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The new "x people like this" widget is really irritating. One of the nice things about Google Reader (and most Google apps) is the subdued interface. So why add

The new "x people like this" widget is really irritating. One of the nice things about Google Reader (and most Google apps) is the subdued interface. So why add these random screamers that give me absolutely no useful information? I really couldn't care less how many people liked this article. If they really must give me this information, keep it consistent with the rest of the UI, not popping out in an eye-catching colour.

smokinn 17y ago
Especially since it's global across Google Reader. I couldn't care less that some random person in Florida that uses reader liked an article that ended up in my rss feed. I wish I could turn it off.
- randomwalker 17y ago
  You can turn it off. I spend a lot of time in Google Reader, so efficiency and lack of distractions is very important to me. I turn off widgets that I don't use in most of the sites that I frequent. The way you can turn it off it to install the Stylish extension for Firefox (which allows user specified style sheets on a per-site basis), use Firebug to find the div id or class of the widget you don't like, and set it to "display: none !important". Stylish is similar to greasemonkey, which means that you can usually find someone who's already done what you're looking for, and shared it. Here is my stylesheet to make Google reader minimalistic: http://userstyles.org/styles/12663 http://userstyles.org/styles/12663 and here is what it looks like when installed: http://bit.ly/minimalreader http://bit.ly/minimalreader You can temporarily disable it with a single click when you want to use any of the hidden widgets.
  - smokinn 17y ago
    Thanks but that only works on Firefox and I generally prefer to use Chrome since it's so much faster. (The difference is even more striking in Linux than it is in Windows.)
    - randomwalker 17y ago
      Apparently Chrome supports greasemonkey: http://mashable.com/2008/12/15/google-chrome-greasemonkey-scripts/ http://mashable.com/2008/12/15/google-chrome-greasemonkey-sc... (All Stylish styles are available as greasemonkey scripts.)
      - smokinn 17y ago
        Windows only though. I don't have windows. I'll try that once plugin support works in Linux. Thanks.
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/53924 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/53924 While you can hide the number of likes using other scripts, I did want to see the number. So I moved it to the most logical place. Right next to the “Like link”
cake 17y ago
I all against those social features introduced in GR. In my opnion they should focus on core functionalities missing (such as feed filters), their social features are way beyond what you can find elsewhere to share content (Friendfeed, Facebook...). The "like" feature is plain terrible, the smiley face is distracting me from the content of the feed because it's on top and bright yellow. It was an awful idea to put it there.
- JimmyL 17y ago
  >> The "like" feature is plain terrible, the smiley face is distracting me from the content of the feed because it's on top and bright yellow. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. About four months ago traded out my normal GR for an instance of it in Prism with the Helvetireader style sheet, and have never looked back. Do that, and see how nice and minimalist a web app can be.
skolor 17y ago
When I noticed it I found the number to be the most annoying thing about it. It shows a stark contrast between what is popular and what isn't, and I don't care for that at all. I read feeds because I have found the authors to have consistently high quality content, not because its popular. When I want that, I go hit up a social news site. At the very least, they should be limiting it to only people on your contact lists. I couldn't care less how many random Google users liked the same thing I did. If, on the other hand, I could see that people I know liked it, maybe I would want to discuss it with them.
sounddust 17y ago
I wouldn't mind if there was a way to turn the new features off. But the typical Google fashion of introducing features is to initially force them on people, then give an option to turn them off several months later after people have been constantly complaining (like SearchWiki).
JunkDNA 17y ago
I love Google reader, but this new "feature" is the first time I'm thinking about looking elsewhere. It's so irrelevant which people "like" something I'm reading, I just can't fathom how they could think it's a good idea to shove that information in my face. The thing that amazes me is that there are so many other ideas they could be pursuing with Reader that play to their strengths. For example: lots of my RSS feeds talk about the same thing. A link gets put up here on Hacker News, but then it also gets discussed on Slashdot, Wired, etc... Google is good at automated content analysis. Why not experiment with ways to combine and merge feeds based on the content so I can read everything about a single topic in one spot? That would be truly useful and something you can't get anywhere else. In some sense, I feel like these new features are a bit lazy on their part. They're sort of avoiding doing anything innovative or novel and instead are just jumping on the social networking bandwagon to give the illusion of progress.

