Remove the G-button from the Android keyboard
If you are using the official Google Keyboard application on Android, now called Gboard, then you may have noticed that it features a new G-button at the top of the keyboard.
You can tap on it to run web searches directly in the keyboard interface, regardless of application you are in. For instance, if you are in WhatsApp, you could runi a search for "funny image", and paste a link to one of the results.
While this can be useful, it can also be awfully distracting especially since it is rather easy to tap on the G-button accidentally to bring up the search interface.
Remove the G-button from the Android keyboard
As you can see on the screenshot above, a tap on the G-icon opens the search interface. Google displays suggestions and an option to type custom search queries. Results are returned in the interface, with news and weather searches always only a tap away.
If you don't need the icon, because you don't need the functionality that it provides you with, or because it gets in your way, you may want to remove it from the keyboard.
While you can get rid of the G-button, there does not seem to be a way currently to remove the full line the G-icon is placed in.
Here is how you remove the button:
- While in the chat interface, tap on the G-button and then on the preferences icon that is displayed next to other icons and the search interface.
- Select Search on the Gboard keyboard settings page that opens.
- There you find the option to hide the "G" button, and an option to disable predictive search.
If you toggle the Show "G" button switch, the button itself is removed. The main issue however is that the line that it was placed on is still there. Basically, what happens is that the button is replaced by an arrow icon.
A tap on the icon does not trigger the search interface directly, but it displays options to run searches and to open the settings among other things.
There does not seem to be an option right now to remove that line completely which means that you are left with dead weight in the keyboard layout that you have no use for and can't remove.
Closing Words
Many Android users may find the new Gboard "G" Button useful. It enables them to run searches without having to switch to another app to do so. That's the use case that Google is pushing with the update.
Those that don't require it on the other hand have no option to remove it completely from the keyboard. Well, technically, you could install another keyboard app and start using it.
Now You: What's your take on the Gboard app update?
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?