How to get ride of these on the Google search page

Clint · 14 May 2018

Eaglepi said:

When I open Google from a shortcut I pinned on my taskbar I get a bunch of little squares with recent websites I have visited. I don't want them there, I will post an example below, however, the websites have been cleared but you'll see the gray sections where they show up. How can I set Google so they do not show up at all?

Attachment 188677

I would like to get rid of them too. I don't want people to see where I have been either.

Plankton · 14 May 2018

Ahhh...I take that back, yes you can remove them from Firefox. It's in the little cog wheel in top right corner. Click that and untick top sites. This just removes the tiles/blocks....it doesn't stop them from doing what they're designed to do. So if you re tick the box all those sites are there.

At least I don't have to look at them any more...just a blank page.

How to get ride of these on the Google search page-see.png

Logical Ron · 14 May 2018

Plankton said:

Ahhh...I take that back, yes you can remove them from Firefox. It's in the little cog wheel in top right corner. Click that and untick top sites. This just removes the tiles/blocks....it doesn't stop them from doing what they're designed to do. So if you re tick the box all those sites are there.
At least I don't have to look at them any more...just a blank page.

Thanks, that's good to know in case I ever decide to use Firefox as my default browser. At this point, I'm still sticking with Google, Even if I was to go to Firefox I be dealing with a whole group of different issues.

Plankton · 14 May 2018

For Chrome...there's a work around I just found. Go to settings/scroll down to "on startup"/open specific page or set of pages/ input "google.com"/close chrome/re open Chrome and you'll see this......

How to get ride of these on the Google search page-see-2.png

Bree · 14 May 2018

Plankton said:

Yah.....Firefox has those as well and they're just as annoying. Seems there's no way to remove them from either browser...

Actually, some of us like them and find them useful. There should be an option to control them though. Google think they know what's best for us and lock down control.

Those of us who'd like a few more have found ways and means in other browsers. For example, IE has a registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing\NewTabPage with a NumRows entry.

Firefox has on the about:config page a browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.topSitesRows entry.

Now I like to have at least four rows of tiles, but you could always try setting the number of rows to zero. Google Chrome has no such controls that I can find, one of the reasons I don't use it.

Plankton · 14 May 2018

Thanks Bree....I forgot about the about:config for Firefox.....will have a look.

Bree · 14 May 2018

Plankton said:

For Chrome...there's a work around I just found. Go to settings/scroll down to "on startup"/open specific page or set of pages/ input "google.com"......

That's part way there, now find an equivalent workaround for the new tab page :)

Plankton · 14 May 2018

Bree said:

That's part way there, now find an equivalent workaround for the new tab page :)

There's an extension/plugin for that.....

Logical Ron · 14 May 2018

Plankton said:

For Chrome...there's a work around I just found. Go to settings/scroll down to "on startup"/open specific page or set of pages/ input "google.com"/close chrome/re open Chrome and you'll see this......

I tried to work around that you suggested and it worked fine so far. To make just one addition to your reply, where you said"open specific page or set of pages/" that is correct however once you select that there isn't anywhere to add google.com. You have to press add page and then you can add google.com.

I'm not debating your reply because it worked well for me but in case somebody doesn't realize that you have to press on the add button to enter google.com I thought I would just expand on it a little bit more. Thanks for your post on the workaround and I sure hope it stays this way.!!!!

Plankton · 14 May 2018

Eaglepi said:

I tried to work around that you suggested and it worked fine so far. To make just one addition to your reply, where you said"open specific page or set of pages/" that is correct however once you select that there isn't anywhere to add google.com. You have to press add page and then you can add google.com.

I'm not debating your reply because it worked well for me but in case somebody doesn't realize that you have to press on the add button to enter google.com I thought I would just expand on it a little bit more. Thanks for your post on the workaround and I sure hope it stays this way.!!!!

Sorry, just got ahead of myself and missed that step.