Silicon Beat has picked up on the new and improved Google, albeit an unofficial upgrade. Google Total is more user-friendly by offering drop-down search options. If you're at Google.com, for example, and want to do a Froogle search, you use the drop-down menu rather than have to click on the Froogle link, which takes you to a new Web page. GT's inventor is Anil Wadghule, a 21-year-old computer engineering student in India. Silicon Beat wonders how long Google will let GT live. While it could draw traffic away from Google.com, GT does serve up regular Google search results with Adsense so it's not like Google will lose any revenue from GT's existence. The best part about GT is it was created by someone thousands of miles from Google's R&D army in California. It's one of those upgrades that makes you say "How come Google didn't come up that themselves?" Google HR might do themselves a favor and offer Mr. Wadghule a job upon graduation.
Speaking of Google, Hitwise reports today that Google had 59.2% of all searches in the U.S. by the major engines in July - a 14% jump from a year ago. Yahoo and MSN had 28.8% and 5.5% of the market respectively. Yahoo, however, had its local search tool used 4.4 times more than Google Local.