[HACK] Opera UserJS To Get Back The Good Ol’ Google Search UI

A few days back, Google, in it’s holy madness and crazy wisdom thought the people of Planet Earth needed change. So they changed the UI a bit. “A bit” in Google’s world is a lot in the real world. Google knows about this. In fact, they have an entire department dedicated just for the design of the frontpage. This I came to know from watching a show on CNBC TV18, and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to be in charge of the first page most people see on the internet everyday (and barely have any work to do)!

I think the new UI is built to accommodate wider screens. That explains a lot, including why the Search Results list appears at almost the centre of my widescreen monitor. My website (homepage, not this blog) also keeps content at the centre of the screen so that it doesn’t appear in some corner of a widescreen display. I think Google has thought this through. Each search page only contains 10 odd links with their descriptions, and overall there isn’t much content to display. If all content appeared on the left, a major part of the screen would appear empty. I’m sure with time I’ll learn to adjust to the new layout, and overall, it’ll even be more readable and helpful.

Here’s what they’ve done…

Without compromising on the Search Navigation features, here’s the good ol’ UI brought back from the dead with some UserJS.

1. If you haven’t setup a UserJS folder already, create a folder on your local drive that would contain all User JavaScript files (e.g. C:\Users\XYZ\Settings\OperaJS)
2. Open that folder. Copy the file provided below into the folder
3. Run Opera Web Browser
4. Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Content » JavaScript Options » User JavaScript folder. Point to the folder created in the above steps.
5. Google Search to verify that it works

Download GoogleSrchUIMod

Now I need to get myself to have a look at my books. Ughhh!