stop and Google maps zoom in or out. Maybe ctrl+wheel could be zoom, like it is in the Gnome HIG.

Re:Google maps / mouse scroll wheel annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is the standard. But I still hate it!

Is this really an issue?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I mean, before the change, people were stuck with white.

not black

[Anonymous Coward]

the bar is not black. it is #2d2d2d

black would be #000000

Re:Shut up loser

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, troll.

  Bing often IS better -- google gone corporate is google with extra spam added -- at the top. Learn to think, or get off the internet.

JOIN GOOGLE+

[Lysander7]

Why? Here's why: http://xkcd.com/918/

Re:Soon the Google's front page will be your deskt

[SnicersX]

That was a moronic comment. They already have Chrome as the OS. It is called Chrome OS, so of course their browser and websites are going to gear towards that.

I HATE THAT DAMN BLACK BAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

I also hate changes to software that I didn't make. Google, get your damn hands off my desktop, you're turning into freaking adobe.

Reminds me of WordPress

[RackNine]

That black top bar kind of reminds me of WordPress when logged in, and somehow it makes me uneasy ... I guess I just need to get used to it, but it seems out of place, doesn't it?

Re:Reminds me of WordPress

[WillKemp]

Yeah. I don't like it much on Wordpress and i like it even less on google!

Android version is better

[thetoadwarrior]

Google on Android doesn't have the black bar it has a Chrome tab look to the menu where the selected section is a white tab and the others are in a grey bar that doesn't stick out nearly as much. The black bar of the desktop version contrasts too much with the rest of the page.

Re:Android version is better

[RackNine]

Yes, it does look like it's part of a different layout. Additionally, now the menu items are much harder to read, as opposed to before, when just a quick glance did suffice to locate where "Images", "News", etc, were.

love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

finally, google looks like a solid search-engine

Contrast

[decipher_saint]

For me there isn't enough contrast. Gray text on black doesn't stand out.

I wouldn't have had an issue with it if it was configurable, but it isn't.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I do search with google I also find the "popups" regarding changing my homepage or installing chrome highly annoying.

I have never seen this, not even once. Anyone else know what this guy is talking about? I have a feeling he's not totally making it up, but .. Google doing popups?! And how could Google even know what your homepage is? I've never seen their results page encourage installing Chrome either, though maybe I have been mentally filtering that out along with the rest of the ads.

Re:WTF?

[perryizgr8]

its fake popups, on the right top corner of the screen or a horizontal bar on top. dunno how they find out google is not your homepage. but the chrome thing is very very annoying. i actually switched for a few days to chrome just to not see that shit again. but tree style tabs.

Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[eepok]

I don't like the direction. People flocked to Google because it was minimalist and worked. They expanded their market, but kept their face mostly the same-- minimalist. Now they're going Google+ and open the way for someone to be "Just like Google was before they bloated their landing page".

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

No, people flocked to google because of the superior search results. There were/are plenty of other search engines with similarly minimal design, yet people don't use them. Look at gmail, obviously the best webmail interface out there, so people flock to that. Google+ offers some things that facebook does not and IMO will supplant it. Google wins peoples hearts by offering free products with a better feature set and superior, minimal design. But minimalism doesnt mean burying your head in the sand and ignoring existing needs.

New features =/= bloat; myspace, geocities etc == bloat.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[NeutronCowboy]

In other news, competition is good? I'm not particularly vetted to Google. Right now, they provide services that I like with an attitude I can accept. If something better comes along, sign me up. Just make sure it's actually *better* and not just different.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Google's key advantage over others is in it's concise, simplistic presentation combined with an answer to whatever you're searching for within a couple of clicks. When they start adding more bloat and clutter to be more "Web 2.0" is when they will fail.

Sadly it looks like this is occurring much sooner than I'd hoped. :'(

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

man people whine like bitches over the most trivial shit. there are literally 100 different portals to google that mimic the original interface with none of the bloat or instant features. I guess it's just easier to whine like a little girl with a skinned knee instead of doing something about it. Yeah awesome.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Overzeetop]

I'm not sure it's actually getting much worse. Yeah, it's got a bar instead of a line of regular text. It's still so way ahead of (behind?) the interfaces that make you search the whole freaking page for what you want. I'm willing to be patient - I doubt they really want to screw up what they've got.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

so just get the fucking browser plugin

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not particularly vetted to Google

*wedded* to Google, not vetted.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Eil]

I've become a fan of DuckDuckGo lately. They have a strong privacy policy (no user tracking), an HTTPS interface, interface customizations, and loads of extra features for developers. My only real complaint with DDG so far is that Google sometimes does better with obscure queries. (And the cartoon duck logo is really stupid.)

