Google accidentally (or maybe not) published a video on the company’s official YouTube video channel that introduced a new Gmail interface. The video has been set to private shortly thereafter but viewers were quick enough to save it and re-publish it on YouTube. The video announcement highlights many upcoming Gmail design changes and features. This [...]

If you have been using Google Search in past years you may have noticed a cached and similar link next to nearly every search result on Google. The cached entry linked to a cached copy of the web page that Google stored on their own servers. The similar link on the other hand listed related [...]

Google back in May 2010 enabled https on their core search domain. Users back then were able to access https://www.google.com/ manually for improved security and privacy on the Google Search engine. Google quickly ran into a problem that the company did not anticipate at the time. Companies, organizations and schools began to block the search [...]

Sometimes when you look locations and places up on Google Maps you will notice delays before the tiles appear in the web browser that you are using to access the service. The Google Maps Team has just released a new Chrome Experiment that makes use of latest browser technologies to provide a better more seamless [...]

It has been a while since I last mentioned Google+ here on Ghacks. Mike published a story yesterday about a Google employee who accidentally posted a rant about the Google+ product online, and the day before about a third party analysis that came to the conclusion that traffic was dropping on the social networking site. [...]

Google Software engineer Steve Yegge accidentally broadcast a 4,500 word rant about the company and described their latest social networking exercise as a “pathetic afterthought” and a “knee-jerk reaction” according to ZDNet’s Ed Bott.  In the rant he talked about the failings at the company and then accidentally broadcast it to the world. Google+ is [...]

It feels rather strange that Google decided to retire the Google Labs section of their site which often showcased new Google services and features that at least sometimes were turned into full blown products at a later time. Strange because the end of Google Labs was not the end of Google experiments. One of the [...]

It’s been less than a month since Google opened up it’s new social networking site, Google+.  Now data collected by Chikita insights is suggesting that traffic to the site has recently dropped by as much as 60%. The sudden drop, reported by Dvice, showed a huge surge in traffic last month of 1,200% but now [...]

Since you are reading this blog I assume you get a lot of tech related questions that you need to answer. In my family it is my mom who is asking me questions about sending images as attachments via email or deleting lines in an Excel document. And while that feels very basic for me, [...]

If you have a Google account you can chat with your contacts, for instance over at the Gmail homepage. This web based chat works pretty much like a standard instant messenger chat. You get options to send files, use emoticons or call the user. And like instant messenger chats, Google chats get recorded automatically by [...]

I have only a good dozen websites listed under my Google account in Webmaster Tools. In case you do not know what that is, it is a service for webmaster to verify domain ownership to get additional information about the status of each website added in the Google search engine. You can manage crawl rates, [...]

Imagine that you have your business setup in Google under Google Places. Users from your town can search using location based queries to get your listing in the results or on Google Maps. Think Plumber Manhattan for instance. If you optimize the listing you usually have good chances to be at the top of the [...]

It took Google some time to open their social network service Google Plus to the public. Up until now it was only possible to join the service after receiving an invite, or by accessing the site when Google removed the invite-limitation temporarily. Google today over at the official Google Blog announced that Google+ is now [...]

Hypothetically, what would you say if Microsoft would enable an offline mode for Hotmail or Office Live 365 but only for Internet Explorer? Chance is, a lot of users would cry foul play and demand that Microsoft would enable support for other web browsers as well. If you look at Google these days, you might [...]

Previously, Google Plus users were able to block people on Google+, which basically meant that those people would be removed from a user’s circles and would lose the ability to comment on a user’s content or view contents shared with that user’s circles. Google Plus users are not notified that they have been blocked, but [...]

Google users who want to sign in with their Google account on the Google website see currently a highlighted announcement on the page. The announcement reads “Coming Soon: A new sign-in page!” with options to preview the new page or to learn more about it. The change to the sign-in page is part of a [...]

So called sitelinks are displayed if a specific search term has an authority site associated with it. If you search for Ghacks for instance, you will notice that my site is displayed at the top. Below the standard listing are the site links, which previously used about the same amount of space as a standard [...]

