Word of the Day: sarsenet - gentle
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Google enrages users with 24 hours of imposed images
BAD MODERN ART may be in the eye of the beholder, but Google's decision to foist something like it on its users' search homepages for 24 hours has caused an uproar.
Dozens of anti-background related topics have appeared on the search engine giant's help forum with hundreds of comments from users criticising the change, which does not allow the original homepage look to be restored. The 24 hour period of pictures began at 1900h Pacific daylight time on 9 June.
Google admitted to The INQUIRER that the homepage could not be restored and advised that "If you prefer to have a clean, simple look, you can change it to another colour using our background image feature. All you need to do is sign in to your Google Account to change your background."
So that is what it is all about, Google actually wants everyone to sign up for an account with them or is that just too cynical a view?
Meanwhile comments are building up on the Google help forum that begin with the question "how do I get rid of this background?" and followed by a lot of bad language.
The enforced background pictures arrived a week after Google announced that users could add their own homepage images. µ
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Point is google choose to manage punter relations with a "fuck off we are going to do what we like not what you want" attitude. Its almost as if they had a big corporate get together with "the forum" (snakeoil peddlars who make money by annoying people to the point of transmarginal inhibition) or something. Or maybe its a reaction to MS who annoy everyone by pretending to try to please everyone, but there is the point, they only pretend and google are fools if they cannot see past that pretence and are suckers if they think it is sincere and then try doing the opposite as a means to deliverance.
I think they are probably overcompensating for a corporate identity crisis, if that isnt some kind of oxymoron but maybe they hired a newbie who doesnt quite get it and wants to make a splash and yes I sense a psychologist is involved somewhere. Only a psychologist has the power to persuade an entire company to abandon common sense, pervert the established order and go to work naked.
Google have embarked on a course towards Jobsian arrogance and as a result they must embrace the truth that every punter and his dog will be trying to bite a chunk out their leg from here on in for the simple fact that they are doing what they want not what we want.
Like AMD before them they rode high by providing people with exactly what they wanted at a price they could not refuse. Now they have "made it" their attitude has changed and they think that we, the population of the world, are the tail and they are the dog and that they can wag us. They seem to forget that their power came from obedience to our needs in the first place.
Incredible. Since they are now arrogant they will probably say this is only one robots opinion and ignore it but they dont know that and the truth will out.
That's karma baby.
Your comment is back asswards jayil. The queston is, how much money did Google rake in because so many people use their search engine for free? Billions. So if everyone took your asinine advice and switched search engines, how long before Google folded? Likely as long as you spent in the education system. Which is to say, not long.
@Anthony
Google has no right to force feed me anything. For 24 hours or 2.4 milliseconds. If they were forcing an ad that someone paid millions for, I MIGHT understand, but forcing me to look at free crap I have no interest in is just wrong. As much as I hate Bing, I did switch for the day. I'm sure a lot of other ppl did as well. Not a fact their paying advertisers would like I'm sure.
Bing and Google returns very different result and I use both depending on what I search so please keep it that way, google.
@Anthony
It is not 5-10 seconds. I RDP to work machine then RDP again to other servers and launching the page becomes a 60 seconds+ from 1 sec(if there is no image background).
No, they don't. That's a dangerous corporatist myth. We "natural persons" have *all* the rights, and have granted a corporation a *privilege* to exist so long as it benefits *us*, which privilege can be removed at any time. That may be idealistic and less-than-true in practice, nonetheless, the principle can't be surrendered, else corporations become the master and we the people become slaves.
I did not even notice this until my coworker pointed this out. Yet I had been googling away the whole morning because I use the searching bar in firefox. I only visited the google homepage to play the pacman thing some time ago and today to look at the awful wallpaper pictures.
...so how much exactly did the people who have complained pay Google to use their search engine? ZERO! exactly, so dont complain. Nothing in this world is free. Google have the right to do whatever they want and you have the right to change your search engine.
The cure I like best so far is:
www.google.com/aol
www.google.co.uk/aol
Removes the background stuff and the fade-in stuff too.
I like the sound of this too but that means more installing -
From t'interweb:-
"If you have Firefox and the Greasemonkey addon installed you can remove the background using this
script...
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/78742
Works great and also disables the fade-in on the page too :D"
If you want to disable personalized search ranking you have to create an account and sign in ... to prevent personalization.
WTF, Google?
https://www.google.com works fine.
You are the lab rats in their experiment.
Me, I use noscript. I assume that's the prevention here, don't get anything but the usual GRAY background, because also have text colors fixed in Firefox's prefs.
By the way, here's how to make the advanced page and long lists permanent:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en&num=100
Google at it again - just a few weeks ago they were upsetting millions of users by messing with the Logo. Now many - especiwally internationally - like me are being messsed around again by the company that "does no harm".
Actually for those of usoutside the US it is quite easy. Just use www.google.com/ncr as the address in your address bar and Voila! there will be your clean Unbing like white Google page.
I saw a lot of early comments from people in the US saying "just use the button to remove it - what they did not realise is that outside the USa ther WAS no button!
I am not sure but think that ncr is about not redirecting the home page which is automatically what happens to any of us in UK, France Australia etc if we simply type in google.com.
I know it is "only" 24 hours but this is the second time in a week or so that G has shown scant disregard for its users.
Next time guys ask and provide a real way out.
James
It's to bad that Bing's searches stink so badly, or I'd switch to that. Google's searches still do 100 times better.
Bing bing bing bing bing
Now where did I see background that changes on click of a button???
ummm???
Bing bing bing bing bing .. nope still dont get it ??!!?
I think you are all missing the point. Open up google.com then open up bing.com. Note the squared off search buttons, see the similarity in the style of the background image.
Now search for something, see how google has completely changed the way results are displayed, gone are the sponsored links at the top and along the right hand side. Do a search in Bing and you guessed it, exactly the same format.
Google has been established as the search engine leader for many years now so obviously Microsoft would want to copy them. Wrong! These are all changes google has implemented after bing came out.
Leaders lead and followers follow. I though google was a leader... sadly I was wrong.
Google RIP (I love melodrama!)
I'll be going back to Altavista. It's against Google's philosophy and mission statement. My question is did they actually even think once let alone twice.... mission statement below from their web site...
3. Simplicity is powerful.
Simplicity fuels many elements of good design, including ease of use, speed, visual appeal, and accessibility. But simplicity starts with the design of a product's fundamental functions. Google doesn't set out to create feature-rich products; our best designs include only the features that people need to accomplish their goals. Ideally, even products that require large feature sets and complex visual designs appear to be simple as well as powerful.
Google teams think twice before sacrificing simplicity in pursuit of a less important feature. Our hope is to evolve products in new directions instead of just adding more features.
OK seriously, how sad is it that people need to complain about something that, number 1, is only going on for 24 hours and number 2, is on a page where you spend what, 5-10 seconds on? It's called advertising, and if you can't handle advertisement, then unplug your Ethernet cable.
Don't be absurd. If Google can "enrage" you by placing a photo background on their search engine- you have some anger managment issues and you need to seek help.