Google; Minimalist look

Just yesterday we’ve asked you, the readers, whether you actually go to Google.com, and most of you answered that you rarely, if ever, open the actual site, conducting most of your searches from third party apps such as Firefox.

If it was clutter on Google.com that annoyed you – not very likely, given the minimalist look of the page, but still a possibility – you can now fix that by trying out the latest Google experiment, which hides all elements on Google.com except the buttons, the logo and a search box. Don’t worry: the missing elements fade in after you mouse over them.

So, how do you enable the look? Go to Google.com and paste this into the address bar:

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=abac7a90f5a3784b:LD=en:NR=10:TM=1254990196:LM=1254990236:S=uB6F4jDnMP_DuxtT;path=/; domain=.google.com");

Now hit the return key and reload the page; next time you open it, you’ll be greeted with the barebone version.

*Update: this particular prototype might not work with all browsers and with all setups. I’ve tested it with Firefox 3.5.3, as well as Chrome 3.0.195.25 and it worked.

To restore the standard Google.com, go to Firefox Options – Privacy – Remove individual cookies, then find Google.com and remove the cookie named PREF.