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Google Links The Internet

It's Not Just You: Google Added Annoying Icons To Search On Desktop (theverge.com) 70

Posted by BeauHD from the thanks-but-no-thanks dept.
Kim Lyons, writing for The Verge: Google added tiny favicon icons to its search results this week for some reason, creating more clutter in what used to be a clean interface, and seemingly without actually improving the results or the user experience. The company says it's part of a plan to make clearer where information is coming from, but how? In my Chrome desktop browser, it feels like an aggravating, unnecessary change that doesn't actually help the user determine how good, bad, or reputable an actual search result might be. Yes, ads are still clearly marked with the word "ad," which is a good thing. But do I need to see Best Buy's logo or AT&T's blue circle when I search for "Samsung Fold" to know they're trying to sell me something? Google says the favicon icons are "helping searchers better understand where information is coming from, more easily scan results & decide what to explore."

If you don't care for the new look, Google has instructions on how to change or add a favicon to search results. Lifehacker also has instructions on how to apply filters to undo the favicon nonsense.
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It's Not Just You: Google Added Annoying Icons To Search On Desktop More

It's Not Just You: Google Added Annoying Icons To Search On Desktop

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  • Is everyone else ready for the mid-to-late nineties retro search party?

    • You mean Astlavista!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      I do remember when "a clean interface" is why people liked Google, back in the early days when they weren't much better than the competition in other ways.

      Seems they're no longer the lean, hungry company all these years later. Par for the course, I guess. MBAs eventually ruin everything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ShaunC ( 203807 )

        You aren't kidding.

        I have an old Gmail account loaded into my IMAP client. Haven't accessed the Gmail web interface in a few years, and even that was just long enough to enable logins with a third-party client. Today I had the misfortune of loading Gmail in a browser and couldn't believe it; it's like they're stuffing a whole operating system onto the page. There was a chat pane, something about phone calls, various widgets that apparently were assimilated from Hangouts, a drop-down menu to switch between s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          I struggled for years, turning off each new thing. But even with every option to suppress the clutter enabled, it still gets worse every year. Seems like they're trying to squeeze all the can out of email, as people spend less time looking at it as the years go by. Damn; it was good once.

    • DuckDuckGo shows them as well but provides a setting to turn them off. I've changed my default browser engine to DDG now.

  • This is an actual story on The Verge? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17, 2020 @08:20PM (#59631512)

    Google adds favicons on web searches, and it is the end of the world? Grow the fuck up. No one will even care a week from now.

  • Feature Creep (Score:3)

    by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Friday January 17, 2020 @08:21PM (#59631514) Homepage Journal
    Google has been steadily crufting up its interface for years. When it first started up, the main screen was simple and very fast. I guess it parallels the bloat of software in general, such that a 512mb computer is no longer capable of running a web browser. 640K used to be enough, right?

  • ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @08:24PM (#59631518) Journal
    It makes it harder to tell at a glance what is an ad and what is not. No doubt they A/B tested it and got more ad-clicks this way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      +1 Until I figured it out, I kept clicking "next page" to try to get past the apparent ads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dmt0 ( 1295725 )

      It also makes you look at icons more than URLs and your eye catches icons that you recognize better - more juice for the big players, aggregators, more centralization of the web.

    • The conspiracy, of course. But actually I like it. In a glimpse one can identify (and avoid) the known icons (eg Facebook). Ergonomics are better and it helps to mark the separation between results. And, on the opposite, the "Ad" text (top or bottom search results) appears even more clearly compared to the rich icons.

      • In a glimpse one can identify (and avoid) the known icons (eg Facebook).

        But that's if you are looking for content from a few specific sites. If you are doing general searching, then it's harder to visually separate out ads because before you only had to distinguish between blocks that started with "Ad" versus blocks that had no identifier. It was a Boolean decision. Now you have to visually parse lots of icons and distinguish them from "Ad". It's probably not a coincidence that the icons are the same size a

    • Sums up the feeling I had: "where do the real search results begin?". This is the first change by Google that distracted me from the actual search results, and I've seen all the changes back to '99! I can get used to anything though, I'll get used to this too

    • It makes it harder to tell at a glance what is an ad and what is not. No doubt they A/B tested it and got more ad-clicks this way.

      Except that Ads have their own favicon, one that says "Ad" on it in bold black letters.

      I think you've been smoking some of Amsterdam's finest.

  • DuckDuckGo has shown favicons for years and I find it helps me to visually scan search results. Although I can definitely understand how others might see it as clutter. It does look a little messy in Google, but not so much DuckDuckGo, which has a cleaner look (IMO).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Yeah, the graphic design on the DDG results page is well done enough that the icons just don't clutter up the page. Admittedly, it's a bit subjective. I think DDG has gotten a little bit worse over time, clutter-wise, but their search results got a lot better so I'm happy with it.

    • Maybe DuckDuckGo wants to show favicons, but I turned that shit off years ago with Stylish.

