4 ms·

What I dislike the most from recent updates is the preview feature. I find it completely gets in my way, and it's very easy to unintentionally make it preview s

What I dislike the most from recent updates is the preview feature. I find it completely gets in my way, and it's very easy to unintentionally make it preview something, when I just want to scan the results. Does anyone else find that feature useful?

epoxyhockey 15y ago
I never understood the usefulness of the preview feature. The only time I find it marginally interesting is when a website is currently down or had recently been taken offline. Though, I find the "cache:" query more useful in those cases anyway. The preview window does pop-up unexpectedly for me as well. I guess my mouse pointer wanders over to the right side of the search result every once in a while, triggering the preview.
- brc 15y ago
  I think the preview thumbnail is a very poor substitute for the 'cached' links that have disappeared. Sometimes the cache link was the best thing for an underperforming website or one that was down. It was simple, everyone understood it, now it's gone. Boo.
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    The cached link is still there. Look for it on the page preview.
    - brc 15y ago
      Can't we just have it back where it was?
wahnfrieden 15y ago
I don't at all, and find it incredibly distracting to have movement on the entire right half o the page when I'm just trying to scan the search result text.
0xABADC0DA 15y ago
The preview panel is useful because Bing has it. It's like Google has set out to ape anything Bing does so the only difference is the result quality. - Bing added a main search page background image, so Google adds one (but only if you're logged in). - Bing changed the image search to pack images together with hover for info, so Google made theirs do the same. - Bing added image search parameters like size, style, etc, so Google adds them too. - Bing added preview panel, so Google added it too. - Bing moved cache links into the preview, so Google moves cache links into the preview. ...iirc Bing did all these things and more first before Google.
jakeonthemove 15y ago
Yeah, it's just... stupid. It would've actually been more useful if it was smaller (like Windows 7 taskbar previews), not take a whole third of the page. Thankfully, it's not automatically showing up anymore (at least for me), so it's cool...
unfasten 15y ago
The following CSS should disable preview and put the Cached and Similar links back into the correct spot. I use UserCSS in Opera, not sure what to use in other browsers but I know there are solutions for custom CSS available: .vspib { display: none !important; } /* This is the preview specific line */ .vshid { display: inline !IMPORTANT; padding-left: .7em !important; } .vshid > a { color: #1122cc !important; text-decoration: none !important; } .vshid > a:hover { text-decoration: underline !important; } .vshid > a:visited { color: #6611cc; } This next bit of CSS should puts the URL back below the snippet text. It works for most result types but there are a few where it's buggy, for example any results that show how many people "+1'd" a URL: li.g .s, li.g.videobox .s > table.ts > tbody > tr > td > div { padding-bottom: 1.4em !important; } /* Make room for the moved URL */ li.g.videobox .s { padding-bottom: .5em !important; } li.g.videobox .s > table td > div { position: relative !important; } li.g .s > .f.kv, li.g.videobox .s > table .kvm { position: absolute !important; bottom: 0 !important; } I have Instant disabled so the above CSS may or may not play well with Instant enabled.

epoxyhockey 15y ago

I never understood the usefulness of the preview feature. The only time I find it marginally interesting is when a website is currently down or had recently been taken offline. Though, I find the "cache:" query more useful in those cases anyway. The preview window does pop-up unexpectedly for me as well. I guess my mouse pointer wanders over to the right side of the search result every once in a while, triggering the preview.

brc 15y ago
I think the preview thumbnail is a very poor substitute for the 'cached' links that have disappeared. Sometimes the cache link was the best thing for an underperforming website or one that was down. It was simple, everyone understood it, now it's gone. Boo.
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  The cached link is still there. Look for it on the page preview.
  - brc 15y ago
    Can't we just have it back where it was?

wahnfrieden 15y ago

I don't at all, and find it incredibly distracting to have movement on the entire right half o the page when I'm just trying to scan the search result text.

0xABADC0DA 15y ago

The preview panel is useful because Bing has it. It's like Google has set out to ape anything Bing does so the only difference is the result quality. - Bing added a main search page background image, so Google adds one (but only if you're logged in). - Bing changed the image search to pack images together with hover for info, so Google made theirs do the same. - Bing added image search parameters like size, style, etc, so Google adds them too. - Bing added preview panel, so Google added it too. - Bing moved cache links into the preview, so Google moves cache links into the preview. ...iirc Bing did all these things and more first before Google.

jakeonthemove 15y ago

Yeah, it's just... stupid. It would've actually been more useful if it was smaller (like Windows 7 taskbar previews), not take a whole third of the page. Thankfully, it's not automatically showing up anymore (at least for me), so it's cool...

unfasten 15y ago

The following CSS should disable preview and put the Cached and Similar links back into the correct spot. I use UserCSS in Opera, not sure what to use in other browsers but I know there are solutions for custom CSS available: .vspib { display: none !important; } /* This is the preview specific line */ .vshid { display: inline !IMPORTANT; padding-left: .7em !important; } .vshid > a { color: #1122cc !important; text-decoration: none !important; } .vshid > a:hover { text-decoration: underline !important; } .vshid > a:visited { color: #6611cc; } This next bit of CSS should puts the URL back below the snippet text. It works for most result types but there are a few where it's buggy, for example any results that show how many people "+1'd" a URL: li.g .s, li.g.videobox .s > table.ts > tbody > tr > td > div { padding-bottom: 1.4em !important; } /* Make room for the moved URL */ li.g.videobox .s { padding-bottom: .5em !important; } li.g.videobox .s > table td > div { position: relative !important; } li.g .s > .f.kv, li.g.videobox .s > table .kvm { position: absolute !important; bottom: 0 !important; } I have Instant disabled so the above CSS may or may not play well with Instant enabled.