What happened to Google search?

[TheBigB]

The new design; it makes my eyes hurt

[techgnome]

What are you yammering about? Looks the same as always to me.

-tg

[oceanebelle]

same here...

[TheBigB]

Well the last couple off months I sometimes seem to get a redesigned google where you get result categories on the left and a very narrow results field.
Now it's normal again.

[mendhak]

Copy paste the URL next time.

[kfcSmitty]

A buddy of mine had it happen to him as well. Clearing all of his cache seemed to fix it.

[I_Love_My_Vans]

Google have been doing some A/B testing on this new design for ages, first off it was very rare, but a cookie hack invoked the new design for those eager to see it.

Now it's getting more and more popular, like kfc said, clearing your cache (read: cookies) should revert you back, unless your picked again to use the new design.

[storm5510]

I've not noticed any changes. Of course, it may be because I am using Firefox and not IE.

[gmiller]

I thing few time ago Google has changed dimension of his logo and not any specific changes.

[kregg]

I think this is what TheBigB means.

It's not you. The new layout also makes me cry. Luckily I get redirected to Google UK most of the time.

I also hate what they have done in terms of hiding the Mail/Calendar/other Google services link on their homepage... I mean, for christ sakes, it wasn't like the original layout hardly had white space, now it's just all blank with massive inconvenience...

[TheBigB]

Exactly.

[TheBigB]

It's not going away
I cleared cookies, cache and everything.

[mendhak]

It's happened to me. They've rolled the new changes out to everyone now, I think.

And so... Google wants to be Bing. Bing wants to be Google.

[TheBigB]

At least I found a greasemonkey to fix that sidebar...
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/76060

[TheBigB]

Thank god that people agree with me.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/...617300e762035c

[mendhak]

Hmm, word definitions gone. Remember, there used to be a link just above the search results that would take you to a definition page, saving you having to type define:word ?

Remember? You remember!

[kregg]

TheBigB, if you use Stylish on Firefox or Google Chrome/Chromium, then I'd recommend you using this instead: http://userstyles.org/styles/29418

It's essentially the same thing (for some, you may need to change the script to add other domains, e.g. www.google.co.uk), but because it is based on CSS and not Javascript, the changes are basically instant. That, and with Stylish, you can find scripts to change the aesthetics of Firefox. The only thing it isn't useful for really is non-aesthetics (i.e. Adding a delete button to GMail).

It's worth having a look at Stylish, but if you have too many extensions or cannot be bothered, your script will do just fine.