Favorite Hidden Google Features?

fredtheshingle asks: "Google now seems to allow you the option to track your FedEx and UPS shipments! Search using the tracking number for either carrier and a page that offers to track the package appears. Simply follow that link and the carrier's current status report is displayed. Nice! So what's your favorite hidden Google feature?"

Define:

[unixbum (720776)]

The "define:" clause which comes in very handy... define: PHP [google.com]

My favorite Google Feature

[Neop2Lemus (683727)]

Great French Military Victories & click I'm feeling Lucky.

But then, given the /. debates here, I'm sure you all know that already.

Re:My favorite Google Feature

[stienman (51024)]

Doesn't work anymore. Here's the google watch link to an article about the prank [google-watch.org].

-Adam

The Standards

[amcnabb (682951)]

I'm not sure if I know of any that aren't pretty much common knowledge. Anyway, it's fun to search for "answer to life the universe and everything" [google.com]. I also like the calculator function: just enter "2 + 2". The ability to search for "definition any-word-you-want" is nice, too.

But of course, the best hidden feature is the ability to search for "litigious b******s" and to have the most relevant link appear first. In fact, you can leave off the word "litigious" and it still works, now that so many people have put links with that phrase on their web pages.

Re:The Standards

[daviddennis (10926)]

I was amused by the fact that Calculator answered that query, so I did a little experimentation.

Turns out that it's a numeric variable built into Calculator! Search for:

10 * answer to life the universe and everything + 5

and you'll get back:

(10 * answer to life the universe and everything) + 5 = 425

The Ghost of Douglas Adams would smile at that one. Or he'd be sick of hearing about 42 and slam the door in their face. Who knows which? I guess we'll never know :-(.

It sure brightened up my morning, on a chill rainy day, and that must count for something.

D

Fave "hidden" feature

[redfiveneo (692968)]

Let's just say Google images. ...with SafeSearch off. ;)

Re:Fave "hidden" feature

[orthogonal (588627)]

Yeah, but that means letting them use cookies. No thanks

I, too, prefer not to let Google set cookies. So far Google has been -- so far as I know -- a good respecter of privacy, but their insistence on recording all searches, along with the requesting IP address, gives me serious pause.

It's not that Google is evil, but that reposing that much information in any hands is a temptation to evil -- either on Google's part, or on the part of whomever ends up controlling it when and if Google goes public, or on the part of whatever government can issue subpoenas, or whatever lawyer can get subpoenas issued.

I'd feel much more comfortable if Google would purge its records of searches, or at least remove the IP addresses, but I suppose they have their reasons. I'll let you guess what those reasons might be.

Imagine Microsoft subpoenaing Google for the IP of whomever searched for "leaked Microsoft source" and then using that to allege an open source project is built on top of proprietary Microsoft code.

This is why I won't use the Google toolbar, and why for especially sensitive searches, e.g., "STD symptom" or "John Ashcroft calico cat" [snopes.com], I go through an anonymizing proxy.

But while the easiest and permanent way to set image search SafeSearch off is through a cookie, I believe it can also be set per individual search using a check box that is sent to Google in the http GET as a parameter, bypassing cookies.

Set preferences without using Google's cookie

[whovian (107062)]

I, too, prefer not to let Google set cookies.

1. Enable cookies. 2. Go to http://www.google.com/ 3. Click on "Preferences" on the right side of the search box. 4. Set your preferences and click "Save Preferences." You're back to the search box. 5. Click on "Advanced Search" on the right side of the search box. 6. Do not fill out anything, but just click on "Google Search." 7. Bookmark this new search page. 8. Delete your Google cookie. 9. Disable all cookies, or at least your cookies for Google. Now when you use your new bookmark for Google searches, your preferences are passed to Google in the URL, without a cookie.

(Reference: http://www.searchguild.com/printer/fm1/792)

Re:Fave "hidden" feature

[cicho (45472)]

I wish people would stop with the "you've got nothing to hide" argument. There are legal things which are immoral and there are moral things which are illegal. Then you must also ask "legal - where?" and "moral - where, when and to whom?"

Things once legal tend to become otherwise. If you feel you've got nothing to hide because you've never done anything illegal, you better pray that none of the things you've done ever becomes illegal. Or even immoral, especially if you might one day run for public office or be involved in a lawsuit.

Me having sex with my SO is legal. That doesn't mean I want information about it out in the open.

Me buying large numbers of left-wing books from Amazon is also perfectly legal, but could put me on a no-fly list if I ever travel to the US.

But above all - YOU will not decide what I should or should not hide, nor will any company or any government. That choice is mine.

Re:Fave "hidden" feature

[J'raxis (248192)]

You can turn SafeSearch off by adding "safe=off", by hand, to the URL. "filter=0" is also useful; this prevents Google from hiding multiple images originating from the same host.