You have probably heard it already: Google just announced that they are going to buy Motorola’s Mobile division, Motorola Mobility. The official press release on Google investor relations confirms that Google will pay $40.00 per share for a total sum of about $12.5 billion US Dollars which is a 63% premium “to the closing price [...]

Samsung’s new Series 5 Chromebook is one of the very first devices to market running Google’s own Chrome OS, a Linux variant cloud-based operating system that is essentially just a web browser and nothing else.  I’ve been testing and living with the Chromebook for a few days now and have already written about my thoughts [...]

A few days ago I took delivery of a Samsung Chromebook to test, I’ll be writing my full review of the Chromebook in a few days, but I wanted to see how easy it would be to live with the Chromebook as my main PC for a week.  You can read that first article here. To [...]

Google enabled Games on my Google+ account while I was sleeping and I thought it would be a nice idea to review what Google+ Games has to offer on Game Saturday. Let me give you a short Google+ introduction before I take a closer look at the games on offer. Google+ is Google’s attempt to [...]

It was only a matter of time before Google started rolling out everyone’s favorite pastime on Facebook: Games. Games in Google are gradually rolled out to all users. Those who have access to them see a new icon next to their stream buttons at the very top of the Google+ website. Those who do not [...]

Today I took delivery of a review Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, one of the first of the new breed of netbook running Google’s Chrome operating system.  I’ll write up a full review of the machine next week but it’s only fair that I try an experiment and see if I can actually live with Chrome [...]

Google has revamped the invite system for Google+. All Google Plus users can now invite 150 new users to the social networking system in a easier more straightforward method. Google Plus users find a Send invitations – 150 left button on the right sidebar of their Google Plus stream page. A click on Invite Friends [...]

Creating a new website can be a very rewarding process. Webmasters usually run into a phase shortly after they have setup the site where they have to wait until the site gets indexed in the big search engines. This can take minutes, hours, days and sometimes even weeks, as it depends on the search engine [...]

Google back in 2010 introduced a call phones from Gmail feature in the United States which allowed Google Mail users to use their computer’s microphone and speakers to make calls for free to the US and Canada, and for a low rate to other supported countries. Google has now announced on the official Google blog [...]

This has been a long time coming and, to be honest is already way behind schedule.  However Google is the first company to make it’s search page finger-friendly for tablet operating systems.  In a move that will be welcomed by almost everybody the new look will be automatically implemented when the website detects you’re using [...]

It’s very common for the major technology companies to release video adverts for their products that deride or poke fun at the competition, probably the best example of these are Apple’s excellent parodies of Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” adverts. Now though Microsoft are hitting out at Google with the introduction of the Gmail man, an annoying [...]

Webmasters have really no choice but to add the Google+ button and other social networking buttons to their websites. Why? Because social signals will grow in importance in the coming years. These buttons can also be convenient for site visitors who would like to share a specific article or the whole website that they just [...]

I remember reading about attackers a while ago that broke into Gmail account of webmasters. Instead of doing all kinds of things there they simply added mail forwarding filters to the account. Why did they do that? To suppress email notifications of domain transfers. Registrars send an email to the registered owner if a domain [...]

Google’s new social networking service Google Plus has been off to a good start, thanks to Google’s determination and the invite only system. There has been lots of talk about the growth of Google Plus, and some sites did not fail to mention that the networks growth is a lot faster than that of Facebook’s [...]

A computer with a malware infection causes serious troubles for its owner or the current users, especially if they are not aware of the infection. The danger itself depends largely on the type and purpose of the malware, and can range from stealing files to destructive behavior or using the hijacked computer as a proxy [...]

URL shorteners are so yesterday, well that is my opinion. Regardless of it, it seems that companies still like the idea of turning a web address into an often smaller alternative. It makes sense on Twitter where users are limited to 140 chars, and maybe for mobile use, but beyond that? Google seems to believe [...]