  • When I look at the "Reply to This" link above this text box where I'm typing, I wonder "Is that a single link? Or, might it be three fucking links?" As in, a link for "Re", a link for "l", and a link for "to This".

    The underline no longer indicates the link. Google broke the Internet. Again.

    • That was done because a p or q with an underscore could at a glance be mistaken for an o, which would make it easier for phishing scams and fake URLs to escape casual observation.

  • Yahoo doesn't do this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @08:28PM (#59631532)

    I actually switched my browser search to Yahoo, and it works just as good with no clutter. The layout is much better and looks better in a wide screen. There are more results per page also. I think Google's golden days are gone, they've got there hands in so many markets the can't do search right anymore

    • Oh man, I had forgotten that yahoo search even existed.

      I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    • Ah, Yahoo! The main page is full of crap I didn't ask for. Then, did you compare the search results? Or are you your grand-ma and you don't care?
    • I use Bing and DuckDuckGo. Bing because Microsoft pays me to via rewards that translate into Amazon credit, DuckDuckGo for stuff I don't want Microsoft knowing I'm searching for. I don't think either of them have favicons either, but I have to admit I don't really care enough to check. I looked at the feature on Google to see what they were talking about and it strikes me as so minor that I would likely never have noticed if /. hadn't pointed it out. There's a lot of stuff I don't like about Google, but I c

  • Visual clutter (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @08:33PM (#59631548) Journal

    I don't see any value or additional information that the icons bring to my browsing experience. It's just more fucking visual clutter and a longer load time.

    • Actually I like it. In a glimpse one can identify (and avoid) the known icons (eg Facebook). Ergonomics are better and it helps to mark the separation between results.

  • I just switched my default search engine to Bing. I never thought this would happen... Google is about to implode.

    • Google just gives random shit unless you wrap quotes around what you want. The icon clutter was the last straw. Sad to say but Bing works better.

    • I know right!?!?! I saw those fav icons and I couldn't help but ram a giant fist shaped dildo up my ass

      FFS -- WTF is wrong with you people? It's just a favicon, and if anything it helps my identify the content producer at a glance before I read the title or summary. But to you it's a nervous breakdown inducing act of blasphemy

  • Little icons, the horror! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ayanami_R ( 1725178 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @09:02PM (#59631598)

    Seriously?

  • As usual. Now shut the fuck up.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @09:32PM (#59631644)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I need to check my google scraper. See how its getting on.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 17, 2020 @10:23PM (#59631748)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ... are `helping searchers better understand where information is coming from, more easily scan results & decide what to explore.'

    ''

    So Google users are suddenly being confused by the blurb underneath each result (who knows... maybe most Google users are unable to read nowadays) and need the enticement of a corporate logo to decide whether to click through? Just an excuse to download more crap into my browser burning bandwidth and adding more clutter to my browser cache. Innovation at Google, nowaday

  • I made this stylish/greasemonkey/tampermonkey set of styles. https://userstyles.org/styles/... [userstyles.org]

  • Maybe it's just you and me?

  • At least they are small. The fad had been big and fat and full of white space to allegedly "help finger-based UI's". But the mouse is still here.

    "Bootstrap" should be renamed "Bloatstrap".

  • Bing did this, too.

    Even though I like Bing, WTF?!

  • Quicker recognition (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The MAZZTer ( 911996 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .tzzagem.> on Saturday January 18, 2020 @03:34AM (#59632126) Homepage

    It's a lot quicker to recognize something by an icon than it is to read a caption. Icons have been a staple UI element in computers for just that reason. Imagine how difficult it would be to use a smartphone launch screen without app icons, just application names.

    If you Google for "google", you'll probably recognize the YouTube link by its icon before you even get to the label.

    I'm fine with this change. It'll help me quickly identify which site a search result belongs to if I'm used to seeing it pop up from other searches I've made quicker then reading the page title or domain name to help me zero in on useful results quicker.

    • This is exactly why hieroglyphics replaced alphabetic writing systems.

    • It's a lot quicker to recognize something by an icon than it is to read a caption.

      Which is great if you're looking for results by website. But if you're doing that, why not go to that website in the first place and use their search function, or search with inurl:websiteIlike.com

      If you're interested more in which website a result for text belongs to you may want to look into something called observer bias.

    • WTF would I care about an icon in a search result? If I KNEW the page, would I need google? My google search result scans are performed using my brain over large amounts of text to filter out craft from cruft. An icon introduces clutter to the mix of things I am supposed to already know? Cause Apples?

  • My eyes find this new format appalling, and so I'm trialing a search engine other than AltaVista or Google for the first time in twenty years.

    What people don't seem to be paying attention to is that in order to fit all this extra clutter, the snippet lengths appear to have been abruptly curtailed (it's hard to A/B with Google, because I have no access to last week's version).

    I was hugely dependent on rapidly scanning the snippets to decide which links to click through. I could always check the URL easily en

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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