smokinn 17y ago

Especially since it's global across Google Reader. I couldn't care less that some random person in Florida that uses reader liked an article that ended up in my rss feed. I wish I could turn it off.

randomwalker 17y ago
You can turn it off. I spend a lot of time in Google Reader, so efficiency and lack of distractions is very important to me. I turn off widgets that I don't use in most of the sites that I frequent. The way you can turn it off it to install the Stylish extension for Firefox (which allows user specified style sheets on a per-site basis), use Firebug to find the div id or class of the widget you don't like, and set it to "display: none !important". Stylish is similar to greasemonkey, which means that you can usually find someone who's already done what you're looking for, and shared it. Here is my stylesheet to make Google reader minimalistic: http://userstyles.org/styles/12663 http://userstyles.org/styles/12663 and here is what it looks like when installed: http://bit.ly/minimalreader http://bit.ly/minimalreader You can temporarily disable it with a single click when you want to use any of the hidden widgets.
- smokinn 17y ago
  Thanks but that only works on Firefox and I generally prefer to use Chrome since it's so much faster. (The difference is even more striking in Linux than it is in Windows.)
  - randomwalker 17y ago
    Apparently Chrome supports greasemonkey: http://mashable.com/2008/12/15/google-chrome-greasemonkey-scripts/ http://mashable.com/2008/12/15/google-chrome-greasemonkey-sc... (All Stylish styles are available as greasemonkey scripts.)
    - smokinn 17y ago
      Windows only though. I don't have windows. I'll try that once plugin support works in Linux. Thanks.
boundlessdreamz 17y ago
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/53924 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/53924 While you can hide the number of likes using other scripts, I did want to see the number. So I moved it to the most logical place. Right next to the “Like link”

cake 17y ago

I all against those social features introduced in GR. In my opnion they should focus on core functionalities missing (such as feed filters), their social features are way beyond what you can find elsewhere to share content (Friendfeed, Facebook...). The "like" feature is plain terrible, the smiley face is distracting me from the content of the feed because it's on top and bright yellow. It was an awful idea to put it there.

JimmyL 17y ago
>> The "like" feature is plain terrible, the smiley face is distracting me from the content of the feed because it's on top and bright yellow. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. About four months ago traded out my normal GR for an instance of it in Prism with the Helvetireader style sheet, and have never looked back. Do that, and see how nice and minimalist a web app can be.

skolor 17y ago

When I noticed it I found the number to be the most annoying thing about it. It shows a stark contrast between what is popular and what isn't, and I don't care for that at all. I read feeds because I have found the authors to have consistently high quality content, not because its popular. When I want that, I go hit up a social news site. At the very least, they should be limiting it to only people on your contact lists. I couldn't care less how many random Google users liked the same thing I did. If, on the other hand, I could see that people I know liked it, maybe I would want to discuss it with them.

sounddust 17y ago

I wouldn't mind if there was a way to turn the new features off. But the typical Google fashion of introducing features is to initially force them on people, then give an option to turn them off several months later after people have been constantly complaining (like SearchWiki).

JunkDNA 17y ago

I love Google reader, but this new "feature" is the first time I'm thinking about looking elsewhere. It's so irrelevant which people "like" something I'm reading, I just can't fathom how they could think it's a good idea to shove that information in my face. The thing that amazes me is that there are so many other ideas they could be pursuing with Reader that play to their strengths. For example: lots of my RSS feeds talk about the same thing. A link gets put up here on Hacker News, but then it also gets discussed on Slashdot, Wired, etc... Google is good at automated content analysis. Why not experiment with ways to combine and merge feeds based on the content so I can read everything about a single topic in one spot? That would be truly useful and something you can't get anywhere else. In some sense, I feel like these new features are a bit lazy on their part. They're sort of avoiding doing anything innovative or novel and instead are just jumping on the social networking bandwagon to give the illusion of progress.