There's an annoying bug in Gmail's desktop interface: a close button displayed at the bottom of the page in the right corner. If you click the small "x" icon, nothing happens. It looks like the buttons used in Gmail's panels for tasks, chat and composing messages.


There is a way to fix this issue. Bookmark this URL: https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0 and use it to open Gmail. This URL is used to load Gmail without enabling labs. Surprisingly, if you manually disable all the Gmail labs experiments, the close button is still there.

If you use Greasemonkey, you can create a new user script using the code from this page.

Another way to fix this issue is to install AdBlock/Adblock Plus and manually add this rule in the preferences:

mail.google.com##DIV[class="w-asK w-atd"]

Google is working on a fix. Apparently, this is a leftover from the "about the new look" message that used to be displayed when Gmail launched a new interface back in 2011.

Update (March 21st): Fixed.

There's something very annoying about Chrome. It now keeps all the old versions of your extensions and apps. I remember that Chrome used to only keep the current version and the previous version, just like it handles Chrome releases.

If you've installed many extensions and apps, it's likely that the Extensions folder from your Chrome profile uses many hundreds of megabytes. Some apps are pretty big now: for example, the latest version of Polycraft uses 76.6 MB. It's obvious that a single application could use 1 GB after a few updates.

Here's another example: the LastPass extensions. I've checked my profile folder and Chrome keeps 11 versions of this extension since October 2013. Total disk usage: 107 MB, instead of 9.6 MB for the latest version.


Obviously, the old versions are useless and this is a bug. There's a bug report from a Google employee here and it mentions that "the Google+ Photos app is a fairly large app (56MB) which updates frequently (weekly?). It does not appear that older versions get deleted. For the G+ photos app which takes 56MB, I had over 700MB of old versions on my drive."

Until Google fixes this bug, you can manually delete the old versions. Go to your profile folder and open the Extensions folder. Every extension and app has its own folder with a cryptic name (the extension ID), so you can open each one and delete all the subfolders except for the most recent one. For example, LastPass's folder is named hdokiejnpimakedhajhdlcegeplioahd and it has a subfolder for each version. You can sort them by name or by date and keep the most recent version (3.0.22_0).

Chrome will replace the new tab page with a simplified version of the Google homepage. Sure, it doesn't have the search button and the footer, but it's the Google homepage. You'll see the app launcher grid, which replaces the black bar, you'll see the Google+ notification and share buttons, you'll see Google doodles.

Most of the features of the new tab page have been removed and replaced by a huge Google logo. Chrome apps are in the app launcher, recent tabs are in the Chrome menu.

I've never liked browser homepages, but Chrome's new tab page was really useful. It loaded quickly and had a lot of links to pages you were likely to open. Now it only shows 8 of your frequently visited pages and a fake search box that sends you to the omnibox.


When Google shows an animated doodle, the new tab page shows same the animation and you're forced to see it each and every time you open a new tab. Sometimes the doodle uses a lot of resources:


There are some great extensions that replace the new tab page, but you shouldn't have to use an extension for this. The new tab page should be fast, simple and useful.

Here's a quote from Chromium's site:

"The new tab page is the default starting point for all tabs - it is designed to get the user where they want to go, and is not meant to be an information resource like the user's home page; that is, the new tab page is not intended to be a destination, but rather a jumping-off point to other destinations - we strongly want to avoid cognitive load and distractions for the user, especially those creating new tabs for other purposes."

So it shouldn't include distractions. That's exactly what the Google homepage does and the new tab shouldn't do. Animated doodles, Google+ notifications - all of them are distractions that don't belong in a page you open so often.

For now, I'll switch to the empty new tab page.

This post varies with device. It can't be displayed because there are so many devices and each one is different.

This paragraph varies with device. It's just a placeholder for a paragraph that should have revealed a lot of useful information. Unfortunately there are so many devices and they have different characteristics, so it's hard to write a paragraph that encompasses their complexity.

This screenshot varies with device. It should show some important information about the Google+ app for Android, but it doesn't because there are multiple Google+ APKs and each one is different.


On a more serious note, there are many Google Play apps that show the uninformative "varies with device". The size of the app varies with device, the current version varies with device and so is the required Android version. That's because Google Play allows developers to upload multiple APKs for the same app:

Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and independent version of your application, but they share the same application listing on Google Play and must share the same package name and be signed with the same release key. Android applications usually run on most compatible devices with a single APK, by supplying alternative resources for different configurations (for example, different layouts for different screen sizes) and the Android system selects the appropriate resources for the device at runtime. In a few cases, however, a single APK is unable to support all device configurations, because alternative resources make the APK file too big (greater than 50MB) or other technical challenges prevent a single APK from working on all devices.

