Google Fading Homepage: Google.com’s Vanishing Act

You could have made an anouncment. I was called by one of our users, regarding slow internet connectivity. I had never seen this issue before We tried everything even down to reinstalling explorer. Then i searched on the problem and found out it was Google messing around.
Andy Ellam

This is really pushing the limits of minimalism. But surely in the right direction. While googling there's rarely anything else I want to do except search. Google has good has statistics (yea, surprise) on what is clicked on their homepage. Except the 'Google Search' button not much seems to be getting used. Now the 'Enter' key emulates the same thing as the search button so this is a perfect logical step. Note that this does not do anything for the load times since all the frills are loaded anyways but just not displayed. Now, how about shrinking the logo down.

As an aside, Firfox users can be even more simplistic by completely avoiding the homepage altogether. Just right click in the google search text box - Add a Keyword for this Search - Name it google and for keyword type in the character 'g'. From there onwards instead of typing in google.com in your browser and then the search terms, you can just type 'g searchterm' directly in the URL and go straight to the results.

Perhaps with a little inspiration from Bing ;) But Google's simplicity is best...

Since I have Google as my homepage and thus see it as the first page every time I open my browser, I find disconcerting, and it completely lacks any perceivable benefit.

I have a natural tendency to move the mouse when I open the browser which causes the links and buttons fade in almost immediately, so it just comes off as some tacky effect somebody learning JavaScript for the first time embellished their page with to show off their new skill.

Until I read this page I thought the recent Firefox update had somehow broken the Google homepage.