Google search rolls out 'instant' site previews Google has rolled out a new tool onto its web-dominating search engine that lets you preview sites before actually visting them. Using these "Instant Previews," netizens are "about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click," according to Google tests. Such tests were spotted in the wild early last month. " …
Even with "instant" turned off google generates too much "inline" traffic typing in the bloody search field. And the tick to turn that off seems to've vanished. That and their highly annoying habit to change the format of the cookies holding that information at the drop of a hat so that I get to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-set them. Put it on top of stack, together with their highly annoying geo-ip language guessing that ignores the browser setting and the silly buggers I have to play to override that because for some things I only want the google.COM results, as annoying as that is, having to specifically ask for it time and again is even more so. And then there's the fact that I actually need those cookies. Where's the simple interface?
This? This is yet another annoying setting that keeps reverting itself to the default setting aptly termed "annoy me", and is going to generate more of that unwanted traffic. Yesh, I'm behind a slow, and worse, erratic link, and I'm getting deliberately left behind where that isn't necessairy at all. Those smartarses over in chocolate factory land are getting a tad too addicted to their very own super fast networks.
Too bad several of the competitors are now "powered" by bing, meaning that the dark web actually got darker and that there's now even less choice. Empowering consumers indeed.
Paint me annoyed and not a little bit grumpy about all of this.
you now have to sue lest your patent goes invalid for non-enforcement? Unless there's a licensing deal already in place, of course. Otherwise, well, you'll see them in court, I presume.
Tangentially, I usually look more for /text/ content than pretty pictures (yes, it's true, or I'd be using picture search), so a visual overview isn't the most important to me. And yet more javascript overhead. That's still cycles spent on my side, slowing me down. *sigh*
You're thinking of trademarks. Patents don't get invalidated merely by being neglected, if they did then patent trolling would be a lot harder.
Having said that, if anyone can stop Google from arsing about with the look of their search page, I'm all for it. If that means suing them, go for it.
Google seems to have forgotten that it built its reputation on a simple, minimalist design that worked reasonably well even if you were on dialup. Nowadays they simply can't stop themselves from shovelliing ever more data down our pipes. Maybe it's time to give Bing a try.
I'm all for innovation, if it means giving us better results. What I don't want is features that make it harder/slower to get the information I want.
For instance, take the Google feature that corrects your spelling. Sometimes I deliberately want to search for a misspelled word, because I know the misspelling is going to be a lot rarer than the correct version; but yesterday, I discovered I could no longer find any way to overrule the spelling-correction feature. That's an example of innovation I could well do without.
Microsoft is just the same. Lord knows there are plenty of aspects of Office that *could* do with improvement, but instead of addressing those, MS keeps messing with the menus. Menu technology was perfected circa 1985, but they just can't stop themselves.
I wish either one of them *would* spend a bit more time resting on their laurels, frankly. It'd be better than this frantic scramble to come up with new "features" that serve no purpose except to justify some mid-manager's next budget.
This uses automated screencaptures .and then shows them without the original sites permission
and is thus is ignoring all copyright law or fair use doctrine ( and you can always block our bot and thus "opt out" doesn't cut it eric ..because I already did "no archive" ..and you keep switching bots and ignoring robots text directives )..if you have predominantly text based website ..the text in the "screen cap" is too small to read ..but if you have an image based website with "thumbnails" that show the chosen "thumbnail" at larger size on the same page ( like most "gallery" sites )..then this shows your images upto 3 times bigger than your thumbnails ..
That removes the need for any casual surfer to visit any "gallery" site in order to see the contents ..
Unless the site serves it's galleries via flash..( because Google cant rip and display interactive flash ..yet ).. that means more than 50% ( maybe as many as 90% ) of all the gallery sites on the internet will have to remake their sites into flash ..just to stop google ripping off their copyright material.
The sizes used by Google correspond perfectly to a smart phone used horizontally ..( as does their recent local maps implementation ) ..from now on the biggest ,unauthorised, copyright ignorer ( waaaaaaaay bigger than the PRC ) will show your pages (as many as they can get with their disguised "bots" ) ..next to their serps ..and on a mobile phone you can scroll up and down myriads of sites without ever actually visiting any of them ..
And you cant opt out ..because being opted out of "cache" via "no archive" years made no difference ..
IMO eric just went right across the "creepy line" ( alway wondered which side he was coming from anyway )..and straight into the illegal ( fair use, partial quotes, review etc don't apply here ) side ..
Apparently he thinks that having corporate lawyers "on tap" ready to stall and the US/UK govt(s) bending over and supplying their own lube will deflect this ..
I and my lawyers ( and I hope many others..and their lawyers ..mom and pop operations , charities, simple "hobby" webmasters, right upto mega corps ) will beg to differ ..
The DMCA(s) and the C and D(s) are in the mail ( snail and e ) ..
Fight it ..or accept being a wallpaper painter ( unpaid ) for the plex and it's properties ..don't let Google hi-jack the web ..it isn't theirs to screencap and frame via javascript includes ..
re adwords ( at least it blocks them from view )..dont you worry ..they'll already have contextually targeted "slide in/down" DHTML versions of adwords ready to drop straight over each screen shot ..thats just adding their "comment on/review.. this site" sidebar ..to their "personalisation / behavioral opted in by default search"..
eric=fecal golem
If only MS and Y had n't made ( so far ) such a clusterfuck of implementing the "federation" of MS serving ads to Y ..
The instant update feature (that tries to guess your search as you type) is not just a prude, but an American prude.
It will autocomplete whatever word you're typing, unless the only remaining option is rude. Type "Mast" = lots of suggestions, type "Mastu" and it, apparently, runs out of ideas.
To my amusement, however, type "Ming" and option two is a little, er, salty.
It means that I can find the sites that will be of interest to me much faster and will less back/forward clicks:- Type a query, have the results keep updating so I can see if what I'm typing is yeilding reasonably valid results, then when I've finished typing I can just preview the pages with a hoverover to check the content is actually valid and not just SEO keyword stuffed nonsense.
Isn't that what search engines should be doing: helping us find the most relevant sites as easily and quickly as possible.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