Here's what I use. If you use Mozilla, make a bookmark out of the following (fix the spaces Slashdot inserted):

http://images.google.com/images?q=%s&filter=0&hl=e n&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off

Give the bookmark a keyword such as "gis". Now, when you type "gis foo" into the address bar, it goes to this URL, replacing the "%s" in the URL with "foo".

[Those other parameters are language, input encoding, and output encoding, respectively.]

Evil Cookies

[fm6 (162816)]

What's the issue with cookies? Obviously, you want to block most 3rd-party cookies. But to uniformly refuse to use first-party cookies is silly. Unless you don't trust anybody to keep track of when you're visited their web site.

Oh, you don't want anybody keeping track of your activities and transactions? Then you can't use a credit card, you can't write checks, you can't ever show anybody your driver's license or social security card. Which means you can't legally hold a job in the U.S.!

I think cookie-phobia is a sort of an inverse example of what Bruce Schneir calls the Line-Item Fallacy of Security. He's refering to people who think the solution to their security problems is to just buy a bunch of magic technology that will solve their problems for them. But there also seems to be an attitude that some technology is tainted by the evil anti-security/anti-privacy boojum, and by avoiding it you also solve your security problems. Not true. As Schneir keeps saying, security is not a product, it's a process. And of course privacy is an aspect of security.

Cookies are presumed to be evil because they can be used to gather information. But you can't avoid giving out information. The best you can do is avoid giving information to people you don't trust.

What, you don't trust Google? Fine, then configure your browser to only allow cookie settings to trusted sites, and don't add google.com to the list. That way you can at least use Slashdot without logging in.

What, you don't trust Slashdot? Then why are you even using it? They're perfectly capable of tracking your activities on their site without using cookies.

You don't trust your browser to enforce your cookie policy? Then you're already screwed, cause you've been trusting your browser not to not use cookies at all.

It's not about what technology is evil and what isn't. It's about who you trust and who you don't.

unit conversion

[jhawk94 (128005)]

As a physics/physical science lab instructor at the local university, the discovery of the unit conversion feature on Google has been extremely handy. Now when students ask whether their conversion are correct or not, I can point them to a quick easy place where they can check their own work.

In the google search box type "80 calories in joules" and voila.

Google's Best Feature

[tiny69 (34486)]

Ego Surfing!!!

Re:Google's Best Feature

[brunson (91995)]

I was just discussing this with a friend. For those of us steeped in the lore of the internet, it's called "Kiboing"

See: jargon kibo [google.com]

Or better yet: Who's got the biggest ego? [google.com]

Google Calculator

[Lendrick (314723)]

Not only does it do math, it's also got a bunch of constants built in, and it can convert units on the fly, even to some more esoteric ones. Try entering the following searches

gravitational constant
speed of light in cubits per fortnight
mass of jupiter in stones
radius of earth * 2 * pi in light years

It's enough to keep a science nerd occupied for hours. :)

Re:Google Calculator

[Undefined Parameter (726857)]

It's still missing a few things; for instance, it won't tell me the speed of an unladen swallow in knots.

But I do like the speed of light in cubits per fortnight. The history geek in me is still laughing. :)

~UP

Re:Google Calculator

[BrokenHalo (565198)]

That's because you need a separate unit for African and European Swallows... :-)

Re:Google Calculator

[(startx) (37027)]

Airspeed of an unladen swallow [google.com]

found through google of course.

Travel information

[Bombcar (16057)]

This seems pretty cool.... [google.com]

Google knows all, ask the google, google will know....

non-hidden features

[SkewlD00d (314017)]

the non hidden features i use alot are quoting "some phrase like this" and excluding TLD's like -site:com -site:edu etc.

NOT

[sakusha (441986)]

Yesss! I constantly use the NOT operator, the minus sign before keywords or domains etc. You can refine searches to almost anything with AND (the default operator) and NOT.

I used to like AltaVista's old logical operators, which included parentheses for nested operations. I could do things like
((foo AND bar) OR (foo AND baz))
but I don't think Google supports anything like this.

meanin' o' liff

[warmgun (669556)]

I've always liked this [google.com] gag. Now if we can just find that question...

~stuff

[outlier (64928)]

It's amazing how helpful the "~" can be when doing searches. Prefixing a word with a tilde will search for that word and many of its synonyms. Very helpful when doing things like:

linux ~tutorial [google.com]

Also, I think this list of google tricks [pcmag.com] was listed on /. a while ago.

bork bork bork!

[sdibb (630075)]

Seerch zee Veb [google.com]

Spell Checker

[globalar (669767)]

I know I'm not alone here. Everytime I punch in a commonly misspelled word, dictionary.com, hyperdictionary, etc. is in the first couple links.

