Google in Internet Explorer 7
February 7th, 2006
In Google’s on-going crusade to make their homepage look even worse, they’ve now added a reminder to the homepage to make Google your Internet Explorer default search engine.
This links to this file. For some reason, Google distributes an executable file rather than just using a line of Javascript and an OpenSearch document as recommended.
The notice actually covered the link to the Personalized Homepage and the link to Sign In. It can also obscure part of the Google logo if the screen width isn’t very high (see screenshot).
Additionally, the notice seems to stay there when you return to Google (unless you explicitly dismiss it). No idea if they plan to keep this when IE 7 Final comes out and how they detect whether Google is currently set to your default browser.
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It’s been there a while now. I visited Google on a developer preview of IE7 before Christmas and I got that message. Obviously, I didn’t download the executable, but rather just added it myself.
I’m actually surprised at this.
Why would Google have such a ugly popup?
Wasn’t there single link at the bottom of their home page saying "Make Google your default homepage" enough?
I liked the clean Google interface… hopfully we don’t see more and more of this.
In other Google related news (hopefully better), have you seen the upcoming chat features in Gmail?
I’m excited by the new features Gmail seem to be bringing in. Only problem is that I, or the whole of the UK, seem to get them last. The ’send as’ feature is not in my posession, nor the new implemented ‘delete’ button next to the ‘archive’ button.
I do hope this feature becomes available to use soon, because I’m not a fan of Google Talk - it may be based on OS software, but that doesn’t mean it has to be good.
I guess its OK - apparently it works even if you use a standard Jabber client to connect to the Google Talk server. It’s nice that Google is taking Jabber as a base but also bringing something new. The ability to send instant messaging from Gmail also seems nice - one interface to communicate with someone: whether you want a quick reply or a detailed one.
But yeah, the sheer uselessness of Google Talk really limits the usefulness. I also doubt it integrates with other Jabber servers: you can’t see the status of example@jabber.org for example.
Sunny Boy: My main Gmail account seems to be quite behind on features but my secondary account (which I got after) seems to get new features quite quickly. Might be worth creating/using other accounts to test drive new features.
Although this shouldn’t have to happen, this seems to be the only way at the moment.