Did Google Forget How Tabs Work?

So this is something that has happened to me multiple times in the past in my chrome browser. For clarity, I use Chrome for work stuff and I do things like this in Firefox, which I prefer. However, where I work is pretty much now a Google shop.

I couldn’t click on any content, anywhere, in any window. I couldn’t even click to change tabs. My browser wasn’t frozen though, I could still type in the Google Doc I had opened on my screen before things went wonky. I could still alt-tab through the opened tabs in a window.

I alt-tabbed through one window and nothing happened, then alt-tabbed through another window and found it. Well, rather I stumbled across it. A little cloud icon with a checkmark inside at the end of the Title of my document had a little announcement bubble popping out of it.

Oh, goody a new feature “New! See document status.” I clicked it away and then suddenly everything in Chrome went back to normal, my mouse worked again. Had this little popup stole my cursor focus, requiring me to acknowledge it before I could continue on my merry way? Surely not.

Then within minutes it happened again. Hmmm, let’s test this theory and look for another one. I had a slide show opened in another window. I went there and alt-tabbed over to it, but this time I didn’t click it away. Testing, testing. Everything was working again. One moment passed and it stopped. So I looked at the next slide deck I had opened. Same thing. A little blurb was showing and demanding my attention.

That little blurb was holding my cursor captive and wouldn’t release it until I had seen. A little bit later it happened again, this time with a spreadsheet. What is going on?!

Google, the point of tabs is so you can have them open without needing them to be on top in their own window. Did you somehow forget this is how it works? You forced me to look at your announcement regardless of what I was doing before. I guess you’re really going all-in on taking down the “don’t be evil” company motto, aren’t you? We didn’t forget. We remember. Pepperidge Farm Remembers.

Author: Phillip

Phillip is a dad of three boys and married to a beautiful dedicated woman. An aspiring artist and science fiction author. He has been an IT professional for the past 20+ years. He is currently working on a full-length sci-fi novel, but he also makes small drawings/watercolors for his school-age son's lunchbox and occasionally pretends to be a comedian. He also still struggles with putting two spaces at the end of sentences.

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