Even though Google doesn't encourage developers to use this feature, most Google apps use it: Google+, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Play Books, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Translate.

Since Google knows which devices are associated with your Google account, it could show a drop-down that lets you select one of your devices and show the appropriate information. For example, you have a Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 and a Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1. Select one of the devices and replace "varies with device" with something more useful.

AppBrain manages to show some useful information:

I don't know about you, but I like to write the title of the post at the end. It makes sense to pick a title only after writing an article because the title usually summarizes the text. Sometimes I have no idea what's the right title, but it reveals itself after writing the last paragraph.

This post is not about finding the right title for a blog post, it's about a new Blogger feature (or a bug?) that shows this message as soon as you start writing a post: "Required field must not be blank". The warning is placed below the title field, but it's not obvious that it refers to the title. Click "ignore warning" and the warning is displayed again in a few seconds.

You can't save, preview or publish post if you haven't picked a title. This is really dangerous: what happens if you write a long post and the browser crashes? Until now, Blogger automatically saved the post as a draft and you could find it later. Now it's no longer saved until you write a title.


You could write a temporary title and change it later, but why use a workaround? The title should not be a required field. Blogger could show a warning before publishing the post and that should be enough. It's important to mention that Blogger has never required post titles before. You could even publish posts without a title.

To sum up: here's a feature that's annoying, not useful, dangerous and hard to understand. It's really difficult to come up with something like this, but someone did.


What if Gmail had a similar feature?


Update (July 8th): The feature has been removed (or the bug has been fixed).

{ Thanks, Beben. }

It's sometimes helpful to read some instructions, especially when you use advanced features. What happens when you can't dismiss these instructions and you have to see them every time you use a service?

Google Trends shows an annoying box every time you click the search box: "Explore Trends. Separate terms by commas to compare. Some examples: [GMC, BMW, Honda], [Swine Flu], [Madonna, Adele]."


Google Trends used to display this information on the homepage, but now the homepage shows a list of hot searches.


Here's the old Google Trends homepage:

If you use a phone or a tablet and click a link that sends you to a Chrome Web Store page, you'll see this message: "Sorry, your operating system is not supported just yet. The Chrome Web Store is available on Windows (except RT), Mac and Linux. Why don't you send yourself a reminder to try it later?"


What if you open the same page in Firefox, Internet Explorer or any other desktop browser? The page loads and you only see a short message informing you that "you will need Google Chrome to install most apps, extensions and themes". That's the right thing to do and it's surprising that Google doesn't load a page because "your operating system is not supported just yet".

You can't install extensions if you use any other browser than Chrome (for desktop), but there are other reasons to open a web page. Maybe you want to read the reviews, write a review, check the screenshots. For now, you can install Chrome for Android or iOS and use the "request desktop site" feature to load the offending page.

Google Play does a much better job: it not only loads in almost any browser and operating system, but it also lets you install applications remotely.

I don't know about you, but there's a feature that ruined many of my Google search results pages. It's not that Google can't return relevant results, the problem is that Google tries to be clever and detects keywords that are associated with a site. If it finds one, Google will return a lot of results from that site. In fact, sometimes you'll have a hard time finding results from other domains.

Ever since its launch, Google promoted diversity and used host crowding to show "up to two results from each hostname/subdomain of a domain name". Sometimes Google displayed a link that restricted the results to that domain or subdomain, but users had to click it. Matt Cutts wrote in 2007 that "we did hear complaints that for some types of searches (e.g. esoteric or long-tail searches), Google could return a search page with lots of results all from one domain. In the last few weeks we changed our algorithms to make that less likely to happen".

Then Google introduced sitelinks and started to show more pages from a domain. Two years ago, a Google blog post announced that "for queries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain, like [exhibitions at amnh], we'll now show more results from the relevant site". Since that announcement, host crowding was a thing of the past and Google started to include more and more results from a single domain.

I complained about this back in 2010 and mentioned that this feature could become annoying, but now it's much worse. Sometimes you can find queries that return mostly results from a domain. For example, when you search for [apple itunes] Google assumes that you want results from apple.com and starts to return a lot of irellevant pages. Sure, you can still find results from other domains, but 31 of the top 50 results are from apple.com.



If you search for [yahoo mail], Google returns a lot of uninteresting results from Yahoo's international sites, instead of including news articles, blog posts, reviews, tutorials.



