How to Remove Google Everything Sidebar
How to Remove the Google Everything Sidebar
The Google Everything Sidebar
The Google sidebar is a relatively recent and very annoying addition to the Google homepage. It is also apparently permanent - Google spokesperson Nate Tyler was quoted as saying, "We’re not offering a way to revert back to the old design."
A lot of people however wish it wasn't there at all. It seems that Google doesn't give a rat's ass what people like or don't like, for some reason they have decided to impose their sidebar on their adoring customers. If you do want to remove the sidebar there are workarounds that you will find at the end of this little rant.
Iif you are in a hurry you can just scroll down and discover the solution, but don't forget to vote in the cat and pigen poll on your way down !
Let me continue with my rant for a while nevertheless. Have the Google people gone nuts ? First they tell us the Chinese are really nice (no-one believed them of course but that's another matter) and that they needed to have their search engine in China even if it is censored (because it won't be totally censored and some information is better than none - except of course in China you will get no information at all about that well-known dangerous terrorist and exile from his own country the Dalai Lama).
Then they decide that, shock horror, those nice Chinese are censoring their search results and this is not really nice at all ! Well, people told them that in the first place! But they didn't listen of course. It seems the Chinese started hacking into Google's computers and someone was trying to pinch Google's source code (allegedly). That of course is serious economic business, so Google decided to close down its China operations because of censorship issues.
It could be of course that the hackers were merely trying to hack into Google's computers to find out how to turn off the exceedingly annoying "everything" sidebar that has appeared on some people's computers. In case you are not aware, it appears that Google in its infinite wisdom has chosen some guinea pigs at random to participate in an experiment. Instead of the nice clean page that you get with Google search results (normally), on certain computers they are now displaying a very annoying 'sidebar' that serves no useful purpose other than stealing space from your screen.
Nasty Chinese Hackers Put Cat Among Google's Pigeons
Very Annoying Google Sidebar
Cat v Pigeon Poll - Please Vote or Comment !
Is the pigeon toast ?
See results without votingAfter spending an hour or so trying to get rid of the sidebar you never installed in the first place, you may be tempted to do a search on Google on 'how to get rid of the Google sidebar' ? Only to discover that it is very difficult, if not impossible to get rid of it, and that Google does not seem to care less whether people like it or not. They are stuck with it.
Google have after all bigger fish to fry in their wok, apart from their issues with the Chinese and freedom of speech and the right to make money, they are also being sued at present by Rosetta Stone for misleading advertisements using the Rosetta Stone trademark, so Google users ranting about unwanted clutter on their PC screens is probably not very high on their to do list.
Anyway it seems that any fix to get rid of the Google sidebar is temporary and involves flushing out cookes, which can cause its own problems of course. But fear not ! There is a very easy way to get rid of the sidebar Google has stuck on your computer screen.
[UPDATE : June 27 - It seems like none of the workarounds below work anymore - so I suggest you use www.scroogle.org instead - it uses Google's search but keeps things simple ! ]
NB : This simple solution may not work for everyone - if it doesn't work use the 'bork' solution shown in the comments or try some of the othe rsuggestions.
The simple solution is to use Google.ca instead of Google.com (ca is Canada in case you didn't know). This is no doubt a temporary and not totally satisfactory solution either, but it is exceedingly easy and the relief you feel when you see a page without that god awful sidebar taking up your space and smirking at you is palpable and really nice !
If Google.ca doesn't work for you - use the 'bork' page - http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-bork&num=30&safe=off
It seems that Google are slowly getting around to stopping all possibilities of avoiding their ridiculous sidebar but one workaround that stille appears to work is to use Google mobile - www.google.com/m - so I'll be using that until further notice.
There are also plenty more suggestions in the comments/links below and a petition to Google (look for John L's comment)
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Comments 44 comments
Come on google you idiots.Get rid of this stupid sidebar..
It adds nothing..
google my home page and took over. i would never use any of there servises
Thanks Councilor I'll give it a try but Google really are shooting themselves in the foot over this - if only Bing was better
The best workaround right now is going to
http://www.google.com/m/search?site=universal&q=
it's the mobile site. Good luck.
Yup Joe a week or so back - seems like Google really doesn't care too much - as I said above it looks like the only way of avoiding the sidebar now is to us scroogle.org
pirate, fudd and Bork... have been assimilated :(
Hi Retirement Village - you're welcome - happy retirement !
great hub! this is very informative! thank you so much...
All current workarounds/extensions/plugins etc. can be found at: http://theoldgoogle.blogspot.com/
hope this might help.
HC and Rez -you're welcome
John L - thanks for the link
Bruce UK thanks for that
UK - thanks for all the suggestions !
and by the way as Jack pointed out "Slight issue with the fix: It doesn't give you search entry suggestions that offer you a corrected version if you misspell a word"
its because it uses a old version of google before they added that feature
hope that helps
Interestingly, Google are trying to improve their product. I think they have a great product. But if they bug me enough I would desert to Firefox (I use Google Chrome) and use a different search engine. Google are constantly getting in their own way, trying to be innovative.
