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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Netscape Google?

Sam Buchanan: The Netscape Google mystery. A user complains of a non functional web appli ation, and when asked what browser they are using replies “Netscape Google”. Sam suspects that this is because Google is their home page and they type URLs straight in to the Google search box. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right—I have seen several people (including an Aunt of mine) do this in the past. Sam’s summary rings particularly true:

I’m not sure how to climb inside this user’s head. It’s a very alien experience. But I have to do it. Because for every bit of code I write, every navigation scheme that I dream up, Netscape Google is at the other end, actually trying to use it.

Posted 17th August 2002 at 9:03 pm

This is Netscape Google? by Simon Willison, posted on 17th August 2002.

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3 comments

  1. I think that is the case. There was some search engine a few years ago that allowed you to view pseudo-realtime queries that people were running. It seemed that about 1 out of 20 queries were people typing into the query box 'http://www.cnn.com', and running that. It'd be interesting to see what searches get ran on a hit-by-hit basis on google to see if this pattern still exists.

    Useless Opinion - 19th August 2002 17:16 - #

  2. There's actually a Netscape Google search engine of sorts now -- open up a copy of a Netscape (fresh, with the default bookmarks intact), and go to the default search page (for the record, it's [http://wp.netscape.com/escapes/search/netsearch_0 .html]). Check out the Netscape Search engine. See the Google logo? Ain't rebranding fun?

    The first time my (50-yr-old) mother saw this, she said, "*Powered by* Google? Why can't it just *be* Google?" In any case, I suspect that there may be similar confusion from this sort of thing. . .

    dangercat - 21st August 2002 14:10 - #

  3. Isn't this another example of bad UI design? Redundancy, if incorrectly done, slows down the user by requiring them to make choices between two equivalent features.

    Oliver Clevont - 6th May 2005 22:59 - #

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