Search for [berkeley college] and 26 of the top 50 results are from berkeley.edu. That's just too much. Having to constantly add to the query "-site:dominantresult.com" is annoying, not to mention that most Google users don't even know about search operators and shouldn't have to use them.

And this annoyance is not limited to navigational queries. What if you're not in India, search for [sony led] and Google's top 7 results are from Sony India? That's what happened when I disabled Google Instant and set Google to show 50 results per page.


Showing too many results from a domain is a bad idea because a search engine should offer information from multiple sources, while results should be relevant and comprehensive. Google's mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but Google forgot to make the information accessible.

I've noticed that many of my favorite Windows applications include the option to download unrelated Google software (mostly Google Toolbar and Google Desktop). Of course, you can easily uncheck the options and bundling Google software is better than installing spyware, but many people install applications by repeatedly clicking "Next" and ignore their boring messages.



If you refuse to install Google Toolbar from an application, shouldn't Google set a flag and stop offering the toolbar in other applications? Bundled software could be related to the application you are installing: IrfanView works well with Picasa, while GomPlayer could integrate a video search feature.

Here's what Google says about bundles:

Many internet users find that over time their computers become loaded with unwanted software - be it adware, spyware or just plain junk. This is because a few applications they installed came bundled with junk, and that junk generated more junk piled higher and deeper. We believe any situation where multiple applications are being installed should be made very clear to users, so that if you were to ask them several months later - "What's this?" - most will know where it came from and why it is there.

Usually there are complex business relationships among the companies participating in a bundle. This can result in well-intentioned companies benefiting from the distribution or revenue generated by software that does not benefit you. Getting paid to distribute, or paying money to be distributed with undesirable software enables more undesirable software. (...) For this reason, we will strive to distribute our software only in bundles where all applications meet the above guidelines, and we think users will benefit if others in our industry do the same.

So if you install an application that bundles Google software, you should know that it respects Google's software principles. Which of your favorite applications bundle Google software and what do you think about this practice?

Google Apps for Your Domain has been launched in 2006 as a solutions for organizations that wanted to use Google's applications on their own domains. In 2007, Google launched a premier edition for businesses that added corporate features, APIs, phone support and service-level agreement for Gmail.

But how many businesses use Google Apps? A post from July mentioned that "500,000 organizations adopt Apps as part of their business, with another 3,000 signing up every day", while another blog post from October informed us that "more than 1 million businesses have selected Google Apps to run their business".

It's not clear how many of these organizations use the paid edition of Google Apps, but Google decided to make it difficult to even find the free version.

Here's Google Apps homepage, where you can only click on a big blue button:



The second page says that "Google recommends Premier Edition for businesses in the cloud" and invites to me start a free trial. There's a small link below the "Begin free trial" button that lets you use the standard version, but it's difficult to notice.



If you click on that link, you'll get the page that compares the standard and the premier versions, which used to be displayed by default.


Google Apps is now in the same league as RealPlayer, which shows a small link to the free version, while using the rest of the page to promote a paid version. Just in case the link to the Google Apps Standard Edition goes away, here's how to sign up for free.

Update (December 2012): the free Google Apps is no longer available for new users.

Google has finally made the right decision and it removed that were created when you clicked on a result from Google Video. Instead of directly linking to the original site, Google used frames to show both the external site and a list of related videos from Google Video. This duplicated the functionality from video sites like YouTube, while making it difficult to navigate and to share a URL.

Here's the first version of the frame, from June 2007:


... and a screenshot from April 2008, when Google Video has been redesigned:


Google Image Search uses a similar frame, but it's more useful as it provides information about search results. If you don't like the frame from Google Image Search, you can use Greasemonkey scripts like Google Image Relinker or Google Image direct links to bypass it.

Google would be more than happy if all its users switched from the clean Google homepage to iGoogle. The personalized homepage works best if you have a Google account, it's a way to promote other Google services and to find information about your interests that could be used to personalize search results. At the earnings call from last week, Sergey Brin said that the artist themes launched in April made "hundreds of thousands of people to sign up for iGoogle".

Besides adding new themes to promote the service, Google uses some other tricks to increase iGoogle's usage. If you click on the iGoogle link from the homepage, Google sets a cookie preference so that every time you go to Google.com, you are redirected to iGoogle.


When you add a gadget from a web page to iGoogle, there's a vague setting enabled by default: "See this gadget when you visit Google.com", which also sets a cookie preference that redirects you to iGoogle.


The cookie preference is reverted when you click on "Classic Home" in iGoogle, but the effect of that extra click is not obvious.


"iGoogle is a more personal way to use Google.com. Customize your page anyway you like, by adding your favorite themes and gadgets from across the web." That's how Google describes the personalized homepage of today, the social network of tomorrow.

