Google is the latest web company to incur the wrath of surfers following the redesign of iGoogle, its personalised homepage.
Google groups and forums have been buzzing with comments from surfers unhappy with the facelift.
Launched in 2005, iGoogle is a personalised hub for surfers to aggregate news and syndication feeds and add web gadgets.
The redesign has added a new left-hand navigation column as well as "canvas view," which lets users increase a gadget application to a full screen.
The navigation bar has triggered a wave of complaints. Surfers say it is of little value and takes up space on the screen unnecessarily.
One surfer, writing in a Google Groups discussion page wrote: "My wife and I have used iGoogle for almost a year now but if the sidebar is not gone in the next week...we will be."
Another iGoogle user wrote: "I don't like or use the left-hand navigation bar. It's redundant, takes up space, and is not wanted. Please allow me to move my tabs back to the top where they're out of the way."
Some US surfers switched to Google UK when the changes were introduced last Thursday so they could retain their old iGoogle layout. However, the modifications have since been introduced to the UK format.
A Google spokeswoman admitted that the addition of the left-hand bar does take up space but said it does have its merits.
"The left navigation allows users to go from canvas view to canvas view of the new gadgets with one click, which we think is important as we see more and more great canvas view gadgets that require a scalable navigation model," she said.
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Topic: Surfers slam iGoogle facelift (Read 584 times)