Disable Google Now completely on your Android device
Google Now is best described as a personal assistant app that gathers data using numerous sources such as Gmail, search or your location to display relevant information to you.
Examples include information about meetings or flights, sport matches and tournaments or the weather.
While some users may certainly appreciate what Google Now is offering, others may not really want to make use of it at all.
These users may have several reasons for now wanting to use Google Now, from not wanting the service to scan Gmail emails to improving battery life on the device by disabling it.
Another reason is the fact that Google Now has been integrated on Android that it can be launched with an upward swipe from the bottom of the screen. This can lead to it being accidentally opened or at least getting in the way of other activities on the device.
What makes this worse is that there is no built-in option to disable the Google Now swipe. While you can disable Google Now on the device easily, you need to rely on third-party tools to disable the swipe as well.
Disable Google Now on Android
You need to launch Google Now to disable it. If you can still use the swiping motion to launch the service do so on your device. If you have already disabled it skip this step.
You can also launch Google Now by opening Google Search on the device as it is offered as part of that application.
Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and tap on the three dots there and then on settings in the context menu.
Here you can switch Google Now to off to disable the feature on your device.
This stops the service from running on the device, but it won't disable the swipe motion to load it on the device. This is still enabled.
Disable the Google Now swipe launcher
If you want to disable the swiping motion to launch Google Now, or replace it with a different app that you want to launch using it, you need to use a third-party application.
Probably the best in this regard is Swipeup Utility. It is a free app for Android 4.1 and up that does not require root to run.
After you have installed it on your device open the apps' settings to configure it.
The default action is to do nothing. You can change that to open another application on your device whenever you make that motion.
Once done, use the swipe motion to trigger the "complete action using" dialog. Here you need to select Swipeup Utility and either always or just once.
Depending on whether you have selected to do nothing or load an application, that is going to happen when you swipe.
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?