The Everything sidebar occupies a space on the page that is normally not used, but it is annoying, perhaps because I did not ask for it.
Thanks for the opportunity of making this post. (my first post)
thank you. Changing the language helped a lot.
Deleting cookies does not always work. The ONLY thing that worked for me was changing the Language... try Pirate or Elmer Fudd!
If Google have crapped up your search desktop with their rubbish Sidebars, just change the address you use for Google Search to either:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=all
or for advanced Search without useless sidebars:
Go to
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-bork&num=30&safe
Select: Prefferences
Select: Eegleesh
Select: Safe
Place the new web URL http://www.google.com/webhp as your home page
Searches from here will not show the google everything toolbar :-)
Slight issue with the fix: It doesn't give you search entry suggestions that offer you a corrected version if you misspell a word.
A temporary fix, admittedly one that I'm not really all that fond of, but one that still works:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/76152
This script kills the side bar as soon as it pops up. I'll be posting it on Google discussions and favoring this webpage and waiting for any real fixes that come up.
To Google: You get my middle finger. Until now, I was rooting for you in your battle against Microsoft and Apple. But now you've proven to me you're no better than the other 2. So I'm going to say this once: Fuck you.
google.ca still showing the annoying sidebar for me when I do a search...
I NEVER get into making comment about these things, BUT this is BS get rid of google "Everything", or I get rid of google and go back to yahoo..
Thank you Jericho, now I can breath easy again, because the terrible sidebar is gone.
You do understand that you are a moron don't you?
Cool stuff URban - u learn something new every day !
just force google to use the old language of bork bork bork :P
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-bork&num=30&safe...
old google back
Another Fix I have jsut found for IE, deleted all cookies, browsed to google, damn everything sidebar still there.
Closed IE.
Opened each of the google cookies created i.e the .txt files one of them will have a PREFID at the beginning followed by string of numbers added a load of gibberish to the number string e.g xxxxx. saved the cookie.
Opened IE - Wham Bam thankyou mam good old clean Google.
mouse - thanks for the info. I'll keep my eye out for theri fix
ebh - we all agree, unfortunately we don't work for Google :-(
sma - thanks for the tip - i'll check it out
Jericho - thanks for the link
Google has made it so that all google language sites now use the side bar. If you really want yo get rid of it, you have to use this add on for firefox or chrome http://www.seotools.com/hide-google-options/index....
Yeah, clearing the cookies seems like an inelegant and temporary solution to me, but I’ve found another way that doesn’t affect other Google services and works across browsers: Go to Search Settings and change the Interface Language. You can still use English variants like Pirate, Elmer Fudd, or my favorite Bork, Bork, Bork! Once in another language the Google searches return to their old layout.
Take this Google everything bar abomination back to where it came from, please?
Removing the cookies no longer works. Stupid thing is here to stay. Keep your eye on userstyles.org if you use a mozilla browser. They fixeed the sidebar for the iGoogle page. I'm sure they'll fix this one too.
YW - thanks for the comment - I don't understand why Google insist on putting that sidebar on their page that no-one seems to want
Thanks for sharing the info......
nice to read your hub
It certainly ain't right - but Google doesn't seem to care - seems nuts to me but what the hell do I know ? Inthe meantime I use google.ca for searching
Where are the OPTIONS. Never before has there been a time where software companies are forcing their "ideas" on everyone and breaking user familiarity - yet it would be easy for them to allow CHOICE. Scarce user interface options - it's not right.
You're welcome L3B0. Interesting hubs you've got there !
Oh explains something. Like usual I went onto Google only to find that "experiment" of a sidebar. thnx
Hi Zelda - Sidd and Qinq - glad to be of help - yup Google is experimenting ! They want to know how long before we go mad looking at their ridiculous sidebar !
So, this is actually an experiment? It seems that I was also at the receiving end few days back. All of a sudden, the Google homepage started appearing different, and so were the SERPs. And that sidebar also appeared. I thought there was something wrong with my screen resolution, and spent almost an hour trying to figure it out. It went away just a quietly in a couple of days.
But it was on Google.com itself.
thank you so much for posting this. i have been going crazy having to look at this completely STUPID sidebar that is completely and utterly pointless. all other places had different ways of getting rid of it.. none of which worked for me! but this did, thank you!
Thanks for the link Fluke - I had mentioned you can get rid of the Google sidebar by removing cookies but as ar as I can see, that will remove all cookies, which you may not want to do, plus I have read that it is only temporary - the sidebar will come back
But for those who want to try here is the info. from Fluke's link
For the unlucky few that have been experimented on, and don't like the new google and want the old one back:
Firefox:
Tools -> Options - > Privacy -> Show cookies ->Remove all cookies (you can also just remove the google ones, but removing all is lazier.)
IE:
Tools -> Internet Options -> General Tab -> (Browsing history) Delete -> Delete cookies.
All other browers... If you can't figure out how to delete your cookies, go back to IE
How to /actually/ remove the side bar:
Thanks thevoice - I wrote it 'cause I tried for ages to find the solution of how to remove the unwanted Google sidebar so figured some people would like to know !
good hub
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