19 posts before someone dropped this turd? I expect better from my oh-so-predictable Dopers. “You aren’t paying for it directly so you’re not allowed to comment! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GOOGLE!”
Bacon has invited me to eat it so often, it’s about time I returned the favor. And I pay for my membership here, so you’ll agree I’m entitled.
Yes, Google has a growing and unfortunate tendency to hide shit that used to be easy to find, to disappear features that were thoroughly useful, and to generally fix what ain’t broken. The fact that they also provide useful information for “free” (out of the kindness of their corporate-behemoth hearts!) doesn’t negate this.
It is free. Even if you are going to make the dubious claim that it COSTS you something (privacy), you are free to not use it. Getting you panties in a bunch because they make it slightly more difficult for you to do something, it’s hardly worth that kind of ire. If it bothers you so much, TELL THEM. They are not hiding these things, nor are they unresponsive to complaints.
I didn’t say you cannot comment. I implied (correctly) that it makes you look like an entitled d-bag. Google has several fora for complaints like this. You can speak to them directly. If you want it to actually change, as opposed to just bitching about it, write to them. If you don’t like it, use Bing or something else.
Sorry you feel that way. I have no recollection of ever speaking to you, or reading anything you’ve said, so I wonder if you are confusing me with someone else, or if you just take offense easily (probably the latter given the circumstances). One tip of advice: don’t let the internet hurt your feelings. The real world can be cruel enough without engaging in internet feuds.
What bullshit. Feel free to name 3 companies that do more to improve the lives of their users more than Google. Yes, they are corporation, not a charity. Are they perfect? Of course not. You can criticize them for caving in to China, having inadequate privacy policies, etc. But on balance, they do far more good than bad, and the alternatives are far worse in almost every regard.
Moving a feature that you personally like to use is annoying, but hardly pit-worthy. Complaining about it just makes you sound like the whiniest bitch on butt-hurt lane. They didn’t even get RID of the feature. They just make it slightly less convenient for YOU. Nevermind that it may make it better for other people, or that it may make more money for them that they can use to doing evil things like providing free phone numbers for people, improving their free android OS, hosting your music and files for free, hosting your websites, improving google maps and street view, providing a language translation app, making sure Rick Santorum is a joke, creating better alternatives to Microsoft office, etc., etc. But you are right, let’s all weep for you and the two seconds it takes to bookmark the page for future use.
Perhaps people aren’t seeing the cog because they’re not signed in (or even registered)? I know Google is doing its damnedest to encourage people to have a Google account, offering personalized pages and lots of other shit. Clearly that’s because they want info on you, information has always meant power. Doesn’t bother me but I can see a lot of folks wouldn’t like it at all.
Yes, I’ve seen the forums of which you speak. I’ve visited them on several occasions when Google has inexplicably removed a feature from their search engine or from Gmail, or made it more inconvenient to access. In each case I saw dozens upon dozens of user complaints identical to my own, met with [an] unconvincing boilerplate response[s] from a Google employee who eventually simply locked the thread. You’ll forgive me if I doubt the relative effectiveness of your other proposed solution to send them a personal email. I’d like to think I have that much clout, but reality suggests otherwise.
It didn’t, nor did you. I was referring to my previous experiences eating the food product known as bacon. It was a joke. I’m willing to move on with my life now if you are. I’m sure you have some more knobs to polish.
Google toolbar? Every major browser has had built in search for years. It’s pretty straight forward: Search from your browser, click advanced if you want to refine the results.
Why would you purposely add an extra step to the process, then complain about inconvenience?
I search in the browser’s built in feature and depending on the browser, I either still can’t find Google’s Advanced Search after I get the results, or have to click around to get to it. Typically when I want to use Advanced Search, I know it ahead of time and would prefer to go right there. But I’m not the OP, it’s just my thing. Google put a list of a crapload of features at the top of their homepage, I don’t see why they can’t go back to a little “advanced” link next to the search bar like they used to have.
I’m afraid that the boolean + operand is no longer functional in Google, hasn’t been since last fall. Now instead of putting a ‘+’ before a word making sure all search results include that word, you put the ‘+’ after the word to search for it on Google+. Rat fink bastards.
I hate the changes Googles been making to their search product, they are no longer a search engine company who sells adverting, they’re an advertising company growing too distracted to maintain their former core product.
Edit to add another alternative link to Google which ~might~ help with some people’s problems.
So what’s the issue here then? Either you’re searching from your browser, which never had an advanced link in the first place, or you want to go to the homepage, click a link there, and search from a different page. Which doesn’t seem like any less effort than searching from your browser, and clicking advanced under the gear icon on the results page.
Putting the word quotes accomplishes the same thing.
And how is that correct when (1) you were the first one to say it, indicating no previous poster thought he was a douchebag, and (2) now that you’ve said it, people now think you are the entitled douchebag? Oh noes, I shouldn’t have to read about people complain about. I’m going to treat them poorly because I’m so much better than them because I don’t get upset about free shit.
And guess what, turd-for-brains, you have no reason to think that they didn’t also report the problem to Google. For all you know they do the same thing I do and adblock the hell out of Google and continue making more searches than they normally would just to cost them money. Heck, they may even go one step further than me and employ the software that will do various random searches so that they don’t get any value out of it.
Google does not do anything anymore than some other company doesn’t do. They may have had value in the past, but they no longer do.
The fact that you think complaining about this stuff in a forum specifically designed for complaining about stuff makes other people a douchebag reflects only on you.
And because I’m not sure of your intelligence level anymore; notice those letters i keep italicizing? The fact that you refused to use them does not help your case.
I actually discovered that Google had rearranged things while helping a patron at the reference desk; she had an assignment where she was limited in what types of websites she could use, with basically only .edus and .govs being acceptable. This was very embarrassing because I’d said “Oh, the advanced search has an option for that, I’ll show you!” only to find that the link wasn’t where I expected it to be. I looked for it under “More” and then “Even More” before finally just Googling for “google advanced search”. Not my best moment as a professional.
Okay, this is freaky. I read your post and thought “I’m pretty sure Scholar comes up under ‘More’ for me.” I opened up a new tab and checked, and sure enough the “More” list had Books, Blogs (or maybe Blogger, but I think it was Blogs), Finance, and Scholar listed at the top, then a line and several more options. Then just now, after writing the first part of this post, I checked again and Scholar has vanished from the “More” list! The other entries are also in a different order, and it definitely says Blogger and not Blogs now. I didn’t take a screen shot so it’s possible I was experiencing the world’s dullest delusion, but perhaps the “More” list is affected by one’s search history?
