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The Lost Features of Google  (View post)

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, March 13, 2008
16 years ago9,100 views

The advantage of Google Directory over DMOZ is that Google's listing is sorted by page rank, so the entries near the top are more likely to be the ones you want to visit first.

The little green bars next to the Google Directory entries were the first place that Google exposed their page rank.

Michael Carøe Andersen [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

What about Google Accelerator – The site is still up but does it still work?

Jean-Marie Le Ray [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

A sort of whois feature should be back very soon. Check this link
http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/03/domainertv-and-domain-roundtable-preview/
and play the video.
Jean-Marie

Scott Gary [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Les Moonves is a man.

Sean OHagan [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

As a replacement for whois, why not install a YubNub (www.yubnub.org) extension. This will give you any number of whois commands, as well as dozens of other great commands.

Some of the commands I use daily:
gg %s (google search)
gim %s (google image search)
iso %s (isohunt torrent search)
cqp %s (seeqpod mp3 search)
skreemr %s
and hundreds of others.

YubNub was a 24-hour RoR competition entry, and I'm a happy user.

Mrrix32 [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

My Favorite Lost feature has to be Google SMS (UK)

I used it quite a lot and is still available in other countries :(

Ben Allen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

type:gpicks still works.

scio [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Google Answers Replacement:
I like www.askville.com. Similar to Yahoo's, don't expect professional results, but there are plenty of helpful people out there.

[put at-character here]Sean OHagan
Many of those basic features are built into Firefox:
http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-fifteen-firefox-quick-searches-129658.php
If those are the only ones you use daily, you might be able to drop a redundant extension.

ralph grabowski [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Opera has a simplified Realnames syle of feature: simply type the company name (which tends to be part of the URL anyhow), and Opera adds the http: ///www. in front and .com at the end.

Doesn't work too well when the country code is .ca or .au instead of the generic .com.

But I find it is very useful being able to type in just "autodesk" or "futureshop".

Steven G. [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I love Google Deskbar. It's one of the applications I install on every computer I use and after every clean install. It allows me to search and get results within seconds and there is no need to open a browser or close the screen I'm on – or even switch screens.

I work a lot with street addresses and using Google Deskbar, i can paste in something like: 123 Any Street, Lexington, KY and I can quickly get the zip code without opening a browswer or opening a new screen.

It's not supported (all that well) with Vista, so that stinks.

Steven

Shannon [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

The only one of these features I used regularly was Google Deskbar. I was really peeved when I got a new computer only to find out it no longer existed... I still miss it.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Download Google Deskbar: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23123-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

It works very well in Vista and any other Windows version.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Google Directory still exists and many international Google sites link to the service from the homepage (http://www.google.ro/).

GoogleScout was just a name for "similar pages", so there's no missing feature.

Google Related Links can still be found in Gmail and Google Groups, next to the contextual ads.

josh [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

What of google's click-to-call?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Thanks Jean-Marie and Ionut, I posted an update. Scott, thanks for pointing out the error, which is now fixed.

Below's the video in which Jay Westerdal of DomainTools says: "We're gonna get integrated with Google the next month, in March, and you're gonna see the ability to do whois records in Google."

http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip.tv/rss/flash/728220&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf&feedurl=http://domainertv.blip.tv/rss/flash&brandname=blip.tv&brandlink=http://blip.tv/%3Futm_source%3Dbrandlink&enablejs=true

Martin Porcheron [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

>> Google SMS (UK)

Martin Porcheron [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Woops, FF3 seems to have issues still.

This is meant to be part of the previous message.

I agree, I was quite annoyed when the service was discontinued, additionally, Google's new Mobile homepage I receive seems to be poorly suited for my phone.

David Sarokin [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Thanks Phillip...that's a great list. And thanks for the Uclue blurb.

I also miss Froogle. Not the shopping service itself, which is still there. But the name, which was one of the all-time great play-on-words take-offs, but now has been dropped in favor of the very bland Google Products and Check Out.

And last I checked, Google Catalogs was still there, but withering on the vine.

Also, Google's number search function has been scaled way back (you know: "3700..3800 Main St". Any searches covering a very large range of numbers (like 100000..200000) now almost always results in a "We're Sorry" error message:

http://sorry.google.com/sorry/misc/?continue=http://www.google.com/search%3Fsourceid%3Dnavclient%26ie%3DUTF-8%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS242US242%26q%3D100000..200000%2Bmiles
"We're sorry...... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application."

I think they did this to prevent people from searching for credit card numbers and social security numbers and the like, but it's really a shame to lose the entire large-number function, as it was a terrific tool for power searching.

Ahh well...

David

Adam Crossland [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Hey, Phillip. I'm an every-day reader of Google Blogoscoped, so imagine my surprise and pleasure to see a link to SmokeyBox! Thanks.

It is still in active development, and I'd love to hear the opinions of it from the commenters here who mentioned how much they loved Deskbar. I created SmokeyBox because I loved DB dearly, and while it is still available, it will never get any new and much-needed features like hot keys for extensions.

Sean OHagan [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]scio: The first search keyword I tried didn't work. Not sure if it was because the search was using post or what.

Not to belabor the point but YubNub allows the creation of very complex commands. I can use various switches for commands as well as combine commands to create new ones.

Personally, this FF extension is far from redundant. I recommend giving it a try, and creating your own complex command.

Ivan Pope [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

"I was one of those (few?) people who actually paid to use some of Blogger’s premium features back in 2003. Oh well, it got me a hooded sweater with the orange “B” logo when Google announced all pro features are now available for free."

I got one too. Had to wait about six months for it to make its way to the UK. I love it, still wear it sometimes.

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I wish there was an easy way to do whois searches from Google search page.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

A subscribed link should be enough for whois searches.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I think you would need to use a subscribed link that uses a Google gadget, otherwise there's no way to get the interactivity that a whois search needs.

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

GNS seems to have been partly integrated into 1-800-GOOG-411.

Oliver Young [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Another vote for Leslie Moonves being a man.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> Another vote for Leslie Moonves being a man.

(Perhaps using "<del>s</del>he" wasn't visible enough in some fonts – I completely removed the "s" now.)

GT Staff [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Great post!

Thanks for the link on circumventing censorship. If one decides to travel to China and be a missionary there, this would really come in handy.

I think it's part of any company's growth to trim the excesses that don't work. I like how mature Google is now growing, and I like how they just keep getting slicker and slicker.

As long as they don't choke the Open Source community like Microsoft is doing, I'm cheering them on. :)

Lorie, GT Staff

[Signature URL removed – Tony]

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I've just remembered that I wrote a post about this in 2006:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/12/googles-discontinued-services.html

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

(Added another update with that.)

David [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Don´t you think that Google Shopping (aka Froogle) is pretty dead?

At least here in Germany, it has not changed in the last 2 years, and the results mainly come from a few meta shopping platforms...
No added value, whatsoever...
Hard to find anything,
no improvement in a long time...

most price comparison sites are better than that....

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