Google Explains What a Browser Is

Google found why people aren't eager to change their browsers: they don't even know what a browser is. Some think that the browser is actually a search engine, others are convinced that the only way to browse the web is to click on the big blue E from the desktop.

To explain Internet Explorer users that there are better alternatives out there, Google started with the basics: a short introduction to web browsers. "The web browser is the most important piece of software on your computer because every web page runs though it," concludes Google's short video.



Google even set up a web site that includes information about changing browsers, JavaScript performance, benchmark suites. The idea is great, but Google should avoid using technical terms. If many users don't know the definition of a browser, JavaScript or browser benchmarks need special introductory guides.

"A few of us at Google created WhatBrowser.org to help teach people about web browsers. We wanted to show people that they have a lot of choice in browsers, since we noticed that most people were using the browser their computers came with."

"The browser their computers came with" is an euphemism for Internet Explorer, even though Safari is another browser that fits the description.

New Themes for Google Chrome

If the first batch of Chrome themes didn't include too many beautiful themes, you can now choose from a gallery of 95 themes designed by top artists like Jeff Koons, Yulia Brodskaya or Wes Craven. "We invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from around the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser," explains Google. Apparently, the artists worked for free.



Chrome's themes are loaded almost instantly, so you don't need to restart the browser. Unfortunately, you can't pick a list of favorite themes or manage the themes you've already installed.

I've tried some of themes, but I went back to the default theme, which looks great and doesn't try too hard to be attractive. It's almost invisible.

Improving Google's Search Quality

Business Week has an interview with Scott Huffman, who runs Google's search evaluation team. Matt Cutts calls it "the deepest public discussion of how Google evals search quality that I've ever seen".

The interview has a lot of details about human evaluators, search experiments and the way Google measures search quality.

"People have a tendency to pick what we would call really popular queries [to compare search engines]. Look, I typed flowers in both and this one showed me pictures and this one showed me flowers to buy, and I like pictures better. But we get a lot of queries that are a lot more rare than that, and we feel that our gap in terms of the competition really opens up there."

But that doesn't mean popular queries aren't important.

"On a continuous basis in every one of our data centers, a large set of queries are being run in the background, and we're looking at the results, looking up our evaluations of them and making sure that all of our quality metrics are within tolerance. (...) Both broad query sets and navigational query sets, like "San Francisco bike shop" to the more mundane, like: Here’s every U.S. state and they have a home page and we better get that home page in the top results, and if we don't … then literally somebody's pager goes off."

Scott Huffman says that Google constantly improves ranking and search quality, even if that's not always obvious. People usually notice user interface changes and Google prepares many visible changes.

"We're doing a lot more on the UI side. We're trying to do a lot more experimentation — how can we push the envelope? You don't want to be just the 10 blue links. I see us definitely trying to be more aggressive with a lot of features that will start to show up on the search page. Even if you look at the search page today compared with a couple years ago, it's actually quite a bit different. On the UI side, my impression is that the bar for what people expect from search engines is higher today. That's partly because of the features Google and others have added."

Gmail Messages with Enhanced Content

Gmail added a feature that lets you interact with the messages sent by some companies without opening a new page. It's called "sponsored mail with enhanced content" and here's the description:

If you're subscribed to receive email from certain senders, the messages you receive from them will be enhanced with an interactive gadget that has up-to-date content from their website (you'll also see an icon in your inbox identifying these messages).

For example, if you receive a Pregnancy Bulletin newsletter from Babycenter, you'll be able to view up-to-date content, including the baby name of the day, and browse though the current top 100 baby names within the message. Aside from the convenience of being able to interact with certain websites from inside Gmail, the branded content will help identify that your messages are legitimate and not spoofed (we'll only show branded content when the sender authenticates their mail). We're currently testing this with a small number of senders and will decide whether to make it widely available based on user and partner feedback.

One of these partners is Netflix. "A Netflix email showed up in my Gmail inbox today, and it looked different than I had ever seen- a little Netflix logo showed up right in the inbox view, and when I clicked on it, there was a whole fancy pane below the email containing movie recommendations I could add directly to my queue," noticed Dan McGee.


MG Siegler was surprised to see a favicon next to a Netflix message. "I loaded up Gmail this morning expecting to see the usual assault on my inbox, when something new caught my eye. Apparently, Google has started inserting favicons, the little icons that many browsers put next to a website's URL or bookmark, next to messages. So far, I'm only seeing it for emails from Netflix."

It's not clear whether Google has a financial agreement with these partners or if the features will be available as part of an open API. Many of the experimental features from Gmail Labs enhance messages with previews and icons (YouTube previews in mail, Google Voice player in mail, Authentication icon for verified senders) and Gmail is an OpenSocial container, so a Gmail gadget API for messages is not far-fetched.

Better Google Support

Google has slowly moved most of the support groups to a new platform better suited for question answering. Unfortunately, you still needed to find the proper help forum where to post your question.

Now you don't have to visit Gmail's forum to post a question about Gmail. Just go to this page, type your question and choose the appropriate Google product from the drop-down. Google even lists similar questions and their answers when you type your question, which is great because many people forget to search before posting. By default, you'll receive an email notification when someone answers your question.

Google Tests Navigational Related Searches

Google tested many interfaces for displaying related searches: at the bottom of the page, above the search results, in the left or right sidebar. A recent experiment adds some related searches to the toolbelt, the sidebar that includes many advanced options.

Alistair Lattimore noticed that a search for [Circle on Cavill] returned a big list of refinements in the sidebar: restaurants, retail, apartments, for sale, map, parking, hotel, movies. Selecting one of the suggestions changed the query to [Circle on Cavill restaurants] or [Circle on Cavill retail], even though the search box didn't change the query.


Some would say that Google borrowed a Bing feature, even if Google tested it earlier or Hakia used it before Bing. What I find troubling is that Google combines site categorization filters like forums or reviews with search refinements.

Fewer Shopping Sites in Google's Results

Google's toolbelt, the sidebar displayed on the search results pages when you click on "show options", has been updated with new features. There's a new option that lets you restrict results to blogs and an option to see web pages indexed by Google in the past hour (the date range can be customized by changing Google's URLs).

If you don't want to see shopping sites in the list of search results, click on "fewer shopping sites" and Google will remove the results from sites like Amazon, BestBuy, eBay. Google also offers the option to see "more shopping sites" in an interface optimized for price comparison.


If you're logged in to your Google Account and the web history service is enabled, you can restrict the results to the web pages you've already visited. By default, Google Web History only tracks the search results you visit, but you can extend it to your entire browsing history.


Google's toolbelt starts to become crowded and it's not easily discoverable, but it's a better place for refining results than the advanced search page because you can combine filters and see the results instantly.