Rant against iGoogle
Aaron Sloman
Last updated: 28 Jul 2008

Instead I had to go to www.google.com.

But I did not get the usual mostly empty page with a box in which to type my search query: instead I got a multi-panel web page with all sorts of junk in it -- London tube map, weather reports, news headlines, advertisements, lists of links of various sorts, and worst of all a panel inviting me to visit a horoscope site.

It announced itself as 'iGoogle', something I had never heard of, and a panel came up saying I had been chosen to try out iGoogle and inviting me to fill in a questionaire.

Here are some of my answers.

I did not come to it.

It came to me while I was trying to use google search and I was EXTREMELY annoyed

(a) because the google search panel on firefox stopped working so that I had to explicitly invoke google and then type in my search command, while lots of unwanted junk appeared on my screen

(b) because I have no interest in turning google into some sort of general purpose interface to the universe.

I use google search a lot and google news occasionally. I don't want news or anything else to be shoved in my face when I simply want to answer a search question.

The rest of the page was sheer junk. Why should I want a London tube map when I live in Birmingham? Why should I care about how yoga people do headstands. Why give me a sports panel when I am not interested in sports.

Above all it is utterly APPALLING that google panders to the superstitious idiocy of the uneducated masses by presenting a panel about horoscopes. Either you are very patronising or else you have very low intellectual standards and take that stuff seriously yourself.

Now I have to find out how to turn off this junk. Maybe I should just use another search engine.

Ugh!

Should have an answer option: I NEVER WANT TO VISIT IT.

Likewise the question: When did you first use iGoogle?

should have an option: i did not visit it: it was inflicted on me.

What if anything do you find frustrating or unappealing about iGoogle?
What changes or additional features would you like to see for iGoogle?

I don't want to see it at all.

I have no interest in something that chooses a collection of web resources for me and shoves them in my face when I want to do something else.

I can use my own bookmarks and shortcuts to get directly to sites that interest me.

I also usually keep multiple tabs and windows live in firefox as an extension to my short term memory (especially since I can restore them after a crash or reboot).
Normally I don't reboot because I use SWSUSP2 on Linux instead.

I eventually managed to restore normal google function as a result of sequence of semi-random experiments.
Unfortunately, I don't recall exactly what I did, so I cannot help other users.

Date: 28 Jul 2008