Noticed today on Google

Hi all

Anyone else noticed today that if you have the Google toolbar open and are running with tabs that if you click on new tab via the + symbol on the tab bar, then a new tab is opened via google showing all the last 12 sites you visited together with screen grabs of their front pages and links to them!!!!????

I'm running on a Mac, so perhaps it is only mac users..; don't know.

I find this insidious further grabbing of what I have been doing by the ever almighty G. And, I dont want it - I open a new tab for searches or for putting in a site I know I want. How do they have a right to determine what I might do?

Additionally, anyone else found that when doing in searchees in G, that they decide for you to leave certain words out of your search. You might get through two or three pages of search results then notice 'these results omitted the word abc'. How blase is that, assuming you do not know what you are looking for and they know best.

What on earth is going on? Is G taking over everybody's computer and searches?

Frightening !!!!!!!!!!

Two things:

1) This has been a feature for PC users for quite some time. At least 1 1/2 years as I can remember.

2) Whether they show you are not, google knows what you are doing at least half the time you are online. All the time if you have their toolbar.

Well, thank goodness I am on a Mac - light years ahead in technology and light years behind G interferring in my enjoyment of my computer.

Yeah, know G is tracking everything, that is obvious, but just don't want it shoved in my face like this.

I'm sick to death of G, far too powerful and interferring and gathering too much data.


Cheers

Then do you mind if I ask why you installed their toolbar?

You had to know that Google uses most if not all of their tools as a big brother thing. They sell us on the benefits of giving us all this great data to help us understand our site but are using our every move to build their empire even larger.

None the less, still eery. I do not have their toolbar and am contemplating removing analytics from our site. Once I can find an affordable replacement for analytics.

Yes, I knew they used everything they could lay their hands on but I didn't install the toolbar - not down to me. If it were, I wouldn't have put it on my computer.

We've taken google analytics off our sites already (and I'm going to ask for the toolbar to be removed today too). We were getting different stats off everything we used so couldn't really figure out which were the correct. I'm sure it won't make a jot of difference to g that we won't use them anymore though!

Also, nearly every time a site is slow to load, it gets stuck (waiting for ...) on some g thing which is loading, be that analytics, maps or something else.

I am in full concurment/agreement with you there. The same thing occurred to me when I first saw it in Chrome I think. Whenever I open a new tab it would show me the sites I previously visited all arranged in tabular tiles. I cant understand why on earth how anybody would think of such a thing as a 'facilitator'. It is just plain annoying. When I open a new tab, I know what I am doing. I want to quickly navigate to the site that I have in mind, I dont want more information overload about sites I have already visited in the form of tiles.



In addition, its annoying, irritating, and an ego violation. I dont want the system to ignore common words like 'on' 'the' etc. If I say so, the system should match also 'on' 'the' etc. Or may be not. The system is just trying to find out the most significant words and these 'word stops' are immaterial.

Yes, also another annoying 'facilitator' today, at the top of numerous sites I go to, g are putting in a bar which goes across the whole screen saying something to the effect of 'this page translated into blah, blah' - have to click close each time to get rid of it.

Anyway, problem solved for me, just got agreement to turn g toolbar off, so am happy person

And maybe it is for Mac users, I also installed Google Toolbar and it is still the same. Maybe it is add-ons or plug-ins like SEOQuake which have details of a site with button.

In IE7, adding the G/Toolbar affects the default view of the "New Tab Page".

You can change it thus:

1. Go to Tools/Internet Options.
2. (On the General Tab) look for "Tabs" and select "Settings".
3. Look for the drop-down box entitled "When a new tab is opened, open:"
4. Change from "The new tab page" to "Your first home page".

Henceforth when you open a new tab you'll see your normal home page and not the last 12 visited sites.
Note: Choosing "A Blank Page" will (obviously) change it to blank pages.

You can also change the setting via the Google Toobar/Options:
Remove the Tick from the "Enable the Google new tab page".

You can read more about it here