Products · Product
Google Groups
Raised as a usability problem by 105 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2009–2024), in 102 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Archive search broken, so old Usenet posts can't be foundUnreviewed
20092026- Old Usenet archive search is nearly unusable through Google Groups2023-03-08
- Search misses about 60% of old Usenet threads, so archived posts can't be found2020-01-31
- Can't search old Usenet posts anymore after Deja News was folded into Google Groups2019-09-10
Newsgroups nearly impossible to find from the webUnreviewed
20092026- Searching old newsgroup mentions via Google Groups is incredibly frustrating and took over an hour2020-09-15
- Usenet archive is hidden; user can't find it on the current Google Groups page2016-12-24
- Cannot download group archive, so past content is not locally searchable2016-10-19
Non-Google-account users can't figure out how to subscribeUnreviewed
20092026- Person without a Google account couldn't figure out how to subscribe to the group2020-10-20
- Person without a Google account couldn't figure out how to subscribe to the group2020-10-19
- Can't subscribe with own email; must create aliases and Groups posts from Gmail address2018-05-31
Spam not contained or managed, making public discussion futileUnreviewed
20092026- Valid posts get flagged as spam and deleted, and the forum is hard to search2017-03-07
- Spam is not contained or managed, making public discussion futile2009-10-27
- No easy way to report spam; feedback forum feels like a bottomless pit2009-01-15
Unsubscribe instructions don't work, forcing digging through email headersUnreviewed
20092026- Unsubscribe link fails for people who never subscribed, so they can't stop the emails2024-01-02
- Unsubscribing requires digging through email headers because the unsubscribe instructions don't work2012-09-09
- Hard to figure out how to unsubscribe, so deleting unread mail is quicker2012-02-01
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Commenter finds the product's user experience terrible2024-03-22
- Unsubscribe link fails for people who never subscribed, so they can't stop the emails2024-01-02
- Mobile view shows dates confusingly, so readers can't tell whether a conversation is recent2023-11-20
- Google Groups UX is worse than newsreaders, lacking killfiles and spam moderation2023-11-12
- Zooming in shrinks the page to ten characters in an unscrollable viewport2023-08-21
- The messages list in the new web UI is unreadable2023-03-08
- Old Usenet archive search is nearly unusable through Google Groups2023-03-08
- Hard to get answers or support from Google Groups2022-11-02
- Google Groups has become unusable for project mailing lists2022-10-27
- Google Groups web front end is awful and offers no spam filtering2022-06-09
- Redesign forced users to relearn how to open groups publicly, wasting an hour2021-10-17
- Person without a Google account couldn't figure out how to subscribe to the group2020-10-20
- People can't find how to subscribe, and Post button forces a login that turns them away2020-10-20
- Person without a Google account couldn't figure out how to subscribe to the group2020-10-19
- Searching old newsgroup mentions via Google Groups is incredibly frustrating and took over an hour2020-09-15
- Search misses about 60% of old Usenet threads, so archived posts can't be found2020-01-31
- Gets banned when opening too many tabs at once2019-12-09
- Each redesign broke features and made the interface less usable2019-10-10
- Can't search old Usenet posts anymore after Deja News was folded into Google Groups2019-09-10
- Search misses the original Usenet post and the interface is poor2019-07-31
- Pages show up in search but demand a login before the contents can be viewed2019-05-29
- Forced to log in or go incognito; no way to just view content2019-05-27
- Deep links lost in forced login redirects, leaving the user on a generic page2019-05-27
- Posts can't be found again after navigating away, and content isn't publicly searchable2019-04-04
- Pages take 5+ seconds to load just to jump to a point2018-11-22
- Searching for old posts returns nothing, making anything meaningful hard to find2018-11-22
- Old Usenet posts can't be searched or viewed with original message headers2018-10-17
- Hard to use; confusing and unusable for setting up external-contact email lists2018-09-27
- The interface is described as shitty, with no specific problem named2018-09-08
- Google Groups UI is so poor it looks hackathon-quality2018-09-06
- Hard to know how to configure a group to behave a certain way2018-06-01
- Can't subscribe with own email; must create aliases and Groups posts from Gmail address2018-05-31
- Nested threads and unformatted raw code text are painful to read and navigate2018-03-18
- The interface is so bad the commenter wants to block it from search results2018-03-13
- Advanced date search returns nothing; archive search is now nearly useless2018-01-08
- Forced login redirect and two-factor check, then back button loops to homepage2018-01-08
- Interface is astonishingly bad for a company with Google's resources2017-09-12
- Site feels unusable to the commenter2017-05-21
- Bubble interface is cutesy but useless; prefers the list view instead2017-03-28
- Valid posts get flagged as spam and deleted, and the forum is hard to search2017-03-07
- Search on the archive is broken, so old Usenet posts can't be found2017-02-10
- Usenet archive is hidden; user can't find it on the current Google Groups page2016-12-24
- Replies are threaded by subject only, in an awkward separate interface2016-12-15
- Looks like a forum but lacks forum benefits, so it is a poor hybrid for users2016-11-25
- Interface is among the worst the commenter has used recently2016-11-25
- Poor interface and terrible feedback from replies drove users away2016-11-25
- Cannot download group archive, so past content is not locally searchable2016-10-19
- Defies browser conventions and forces users to fight for usability2016-09-07
- Described as slow, buggy and frustrating to use since its redesign2016-07-15
- Slow async JS loading hijacks browser behavior and breaks back-button history2016-07-15