Google Suggest was launched on Google.com – it provides related search terms suggestion as you type in search box at google.com
Don’t like this feature and find that drop down box irritating? If so, just disable this feature and enjoy good old Google. Here goes the simple procedure:
- Open Google.com and click on ‘preferences’ button.
- Scroll down & check for ‘Query Suggestions’ option.
- Select among either option & click on ‘save preferences’ button.
‘Do not provide query suggestions in the search box’ is the option to disable Google suggest option and ‘Provide query suggestions in the search box’ option is the keep Google Suggest enabled.
I DONT HAVE GOOGLE SUGGEST FEATURE?
Google Suggest is still in roll out stage – for example you may not see this feature on Google India (google.co.in). To test drive this feature check this URL http://www.google.com/webhp
USE GOOGLE WITHOUT GOOGLE SUGGEST FEATURE
Use this URL [http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en] to access google, no Google Suggest pops here (Thanks Bri).
U GOOGLE! I am about to uninstall your browser – fix it!
There is no longer a Search Preferences/settings button on the Google Home page!! I noticed this yesterday when the search suggestions drop down box suddenly reappeared. I can no longer disable this. Is Google acting the “bully boy” again?
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en
I use this too on a Mac OS X and I noticed that Little Snitch shows it as google.com.au. Why would it go to Google’s Australia URL? Is anybody else seeing this?
Everyone can disable Google suggest in Googles search options.
However, this setting will be stored in a Google cookie, together with the unique user-id. Since most users often delete all cookies (for privacy reasons), the suggest setting is lost too. So you have to disable suggest again and that’s annoying.
For Firefox users it is easy to disable Google suggest with the help of an addon, there are several to choose from:
1. GoogleEnhancer
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6435/
To disable Google suggest you need to tick the ‘Disable scripts on Google search pages’ checkbox in the addon options.
This is the only addon I know which also disables the annoying history popup when typing in the search-box. I am recommending this addon.
2.Noscript
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722/
Disable scripts on Google.com or whatever.
3.Adblock Plus
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865/
You need to configure it to block the Google suggest server
4. OptimizeGoogle
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/52498/
Note: It was posted several times that disabling GoogleSuggest still does not work, but try yourself.
In Firefox, use the free Adblock Plus addon. In Options / My Adblocking Rules, then simply block the domain…
clients1.google.com
This is the server that handles Google’s suggestion keywords. Treating it as adware — which indeed it has now become — turns off Suggest.
This does not work for me. I am using Firefox browser with the google search tool but want to disable their auto suggest options. Tried all your above suggestions nothing works. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Putting http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en in your home page works but only for web searches try it for images and you get the same thing, anyone know how to turn it off for all searchs in google?
Hi Don, you probably won’t see this now as your post was so long ago. Unfortunately it’s not possible to edit the google home page links, so by clicking on the images link you are forced to go to the image URL that google has hyper-linked to. As an exercise to demonstrate how it works, you can switch off the suggestions by clicking on the images URL. You will see the address in the search bar at the top http://images.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi and then adding &complete=0 to the end will disable the suggestions box, but this is pointless as it would be quicker to disable the suggestions option in the search preferences. I am with everyone else here and find it utterly frustrating and insulting that google treats us like idiots and forces us to adopt their methods when using their engine. I don’t mind that the options are there, its just that I would like to be able to choose which ones to use and which ones not to. I’m hoping someone will be write a Greasemonkey script to do this at some point.
Ahh! That said I have found a script that does exactly that: userscripts.org/scripts/show/9310
This will prove to be the end of Google in the future. I’m already looking at other search engines after all these years using Google without a thought of looking elsewhere.
Now we need tools and apps written to ‘block’ all the ‘automated’ drop-down query suggestion nonsense that software providers ‘think’ we all need – annoying the world one user at a time.
Unbelievably annoying. Just try and “turn it off.” Then it comes back when you clear cookies (a frequent operation for many people) it comes back when you use another computer or use another browser or use your friend’s computer or your computer at work or another computer at work or at the library because IT wasn’t configured to STOP THE DAMN ANNOYING NOVICE AUTO-SUGGEST CR@P. Idiots.
@Bri Thnx for the update
@Lou Bri was big help!
THANK YOU, BRI!! I have been spending my entire work morning trying to disable the incredibly annoying Google Suggest feature. If you hadn’t posted this link to the old Google, I would have had to chang my search engine. Dear Google – Google Suggest is the most idiotic feature IN THE WORLD. People are not stupid. They do not have to be provided with 5,000 suggestions when they type in the letter P. Please fire whichever Google idiots implemented this new feature. I’m sure Google has determined a way to make money off of it, and that is why we have had this ridiculously distracting and disturbing “enhancement” shoved down our throats.
This method stopped working for me today; I suspect Google has made a recent change. Instead, use the following URL to access Google:
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en
This URL will give you ‘old’ Google…the one without that annoying Suggest feature….cheers