Hide Google recommends using Chrome advertisement on Google websites
When you visit Google's main website and many other the company operates in a web browser that is not Google Chrome, Google displays an overlay on the screen that advertises the company's own Chrome browser. It is a simple ad that is placed in the top right corner of the screen.
Google recommends using Chrome
Built for Windows. Easily search on Google with the fast, secure browser.
There is an option to select "don't switch" and another that simply states "yes". Don't switch dismisses the widget, but it may be displayed again on the next widget.
If you have made up your mind and don't want to switch, or can't, then you may prefer if the advertisement is no longer displayed as it serves no real purposes in that case and may be distracting.
Chrome is certainly fast and secure, but the lack of privacy may deter privacy-conscious users from using the browser. There are plenty of alternatives available that offer better privacy, including Chromium, which is like Chrome but without many Google-bits, or the third-party browsers Vivaldi and Brave.
How to remove Google recommends using Chrome
Content blockers such as uBlock Origin may hide the advertisement on Google websites, but if you use the element picker to hide it, you won't hide it permanently because of the way it is designed.
There is another option, one that works really well. If you are using uBlock Origin, here is what you need to do:
- Activate the uBlock Origin icon in the browser's main toolbar and select Go To Dashboard.
- Switch to Filter Lists.
- Expand Annoyances.
- Check AdGuard Annoyances.
- Select Apply Changes at the top.
AdGuard Annoyances includes more than 44k entries, which hide annoyances on the Internet. One of the entries hides Google's Chrome recommendation, others hide other ads by Google on its properties that advertise Chrome when you open the site with another web browser.
Manual option
If you don't use uBlock Origin, or don't want to subscribe to the full list blocking annoyances on the web, then you may add the following filter as a custom filter to your content blocker to block the Google recommends using Chrome widget on Google properties.
google.com,google.de##iframe[src^="https://ogs.google."][src*="/widget/callout?prid="]
You may need to edit the URLs, e.g. add a local Google site to the listing or remove one. If you use google.fr, you need to add it, e.g. by replacing google.de, which you probably don't use.
Note that the manual option has the disadvantage of not being updated if Google changes code. The annoyances filter list is updated regularly to reflect code changes and to add new entries to the list to get these blocked. Google could change the address the banner is loaded from and the filter would stop working. You'd have to analyze the new code and create a new filter to block the widget again.
Now You: which web browser do you prefer?
I use Firefox ESR as my primary browser and Ungoogled Chromium as a secondary. However I do not use Google search (DuckDuckGo instead) as I stopped using all Google services a few years ago for privacy reasons.
But as a test in both Firefox ESR and UC I do not see the overlay for Google Chrome. I suspect that is due to using StevenBlack’s blocking hosts file (base file). Otherwise both browsers do not have any installed extensions so no blocking being done there (other than third party cookies via browser settings).
appreciate the info …did some tweaks on ublock origin. thanks.. still using Palemoon 29.1 Portable off flash drive. have decided not to update to latest, my reasons. this works great and has extensions that i really appreciate and use often. as browsers move on, some things come and some go…i like this version as it is. thanks again, clas
@clas
You can still install Firefox extensions that don’t target Pale Moon via the Moon Tester Tool (you can the XPI file here):
https://github.com/JustOff/moon-tester-tool/releases
No reason not to update to the latest Pale Moon release.
First one to go to (95 percent) Firefox 91.0.2.
Second one to go to (3 percent) Vivaldi 4.1
Third one to go to (2 percent) Pale moon 29.3
You could use the AdGuard extension or far better the system level version which can be purchased in the ghacks store.
The browser extension has to be installed from AdGuard’s site since Mr. Google has decided Android and Windows are not worthy. Yandex, Samsung Internet and all Apple products apparently hoisted Mjolnir gaining Store access.
I use Chromium as a secondary, FF ESR as primary browser. The Chromium version is here:
https://chromium.woolyss.com/
First green one for Win 64.
… which web browser do you prefer?
I have the feeling many comments in progress.
Firefox here. No fan attitude, I started liking it for privacy, then for the plethora of prefs, finally for the ease of tweaking its display.
Hopefully I’m commenting after having found the solution to an issue I’ve spent the night to resolve. Many bad words wen through my mind then, addressed to developers I imagined irresponsible. Three minutes exactly after the browser’s start I’d get a message stating lack of disk space : I’ve got so much available! I tried everything when in fact the reason was so simple : my Firefox profile is on a RAMDisk, configured to hold 128M … and it appears that the profile disk spacer, near a 100MB when opened, was a too high ratio to not trigger the message. As often a simple reason when we often search far too far.
Back to Google’s recommendation for itself. Images and maps are the only quests which get me close to BigG, YouTube also though most often accessed via Invidious instances (direct and embedded). I never encountered the auto-promo and now I know that it’s at least thanks to the AdGuard Annoyances list for uBlock Origin. I have quite a few (137,360 network filters + 123,802 cosmetic filters at this time).
All this sums up to congratulations for the two : uBlock Origin and Firefox. I haven’t tried many others for years. To be frank habits have their part : I know the browser (moderato) and that counts a lot unless for those who have the soul inclined to adventures and discoveries, which is lesser and lesser my case as the years go by. Young I was far more curious, Compute! Magazine in the eighties was my pal!
I do normally use Firefox, or tis dev version Nightly
For my banking and most private issues, I do use Tor Browser without extra add-ons
For some fun sometimes degoogled-Chromium
Occasionally also Vivaldi.