Belgian newspapers have sued Google because of the company’s incorporation of news articles and images in Google News. The newspapers claim that the search giant has no rights to post contents and links on their Google News service without payment or permission. A Belgian court decided that the newspapers were right. That meant for Google [...]

Google Plus has been released in a bare bones version. While tech savvy users flock to it like crazy, it is in its current stage nothing more than a site to follow, be followed and exchange messages. Well, that’s not entirely correct as you get chat and a few other things as well. Still, essential [...]

RSS feeds are not officially supported by Google Plus yet, that’s bad if you want to follow a specific user on the new social networking site. Sure, you could add the user to a circle to read all (public) messages on the Google Plus website, or visit the stream of that user directly to access [...]

For months now I’ve been writing about the security problems with Google’s Android operating system.  Now yet more malware has been found in the Android marketplace, this time by security researchers. The news, which was reported by ComputerWorld, said that four new malware apps were discovered on Friday by Lookout Security that were infected by [...]

Google+ is probably the most hyped service on the Internet these days. This stems from the fact that many of the early adopters are first movers that run their own blogs, websites or are very vocal on social networking sites. It still remains to the be seen how the general public will perceive Google’s social [...]

A YouTube redesign is something that could backfire tremendously. We have seen it happen before with slight design changes that Google has been heavily criticized for. That’s probably the main reason why the new Cosmic Panda design is offered as an alternative to the default YouTube design and layout. Users who would like to switch [...]

Facebook’s presentation yesterday could not put a serious dent into the Google+ hype machine. But not everything is golden and first restrictions and unpleasant surprises have come to light as well. Google’s putting the focus in private websites at the moment, which some businesses, like the German mag GPlusOne had to experience first hand. Google [...]

While many people online thought that the battle between Google and Facebook might cool off once Google+ was released, the events of the past week have proven quite the opposite. First, Google+ surprised the world by being remarkably good. After a number of failed social networking projects there was a great deal of speculation around [...]

Google’s receiving mostly warm receptions from Internet geeks, websites and standard users for their new Google+ social networking service. The company learned to use the Internet hype machine perfectly for their purposes to push the service out in the open. While it is not really clear how we will perceive the service in one year’s [...]

It seems the Facebook development team is not at all amused by Google+’s way of handling groups. The new social networking network utilizes “circlets” – small units in which you can arrange your groups of friends. The idea is that you might find the process of choosing and organizing friends less fabricated than on Facebook. [...]

Storage has become a lot cheaper in recent years. Still, most services that you find online do not offer unlimited storage, and those that do are often not the most trustworthy when it comes to holding their end of the bargain. Photo hosting is one of the most popular online services on today’s Internet. The [...]

When I was working in tech support for a large German financial corporation I regularly had to deal with support requests by customers who received phishing emails. It took a lot to convince the majority of customers that those phishing emails were not sent by the company, but by criminals. Especially fake email addresses were [...]

While it is pretty easy to add and upload data to the cloud, it is often not that easy to download or export the data. This can usually be attributed to a lack of tools. Sometimes third party tools are aiding users in the downloading, for instance by allowing them to download photos from Flickr, [...]

Google recently rolled out a design change to their search interface. The navigation at the top linking to several Google properties, a user’s Google account and other Google services has a new black background and grey font colors. This new design change has been rolled out to google.com and all country specific Google domains. You [...]

The computing industry is unlike any other in the way that it divides people into one camp or another. People sometimes become fanatical about the way they follow one company, and they can be completely scathing about others. The example you’ll all be able to recognise here is Apple fans who will sometimes go to [...]

Tomorrow Microsoft launch their new Office 365 business cloud platform integrating email, calendaring, office, sharepoint and intranets with communications and messaging.  It’s a big platform with a big future ahead of it as I wrote about the other day. Now Google are hitting out with a blog post entitled “365 reasons to consider Google Apps“.  [...]

Have you ever used the word processor in Google Docs and noticed unregistered misspellings? The first thing you should do is check in the View menu to see if Show spelling suggestions is activated. If it is turned on, the problem could actually be the less-than sign () or a period (.) with a capital [...]