Today is a sad day.

Gone is the proud old big G boxed in red, blue, and green. It has been replaced by the second g in the Google logo, boxed by a hideous Web 2.0 wannabe rounded box:

It seems like a very minor change. After all, who looks at these icons, right? Wrong. I like to open search results on a separate tab, and before I could always locate the Google tab immediately. But today I hesitated a couple of times as I tried to find the right tab: Where the hell is it? It was then that I noticed the small “g”, unnoticeable and shy, hidden amongst my grayish tabs like it didn’t want to be seen.

The most annoying thing about the new favicon is how it uses transparency to blend into the background. On Firefox it’s not much of an issue, as in the screenshot below:

On Opera however, the new icon is almost invisible as it blends into the blue background of the Opera tab. Very ugly and hard on the eyes.

Compare that to Yahoo’s big red Y! and suddenly, Google starts to look insignificant.

Someone’s in Google needs some serious butt-kicking.

Update: Google has heard our plea and is actually crowdsourcing the next favicon! My stand remains firm: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Bring back the old Google icon!

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