Is Google Making Another Homepage Layout Change?

Google is running yet another design test on their homepage currently. With the frequency of layout changes increasing, it feels as if the search giant does not really know what they really want anymore. As of right now, at least two designs are life for all users. First the single button menu interface with a gray header area, and then the black bar.

Yesterday a third design was spotted that combines the black bar with the menu structure of the single menu bar.

The new bar displays Google’s most popular services directly again on the bar for quick access. The More link leads to additional services. Users of the gray bar design will notice that the black bar has been moved on top of the design. Everything else, with the exception of the Google logo menu has remained the same.

The Google Operating System blog has posted instructions on how to enable the new Google bar design.

Open google.com in your web browser of choice.In Google Chrome, press Ctrl-Shift-JIn Mozilla Firefox press Ctrl-Shift-KIn Internet Explorer press F12 and select consolePaste the following code into the form

document.cookie="PREF=ID=381502750b6e9119:U=aaee74aefea7315a:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1328391998:LM=1328392000:S=yPtlCgLbEnezu5b4; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

Press enter and close the console again.Local users need to replace the domain in the information (google.com) with the country code domain, e.g. (google.de)

The page should refresh automatically, and you should see the new layout on the Google page. Please note that it will only be active for as long as the cookie remains on your system.

Users who want to return to the old Google homepage layout can repeat the steps, by loading the following code in the console.

document.cookie="PREF=; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

My personal opinion? Google should give users more choice when it comes to the services that are displayed on the homepage. I’m for instance not using Google News, so why should it be there that prominently on the page? Google furthermore needs to select a design and stick with it, instead of confusing users with different designs and layouts. Some users, depending on the browser they use to access Google, have reported that they are seeing different layouts on the same computer.

What’s your take on this, and what’s your favorite bar so far?

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Sunday February 5, 2012 -
Tags:Google, google search

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Load The Homepage When Firefox Opens A New Tab

When you open a new tab in the Firefox browser you’ll notice that it always opens up blank. Mozilla announced plans to redesign the new tab page in an upcoming version of the browser, but for now blank is all you get. While tabs open fast because of this, it is for some users not the optimal solution, especially if they have one page that they open very often in new tabs.

Lets say you open Google or Bing search, Reddit or Hacker News more than 50% of the time when you open a new tab in Firefox. Instead of having to load the search engine manually you could simply use the My Homepage extension for Firefox to have the browser load the page automatically for you.

The add-on works automatically after installation and restart of the browser. Whatever you have set your homepage to will be loaded when you open a new tab in the browser. Keep in mind that this can also be quite irritating if you have it set to open a page that you have open all the time in the browser.

This works best for pages that either provide a functionality that you use often, or pages that are updated regularly.

Please note that this will only load the first homepage configured in the Firefox options. The extension ignores the | separator to load multiple homepages in the browser.

You sometimes may not want to open the homepage in the new tab. The developer has enabled the shortcut Ctrl-Alt-M for this. When you use the shortcut to open a new tab in Firefox, a blank page will be opened.

Firefox users can download My Homepage from the Mozilla Firefox add-ons repository.

If you are looking for something bigger, you may want to look at the New Tab King extension for Firefox which displays the most visited websites, recently closed tabs and other information when a new tab is opened in Firefox.

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Improve Firefox Private Browsing With Private Browsing Window Add-on About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Sunday January 22, 2012 -
Tags:firefox add-ons, new tab

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