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[dbcad7]

I'm not sure that applying a background color to a menu that was already there is bloat.. I think many people have ignored the menu.. So now all of a sudden, it's what's this ? change.. oh no.. I've use the "shopping". "maps", and "images" items for I don't know how long.. the others.. not so much.. but really nothing significant has changed at the main page.. doom and gloom it's not.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[eepok]

Instant search and site previews over when hovering over links are more examples of the "wrong direction" I and others talk about.

Re:Google was great because of the lack of Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see that some would (and do) like instant search and instant preview. But many find them to be extremely annoying. The first can only be unreliably turned off (preference saved in cookie rather that in my user preferences -- why?), for the second there is no way to turn it off. Would not be so bad if the instant preview appeared only when one clicked on the magnifying glass, but no, a click anywhere in the large rectangle associated with a search result turns it on. Again, Why?

Black, white, whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can change that top bar all you want Google, but how about letting me arrange where everything goes. Sunuvabitch, why should I press the settings/gear icon to go into iGoogle? Why are all your services buried inside of 'more' and 'even more'? What if I want something on top consistently across all your services? Or just let me get rid of the bar completely since I've got them all set up as bookmarks anyways.

Search improvement

[hackertourist]

sometimes, the fuzziness in Google's interpretation of your search terms means that it's difficult to find what you want. E.g. I recently needed to find a combination like A[0-9A-Z]123. As far as I know, this is impossible with Google. Also punctuation is sometimes a vital part of the search term, but gets ignored by Google.

Is there a search engine that allows for this type of exact searches? One that uses grep syntax would be ideal.

Re:Search improvement

[vux984]

Is there a search engine that allows for this type of exact searches? One that uses grep syntax would be ideal.

If your technical enough to understand grep syntax you should be technical enough to understand why it wouldn't work.

Google indexes things, and then searches indexes. The indexes are compiled by stripping out punctuation, ignoring case, and lately by linking in common spelling mistakes, spelling and tense variations of the same word to the same index entry, etc.

grep goes the other way... you can't rightly index something for a grep search... what you're asking for is a "full text search of the internet".

Re:Search improvement

[mcmonkey]

sometimes, the fuzziness in Google's interpretation of your search terms means that it's difficult to find what you want. E.g. I recently needed to find a combination like A[0-9A-Z]123. As far as I know, this is impossible with Google. Also punctuation is sometimes a vital part of the search term, but gets ignored by Google.

Is there a search engine that allows for this type of exact searches? One that uses grep syntax would be ideal.

Word up. How would you search for a phrase which include double quotes?

Re:Search improvement

[aug24]

You could allow searches for indexed terms that match regexp fairly easily. That's what I think the GP is after.

Re:Search improvement

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

The example glob would require looking up 37 indexed terms. More complicated regexes would require exponentially more.
With the comparatively tiny amount of code Google indexes this is possible, with the full web index it is just beyond their capacity.

It would be easy to knock together a GreaseMonkey script with the code from http://joseph.rezeau.pagesperso-orange.fr/eao/developpement/expandRegexpToString.htm tweaked to generate Google's OR syntax.

Pls fix maps. KTHNXBYE

[mcmonkey]

Is it just me, or is Google Maps a usability nightmare?

At the top of the window you're losing a good deal of space to menus, search box, some other buttons. Do we really need all that white space around the search box?

On the left, there's the directions, My Maps, and other text. Why isn't this resizable, rather than just opened or closed?

Then there's the map itself. Was the UI designed by the same folks who put logos and ads over TV shows? There's the pan control--covering the map; the zoom control--covering the map; the traffic button--covering the map; the idiotic satellite/map button--covering the map. Why is that thing so big? The satellite button is about 3 times the size of the traffic button. 2 extra letters, 3 times the size.

After all the junk, the window is about 40% useful map.

If anyone still remembers, the simplicity of Google's front page was in stark contrast to Yahoo's front page. Now with all the scripts and garbage running in the background, gone are the days of going to google.com and just start typing. Now it's, wait for the page to finish loading so the first 3 or 4 letters I type aren't lost. The UI is still simple, but what's going on behind the scenes? It's a logo and a text box; why does it take so long to load?

Why do Google Maps look like it should be Yahoo! Maps circa 1999?