It's probably so often used, it's practically overlooked as feature.

feature preview

[LoganEkz (552402)]

And don't forget Google Labs [google.com] for a taste of things to come.

Reverse Phone Lookups

[arrow (9545)]

If you have caller ID, or hit Star 69, and do not immediately recognize the number, punch it into google [google.com]. Bonus: maps to the street address on file for that number.

It's a little picky on format (you have to do [phone], not 5555554444 or 555-555-4444), but in general very awesome.

Re:Reverse Phone Lookups

[rlowe69 (74867)]

It's a little picky on format (you have to do [phone], not 5555554444 or 555-555-4444)

It's probably really picky because of the Google calculator [google.com]. The other versions of the phone number you have there are valid mathematical expressions.

Froogle for the frugal.

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

Froogle [google.com], for those who like to be careful with money.

UPC barcode lookup...

[TeddyR (4176)]

Google also allows you to do a lookup on a UPC code.. (it actually uses the database from www.upcdatabase.com [upcdatabase.com])

works great if you have one of those modified cue cats [ebay.com]

Searching in Klingon, Swedish Chef, or Elmer Fudd

[dgmartin98 (576409)]

These people @ Google really have a sense of humor. My favorite funny feature is the ability to do all your Google searches in your choice of Klingon [google.com], Bork Bork Bork! (Swedish chef from the Muppets) [google.com], or Elmer Fudd [google.com].

Dave

Regular Expressions

[Michael.Forman (169981)]

My favorite feature is the ability to search for items using regular expressions. Just type the string "site:/^[cs].*?edu$/" and BAM! You get jack squat.

Some day our Linux search engine heros will grace us with regular expressions.

Open Source Industrial Music. [naquadria.org]
Michael. [michael-forman.com]

OT: My favorite quote about regular expressions

[Big Sean O (317186)]

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

--Jamie Zawinski, in comp.lang.emacs

This "hidden" category...

[Masa (74401)]

This Google Directory Category directly under the toplevel: Adult [google.com].

I have no idea, why it is always hidden (even if the content filtering is turned off) or how to reach it from the toplevel.

Have you seen

[dtfinch (661405)]

Google's Britney Spears [google.com] page?

Re:Have you seen

[Anonymous Coward]

britney6 spears

I bet this person was typing with one hand. :)

kewl languages

[boogy nightmare (207669)]

a klingon [google.com] google or a a l337 [google.com] google kewl huh!!

Google Wireless

[Laverne (700282)]

I found out that google offers a wireless search engine [google.com]. Just go to that URL with your mobile, enter your search query and google will convert any site it returns to WAP format that your mobile can handle.

Wildcard searches

[grungeKid (4260)]

The * character works as a wildcard when searching for strings. Try this one [google.com] for some variations of a famous quote.

Google ~Guide

[Frambooz (555784)]

Here [googleguide.com] is a page that lists a bunch of features. Handy dandy.

2 things

[0x20 (546659)]

The calculator and the unit conversions are cool. But what I use most are:

1. The Dot. Instead of "search string", search.string works.

2. Search By Location [google.com] (currently in google labs, hopefully to be released soon). I made a mycroft plugin [glayven.com] for it. Download and unzip to your mozilla/firefox searchplugins directory, edit googleloc.src to reflect your zip code, restart browser, and it'll appear in your search dropdown. Just choose it from the dropdown and enter a query, say "pizza hut" or whatever, and bang, you get your nearest pizza huts with map and distances. (It'll stop working when search by location is eventually moved out of labs.google.com, obviously)

It's not really a feature, per se...

[josh glaser (748297)]

...but if you type in your search terms twice (monkeys monkeys) you tend to get better results, because that (I believe) only looks for sites with "monkeys" written twice, removing sites just linking to the topic (and the glut of link directory things). It's cool.

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[Bombcar (16057)]

Forgot to give an example:

Google Calculation [google.com]

And the ever popular Question [google.com]

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[kernelistic (160323)]

Did you know that 129263.376 rods per cubic yards is 2 miles per gallon? :-)

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[sbennett (448295)]

And the ever popular Question

How about this one [google.com]?

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[iota (527)]

A list of some of the google features available:
http://www.google.com/help/features.ht ml

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[Bombcar (16057)]

And for the lazy, I searched google and found a link: Google Features [google.com]

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[rolocroz (625853)]

The page is Slashdotted - here's a Google cache. [216.239.57.104].

Re:Calculator and spell checker

[00420 (706558)]

Wow that's pretty cool too.

Google can help you find some pretty cool things.

I just learned that with my internet service I can theoretically download 11 terrabytes per year. [google.com]

I really need a bigger hard drive :0

Re:something I miss from altavista:

[almightyjustin (518967)]

I don't think Google has one built in but you can use this site [mangle.ca] to do the same sort of thing using Google.