For those who use both the classic homepage and iGoogle, but would rather see the classic homepage when they go to Google.com, the only solution is to type in the address bar http://www.google.com/ig or http://www.igoogle.com instead of clicking the iGoogle link.

Google redirects people that visit Google.com to different pages, based on their locations or devices, but it would be nice to explicitly define the preferences. Windows doesn't change the default browser to Internet Explorer just because you accidentally clicked on the IE icon.

Every time Google releases a new feature for Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs etc. people who use Google Apps are left wondering whether they'll get the new feature. Sometimes they have to guess addresses, like for the new mobile Google Talk. They are supposed to figure out that the Google Apps version of: http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m is http://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.COM/talkgadget/m.

Besides having to deal with delayed updates and mysterious addresses, Google Apps users usually have at least one standard Google account and it's difficult to switch between the two parallel worlds. I noticed that when you go to Google Sites and you're logged using both a Google account and a Google Apps account, you are asked to choose one of them:


Maybe Google could somehow integrate Google accounts with Google Apps accounts so you can access all the services and get all the new features. The services that are part of Google Apps should have a customized interface and functionality, while the other services should only interact with them so you can, for example, share Google Reader items with your Google Talk contacts.

While there are a lot of things to love about Google, some strange annoyances manage to balance the situation. Here are 10 annoyances that are in need for a fix:

1. Every time you go to www.google.com/analytics/, Google Analytics asks you to enter your password, even if you are already logged in. One workaround is to bookmark https://www.google.com/analytics/home/.

2. "New features!". Google's products are updated pretty frequently, but sometimes they show this message for months, even if the features are no longer new. Some pathological examples: Google Calendar and Picasa Web Albums.

3. The inconsistent navigation bar. There's no consistency here: some of the links send you to search results, other links send you to homepages. Some of the pages open in a new tab/window, other pages open in the same tab/window. The list of links is different, depending on the current service, and the ordering is not predictable.

4. Search results with tracking code. Because Google needs to track the search results you click on in order to add them to Web History, it replaces their addresses with redirects like: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=... That means you can no longer right click on the link and copy the location. Some workarounds: disable Web History, log out or use this Greasemonkey script.

5. Google Updater. An annoying and intrusive way to install Google software, without providing an alternative for people who like the classic installer.

6. Set Google as my default search and notify me of changes. Every Google software has the mission to make Google your default search option in Internet Explorer (it's already the default option in other browsers), but also to install a notifier that warns you when other software tries to change the default search engine. Usually, the option can be disabled, but Google's wording is vague.

7. Blogger comments. It's hard to create something worse than Blogger's comments: they open in a new page with a different layout, the first option is to log in with a Google account, there's no spam filtering etc.

8. Posting a message at Google Groups. It usually takes one minute for your post to appear on the site, but Google should show it instantly.

9. When you translate a web page, Google Translate shows the original text in a bubble. Google's JavaScript code interferes with other web pages' code and the result is usually terrible. Another downside is that you can't copy the text from a translated web page. One workaround would be to block the JavaScript file, but it keeps changing its address.

10. Google Video has the worst advanced search page. If you search for something and click on "advanced search", your query is lost. The page doesn't put the focus on the first input box and pressing Enter has no effect.

11. Click on a broken link for a Blogger blog and Google is glad to inform you that "the blog you were looking for was not found". Pretty bad for an error message that should've been helpful.

Did you find other Google annoyances?

(Based on a real song/movie/book.)

And you open the page and you step inside. It's an interesting post from a Blogger blog. After reading it, you want to post a comment and share your opinion, but there's no contact form. A strange link invites readers to "post a comment" and you reluctantly click on it. The link sends you to a web page from a different domain where you are supposed to enter your comment, but the comment form is too small and you can no longer see the original post unless you click on a barely visible link. For some reason, Blogger asks you to log in and it's not obvious that you can post a comment without having a Google account. Oh, and there's a difficult to read CAPTCHA you need to solve before clicking on "Publish your comment".

After all this trouble, the comment has been finally posted. Blogger forgot to auto-link your URLs, but that's no longer your problem. The big question is how to get back to the post. You want to give up and close the tab, but you notice a subtle message: "Your comment has been saved. It may take a moment for your comment to appear on the site at the original post." The last three words are linked so maybe clicking on the link will send you back to the original post.

