Google Bashing ...

When I got disenchanted with WordPress.com because of its reliability I had a look around for a Blogging service. I finally settled for Blogger because its owned by Google - I thought that given Googles proven track record for speed and reliability they will surely be able to handle a couple of millions blogs. I chose Blogger even though I was kind of disappointed by the functionality (come on, I have to "republish" my entire blog everytime I change the template?) Well, in the past weeks I've come to question that decision: I experienced frequent downtimes of Blogger.com, some lasting so long that I gave up blogging for that day. Afterwards I looked around for some explanations, excuses - but found none. Indeed, carefully looking at the blogger startpage I realized that the last news item was posted half a year ago - kind of makes you question Googles commitment to blogger. Hence: Anyone still thinking about starting a blog with blogger should at least use the option to host the blog on her own server - this way you have more control and can switch much easier.

Some other "Google is Bad / Not so Cool" news from recent days: You are now getting Google Toolbar whether you want or not. Also the new Google image sharing application fails to impress. This Google Toolbar install deal reminds me of my recent experience with the newest Google Desktop version: you can't install it without getting some useless screen estate wasting widgets as well - and it took me very annoying 15 minutes to get rid of these! (the process is such that most casual computer users will not be able to use Google desktop search without the widgets).

But lets close on a funny node:

Google Torture:
Sure, Google provides access to nearly all the public information on the web, but what about data people aren't willing to share? Google could enhance its core search engine by deploying goons and/or thugs to beat information out of people -- anything from the location of their valuables to interesting sports trivia. Finally you can search on terms like "why did my neighbor come home at 3 a.m. all last week" and expect to get some real answers.