Technical hitch angers Google home page users

Google’s Personalized Home Page service is suffering from technical problems which are causing some home pages to revert to older versions or to their original default settings.

Users have posted numerous complaints on discussion boards about the loss of home pages which they have personalised with RSS feeds, links and bookmarks to act as a hub for their Web content and services.

An official Google posting cited changing the home page theme as a possible trigger for the problem. The message advises users to avoid changing their theme until further notice and acknowledges that it is not clear whether users will be able to recover their customized pages.

Other Google services such as Blogger, Gmail, and Google Apps have also experienced technical problems in the last six months, highlighting the risk of relying on hosted applications providers.

The development of hosted applications is being widely promoted as an alternative option to purchasing applications and installing them on an individual PC or server.