Congratulations! You've managed to post a comment on Blogger. If this your first comment, it's likely it will also be the last one. "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are all a part of the same compost. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

In December 2006, I posted a list of the Google features I wanted to see in 2007 and you added 273 comments with even better ideas. Very few of your wishes were fulfilled in 2007:

* Using your own domain at Blogger.
* Ability to search feeds in Google Reader.
* An orkut redesign! Who came up with that hideous colour scheme and those pathetic-looking buttons? And the silly bevel effect added to all photos looks ridiculous!
* IMAP in Gmail
* A presentation app for Google Docs
* Google Talk on your Google Personalized Homepage
* More and better "mobile" versions of Google services
* How about the ability to open (in Docs & Spreadsheets) a Doc or Spreadsheet that is sent to you as an attachment to your Gmail account?
* GPS support in Google Maps for mobile phones
* Google Desktop for Mac and Linux
* I want Google to make their own Wikipedia.

The most frequently requested features and services were:
* GDrive (Google online storage)
* synchronization with mobile devices and Outlook for Google Calendar, Gmail Contacts
* task management (To-Do lists)
* Google Operating System (Linux-based)
* project management tools
* a lot of updates for Google Talk (Mac/Linux versions, groups, phone calls)
* Google web hosting

GDrive continues to be in the works, but it should be launched this year, according to a WSJ article. Google Calendar should add a task management feature, while the synchronization with mobile devices is currently limited to Blackberries. Google Talk will either completely move online or surprise us with some major new features; Google Operating System, project management and web hosting don't seem to be in Google's plans. The conclusion is that Google still has a lot of things to add from the wishlist for 2007.

Google has an awkward way of dealing with contacts in its communication apps. In Gmail, your contact list includes all the people you've ever replied, but you can also add other contacts manually.

"Email addresses are automatically added to your Contacts list each time you use the Reply, Reply to all, or Forward functions to send messages to addresses not previously stored in your Contacts list," according to the help center. While this should save you some time and effort, your contact list will include a lot of people you wouldn't have normally added. For example, if somebody sends me a tip for this blog and I reply to thank him, my contact list includes that person. Gmail doesn't have an option to turn off this feature, so all you can do is to either ignore your contact list or create a group that contains only your real contacts.

By default, if your conversation with someone includes more than 2-3 replies, that person is automatically added to your list of Google Talk friends. To chat with someone you normally need to ask for permission, but this feature bypasses the annoying question because Google assumes you really know that person. Fortunately, you can disable it in Gmail's settings and Google Talk, but not many people will do this. "If there are other Gmail users whom you frequently email, you'll be able to chat and see each other online without having to send an invitation. Gmail automatically determines which contacts you'll be able to talk to without having to invite each other." (Gmail help center)

So the rules are simple:

Rule #1:
if you reply to someone's email, that person is added to your Gmail contact list.
(Error #1: you may not know that person)

Rule #2 (opt-out):
if you reply to someone's messages more than 2-3 times, that person is added to the list of Google Talk friends.
(Error #2: see error #1. Also that person may not be your friend.)

So it's quite likely that your Gmail contact list and Google Talk friends list include people you don't know. Now that we have these two lists (obviously, Google Talk friends are also Gmail contacts), you may wonder where you could use them.

In Google Shared Stuff, a rather obscure social bookmarking site, all the web pages you bookmark are public, but there's also a page with "stuff from people you know". That page shows the most recent bookmarks from your Gmail contacts, but many of these contacts are people I don't know.

Google Reader added a feature that shows shared items from your Google Talk friends. Here's how it was introduced:

One of my favorite uses for Reader is to share interesting stuff with my friends. I click "Share" whenever I find an interesting item, be it hilarious or serious. This way, all my friends can subscribe to my shared items (and I to theirs), and we can easily see if a friend has found something interesting. This can be inconvenient, as I have to distribute my shared items link to my friends and vice-versa. So, we've linked up Reader with Google Talk (also known as chat in Gmail) to make your shared items visible to your friends from Google Talk.

Except that, according to the rule #2, my Google Talk friends aren't necessarily my friends.

Google will probably continue to use your contact list for other services, so at some point your Gmail contacts or Google Talk friends might see your public documents, photo albums, notebooks, personalized maps, blog posts. All of these public actions dynamically generate a news feed (the way you know it from Facebook) and your contacts should be entitled to find things about you. The main problem is that your contact list has been generated automatically and has little to do with you. Those people aren't necessarily your friends, your family, your co-workers, they're just some people you happened to email at some point.

Before using theses random lists of people to broadcast information about you, Google should clearly define their purpose and let you manage them. The problem with creating a social layer over Google's web apps is that Google is not a social network and your contacts are not your friends and not even people you know.