On the topic of annoying Google features, did they recently make it so that links to search results opened in new tabs? Is that a feature that one can turn off? It's eating up my iOS tabs!
Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
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Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that she supported the launch, but Marissa wasn't involved in any of the infrastructure work, machine planning, etc.
Of course she wasn't involved in making things work efficiently and reliably, since that never was her responsibility, but the whole reason all of that had to happen was because she decided to turn what normally would be one of the many, many cool internal demos into a public, differentiating feature (and got signoff from upper management). I'll miss Instant on desktop, for the record. It was a great achievement to i…
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7x infra to support it...what was the value prop for this?
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#63The most annoying part is still there -- of the home page morphing into the search results page as soon as text is typed. It is a totally nonsensical design. 1) Type stuff into google.com 2) Delete all the text You are now on a totally empty results page. Why is this a sensible design?
This isn't happening for me. Try it in incognito mode, maybe?
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#64I hated, thanks
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, part of it was marketing, but there were benefits, too, e.g. for slow typers, which of course do not abound in this corner of the Internet.
In my experience these slow typists also tend to look at the keyboard while they are typing - not at the screen. Thereby completely negating the benefit for this group of people. I guess that for the intersection of slow typists who look at the screen while typing, Instant Search is useful. But how big is this intersection really?
My sample set of 1 (mom) types char, then looks at screen on loop.
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#66Good riddance. This was a marketing feature more than anything else so google could boast about how fast their search engine was. However, it always had tons of usability problems for no added benefit to the user, especially when refining a previous search, or trying to retype some funky word you found in the results.
Yes, part of it was marketing, but there were benefits, too, e.g. for slow typers, which of course do not abound in this corner of the Internet.
When I fractured my collar bone in a bicycle accident I lost the use of my right arm for 6 weeks to a sling while the bones healed. So I bought a "half keyboard", a curious but functional contraption that uses the space bar to invert the left side of the keyboard into the right side of the keyboard, so that I could do full touch typing with only my left hand.
The irony is it took about 4 weeks to get up to a useable speed. I kept using it for almost two years afterwards because it was so nice to have a trackball in my right hand and complete control of the keyboard with my left hand, and not have to ever move either hand.
The main point is that during this time I was a slow typist, and looking at the screen while doing it. It was rather agonizing. Deep sympathies for disabled individuals was developed during that time.
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#67Well there goes an entire category of meme. RIP internet.
Not really, the memes revolve around the suggested auto-completions which the article says will still be around.
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#68I loved this feature! This makes me sad. It really shouldn't be a big deal to let people enable it for their own accounts or to just disable it for mobile. I don't see the benefit of just getting rid of it completely.
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#69The most annoying part is still there -- of the home page morphing into the search results page as soon as text is typed. It is a totally nonsensical design. 1) Type stuff into google.com 2) Delete all the text You are now on a totally empty results page. Why is this a sensible design?
On top of that it's a constant perplexing hindrance for Luddites like myself who insist upon using the backspace key to navigate back a page, instead leaving me wondering why my search results page is refreshing instead. Every. Single. Time. I know, I know, it's my fault. But it's not.
You can also use Alt-LeftArrow, which works even if a text input field had focus.
Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search
#70Does anybody really look at the Google home page any more? Browsers and mobile devices all have search boxes now. Bing tried putting good artwork on their home page, and nobody noticed. Google's "robots.txt" file doesn't let bots read their home page. Most other pages on Google are bot-readable, but not the home page. It's like they don't want it to be indexed by other search engines. That might change once it gets c…
Google Doodle!