Search The Web Option in Gmail Has Been Removed

February 15, 2009 · Filed Under personal notes 

Updated recently: The Gmail “Search Web” option is back — whew!

Gmail users are shocked and mostly upset that the Search The Web option has been dropped by Google. For those using Gmail, Google’s fabulous free email service (remember how one had to be ‘invited’ to sign up years ago and we so wanted to because there was so much free storage and those wonderful “chat threads” for email messages?), the first thing one would see when opening their mail would be the Search Mail Button and the Search the Web Button.

Like all other users, I would keep my Gmail account open all day and search the web from there. It was more convenient than:

  • Searching using the little rectangular search box on the upper right of my browser nav bar
  • Opening a new browser window where Google Search was my default Start up Home Page.

In the weeks before Google removed the Search the Web option, I did notice that Gmail was taking a bit long to load, and that sometimes I would be asked if I wanted to view the page using ordinary text settings and not html, and that when the Search the Web option was dropped, Gmail was no longer experiencing slow loading issues.

I guess this has upset a lot of people but I am sure this is just a temporary move on Gmail’s part and that the option will be restored as soon as they are able to tweak things on their end to make Gmail load faster, assuming of course that this is the reason they removed the Search the Web option in the first place.

Chuvatech is not aiming to get an online petition started to restore the Search the Web Gmail option, but if you scour the web, you will find that some groups have already started making noise, asking for this option to be restored.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Search The Web Option in Gmail Has Been Removed”

  1. Minnesota Joe on February 24th, 2009 1:34 am

    This removal is killing me! I used it dozens of times per day. Search was one quick flick, now it’s “open a new tab/browser”; type in http://www.google.com; type in search; hit enter and wait; …. all to do the same thing that was simply an relfex of efficiency before.
    Sad… google, please bring it back.

  2. Eric on March 4th, 2009 1:42 am

    The ‘Search the Web’ option is back as of today. 3/3/09… odd..

  3. Jeremy Frank on March 4th, 2009 3:42 am

    We did it! It’s back! Check it, Bill!

    I love you guys!

    J. Frank, PhD

  4. lisa on March 5th, 2009 7:06 am

    Hi Minnesota Joe, Eric and Jeremy Frank,

    Yes, it’s back! Whew!

    :)

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