Minimalist Google

Helvetireader is, still, the best UserScript ever made. It isn’t being updated any more, but there won’t be a need much longer. It was Jon Hick’s attempt at a more usable, minimal interface to Google Reader.

I’m a huge fan of Google Reader, of minimalism, and of combining those two things wherever possible. It made me sad to see him move on to things that didn’t break every other week (as Google had a habit of changing the code every 15 seconds it seemed like). But it made me happy that at least Helvetireader would work most of the time.

Maybe.

If you caught it at the right time.

And you held your head just so.

Today, I got a look at the new Gmail interface over at their blog. And much like the new search on their home page and the new…well…everything else on Google, I like what I see. Still a bit boxen, but it all looks much better with the Google+ inspiration.

It makes me wonder, though — why did it take them over 10 years to figure out people like nice-looking things?