Catch 22

[WaffleMonster]

My biggest wish is that vendors would stop dictating how people use a tool and stop adding noise that can not be disabled. Remember google was supposed to have that no-nonsense interface for a reason... To be useful rather than 'pretty'.

There was a really nice new feature added recently I love. This allows me to remove sites from search results which always appear but never have any useful content to begin with (experts exchange, ask and associated spam link farms).

The only catch is that you have to be logged in to use it. Which I didn't used to mind until just recently...Now when I'm logged in +1 appears everywhere and there is no way to turn it off. That animated +1 icon designed specifically to catch my attention when I don't give a flying rats ass about telling my 'friends' every URL I like is annoying as hell.

The inability to click in a window with google search to gain focus to that window without accidently turning on the stupid site preview option with no way to disable still pisses me off to this day.

The inability to fully collapse the useless sidebar is also annoying.

It really feels like google is going out of their way to piss me off more and more with each passing month and I don't know why. We have spent thousands on adwords placement.

Are we native yet?

[JAlexoi]

So.... Will this one have native HTML5? Or HTML6?

Re:Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail

[edumacator]

The first really legitimate complaint I've heard that actually affects the user. The reaction to the blackbar seems over the top. I don't like it that much either, but it's a 30px bar at the top of the page.

I think it's a funny design decision (we are all talking about it though, so maybe it's right on the mark.), but saying Google has forsaken its austere home page seems silly. Has anyone seen the epileptic fit waiting to happen on Yahoo's home page?

Well thought out design

[hattable]

At least on the search pages it is a very well thought out and intuitive design. I didn't even notice the change but was using the top bar to go to the images after a search before I stopped and thought something was different and noticed the bar at the top. Hopefully they continue to keep it simple and intuitive.

Unfortunately I feel they will probably end up with a bit of feature creep and bloat before long.

Re:Well thought out design

[maxwell demon]

They already have feature creep and bloat.

Google Instant, for example. Would be easy to circumvent by blocking scripts, except that this also blocks all the useful scripts on maps&co., too. The result is that I'm constantly enabling/disabling scripts for Google (even worse than Instant is that the key up/down for scrolling the page doesn't work any more, because Google thought it was a good idea to use them to duplicate the browser functionality of selecting the previous/next link).

If they don't fix that, I may ultimately decide not to search with Google any more.

Competition

[Autonomous Crowhard]

Google has been playing catch up for years, but now they're changing their UI in gratuitous and overly animated ways without giving the users notification or a "classic" path out of it. Wow, they finally caught up to Facebook!

Black toolbar

[meatron]

When I saw it I had to think of Drupal 7. There I like it, but on google it seems a bit aggressive... I wish I could make it white/neutral again.

Install Google Chrome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....
Install Google Chrome! No thank you....

Oh look... Bing...

AG

[sidemouse]

What's after Google? There have been many companies who could do no wrong during their youth. They are full of life, energy and idealism (maybe "life: energy and idealism"). They seem to be for the little guy, infact they are the little guy made good. They have names like Larry and Sergey. And then they become Borg. Google's first fall from grace with me was the discovery that they (it) knew about multiple account awkwardness but weren't going to do anything about it, they had bigger plans. That seemed a little controlling and creepy. The same corp that once championed feeling lucky, now makes it very difficult just to get back the simple search box I first fell in love with. This makes me think: they're rounding the corner, they're losing touch, there's a young warrior waiting to lead a yet hopeful user base. I wonder who's out there waiting.

Re:AG

[lothos]

http://duckduckgo.com/ reminds me of the old google, simple and clean.

Re:Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail

[MMatessa]

It also o takes an extra click to switch accounts now.

Re:Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail

[rolfwind]

All my new incoming messages are marked important now:( WTF! Most of them aren't important, marking them all such loses value anyway, and that's what I used the star for.

Gmail used to be nearly perfect, and they are really fixing what ain't broke with this dumb "upgrades".

Speaking of crappy, needless redesigns...

[sootman]

... check out what this techy news blog did to their story pages.

Re:Speaking of crappy, needless redesigns...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure? None of the links in the comment on the page you linked work, so I can't follow it.

from google to yandex

[e**(i pi)-1]

changed my startup page to Yandex. The black bar is too bad. Its strange how little things can annoy so much.

And then gooogle reenables instant....

[Anonymous Coward]

The past few days I have had to keep turning off the instant (and I am logged in). Four times so far. I am not sure if they keep updating the system or switching networks triggered some A/B IP based testing or what, but its annoying as hell. When people turn it off, they really really want it off.

SHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is the best reason to return to Firefox!

I'll e-mail Google-Chrome blog and tell them I'm returning to IE6.

HA .. HA ... HA.

UP YOURS GOOGLE.

Fuckn' Gays. :0

Once you've had black.....

[seanvaandering]

.. you never go back.

/or so I've heard..

subject

[Legion303]

Yay, more useless shit for me to filter out with greasemonkey. Just like Slashdot.

I'd like to not accidentally +1 my midget donkey porn sites, Google. Just let me jerk in peace.

Slashdot's new design

[shutdown -p now]

In the meantime, judging by the fat "Post" and "Search Comments" buttons right under the story, Slashdot has got a new design as well. This time, it was middle-click-to-open-in-new-tab that fell sacrifice to the rapid advance of Web 3.0 on the Slashdot community.

Something funny I noticed

[supersloshy]

Go to the Google+ Tour page and click "Huddle". As the group chat is going on, click on the text entry form on the phone and type random letters. You can hit "send" as well.

Black is for death

[unil_1005]

Is Google trying to tell us something?

Its ok by me

[Anonymous Coward]

The stuff on the menu bar is all noise anyway, I just zone it out.

So long as the search bar is in the middle of a largely blank screen then I'm ok. While they're redesigning, they could also dump the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button (never use it, often the return I want is NOT the frst placed item) and re-label Google search as Search. I mean, it SAYS Google above the search box. Do Google think their users have such a short attention span that they need reminding that they're going to use Google to search when they click the button?

Of course, "Google Search" is also an irrelevance. When you're typing a search term in on the keyboard, then the Enter key is but a further keystroke away, unlike removing your hand from the keyboard, finding the mouse, moving the pointer to the Google Search button and clicking the left mousebutton.

Then there's the hiding of useful things like search settings under that cogwheel thingy....

Jumping the shark

[tehcyder]

I think it was when Google Instant started, it's just headache-inducing. And, yes, I know you can turn it off.

mod up! ...Precisely, and esp

[tkprit]

minus those ask yahoo answers. Google's useful if properly queried.

if you don't like it, you use "classic style", BUT

[tkprit]

the big problem I saw when I opened my browser this am was all that extra white padding, and far less actual information shown, for no conceivable reason besides "aesthetics" (eg, what looks 'cool' to the PTB @ what used to be a somewhat open company).

I'm completely ashamed to admit that what I started to use in 07 as a 'not serious' calendar (scheduling the kids' events) turned into a massive app for my business, my husband's business, personal tasks, school and activities (kids), political events, and just regular old event planning for meals, etc. I bought 2 androids this year *because* of that one stupid ~cloud~ app (Google Calendar). The phone apps are still great; but after today, the "new aesthetic" doesn't allow me to see a complicated group of calendars and tasks anymore. The useless empty white padding makes the outer columns so small that the SCROLL BARS are bigger than the shown information! (And I have a widescreen laptop!)

Yes, I can (and sure as hell did) revert back to the "classic style", and will be writing or lifting scripts (greasemonkey) to whack the page back into shape, but my trust in Google "apps" (not the search engine or email) took a giant nosedive today. It's clear that they'd prefer Calendar to look 'stylish' rather than to present information, or they would have made this "new aesthetic" a skin.

(I don't care what color the menu bar is; or if I can put a doodad icon in a field; I just want to SEE my INFORMATION.)

It's completely jarred my trust in any company's "cloud" apps (and that was my first and only, since I d/l my gmail to my harddrive). I'm tucking my tail in and going back to local storage and apps, and going to figure out my own syncing schemes with the android.

(Sorry; I'm extraordinarily pissed off. And I trust Google about as much as I trust 'user friendly' Microsoft :& )

Even Google Blog said it was more a SKIN than

[tkprit]

any kind of engine change; they made design changes. It's called a skin. A skin is an option; a preference; not 'progress' (unless they're making the app skinnable and just the default 'skin' changed).

And it's fine if they want to add skins, but to completely change the layout for 'aesthetics', at least call it a 'skin' and even make it default, but have other configurations (skins) available. THAT'S progress and change.

(Yes I reverted to "classic", but I doubt that option will be around long.)

  progress

Hating the Black Bar...

[Anonymous Coward]

...so much that I switched my home page from www.google.com/firefox to search.yahoo.com/firefox.

Re:Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to their insanely busy home page, Yahoo has a simple, vaguely Google-like search page at http://search.yahoo.com.