Google's New Link for Bypassing Country Redirects

Google has always displayed a link on the homepage that bypassed country redirects: "Google.com in English" or "Go to Google.com", depending on the language. The link sent users to google.com/ncr (ncr=no country redirect), the pure savor of Google that has all the new features and it's not partial towards the pages from a certain country.

Now the link to Google.com is also displayed under the search box so you can check the search results for the same inquiry at Google.com. It's an useful feature, but Google also changes a cookie value and users are no longer redirected to the country-specific domain. Maybe a clasp link similar to the link to iGoogle and the classic homepage would be more useful.

Google Classic Plus

The new feature that lets you add a background image to Google's homepage has a name reminiscent of Microsoft: "classic plus". When you click on the link to iGoogle, there's an option to switch to the classic homepage. Now the classic homepage has an important feature that was only available in iGoogle: themes.

It will be interesting to see if Google adds more features from iGoogle to the "classic plus" homepage. Google could add some simplified gadgets that show if you have new messages in your Gmail inbox, new events in your Google Calendar agenda, gadgets for weather and news. Since Google only shows the search box and the two search buttons if you don't move your mouse, the gadgets wouldn't clutter the homepage.