Remember all the hubub about Amazon's tabs? I don't think they're great design, but they are pretty functional. Now everybodies darling, Google, has tabs - 4 of them. What do y'all think? Here's the Daypop search. I found Matt Goyer's post really helpful, but I can't get it to load. Here's Daypop's cached copy - scroll about 2/3 down. Therein he links a MetaFilter discussion (posted by user#1 himself. should have looked over there first) and an old Jakob Nielsen article.

Personally, I don't mind the tabs. The other stuff that appears on the Google front page from time to time, like little Google-service ads, is a lot more annoying/distracting to me.