How to turn off Discover in Chrome and on Android
To turn off Discover in Chrome on Android, open a new tab, tap the three-dot More menu at the top right, tap Customize new tab page, then Discover feed, and switch the Discover feed toggle off. The articles under the search box disappear right away. Discover also lives in the Google app and on google.com, and each of those has its own switch, covered below.
This guide covers every place the Discover feed shows up on an Android phone: Chrome's New Tab page, the Google app, the swipe-right page on the home screen, and google.com in a mobile or desktop browser. It also explains how to keep Discover but stop the clickbait, which is often the better fix.
How to turn off Discover in Chrome for Android
Discover in Chrome is switched off from the New Tab page itself, not from Chrome's main Settings screen. Google's current help page lists these steps:
- Open Chrome on your Android phone or tablet.
- Open a new tab.
- Tap the three-dot More icon at the top right.
- Tap Customize new tab page, then Discover feed.
- Turn the Discover feed toggle off.
The New Tab page then shows only the search box and your shortcuts. To bring the feed back, repeat the steps and turn the toggle on again. If you also want a cleaner New Tab page, the same Customize new tab page menu has a My shortcuts switch that hides the most visited sites tiles; to remove a single tile, touch and hold it and tap Remove.
Older guides, including an earlier version of this article, describe a gear icon under the feed with a Turn off option. Chrome has since moved the control into the Customize new tab page menu, so use the path above if you cannot find the gear. The official walkthrough is on Google's Customize your New Tab page in Chrome help page. While you are tidying up Chrome on your phone, our guide to restoring several closed tabs at once in Chrome for Android covers another menu most people never open.
How to turn off Discover in the Google app
Discover in the Google app is turned off in the app's General settings. This is the feed you see below the search bar when you open the Google app, and on many phones it is also the page that appears when you swipe right on the home screen.
- Open the Google app.
- Tap your profile picture or initial at the top right.
- Tap Settings, then General.
- Turn off Discover.
Once Discover is off, the space where the feed used to be stays empty, and you can turn it back on from the same switch later. Google notes on its Turn off Discover help page that the feature is not available in all countries or languages, which also means the switch may be missing where Discover itself is not offered.
Turning Discover off in the Google app does not turn it off in Chrome, and the reverse is also true. They are separate settings, so switch off each one you use.
How to remove the Discover page from the Android home screen
The leftmost home screen page that shows Discover belongs to your launcher, so it is removed from the launcher's home settings rather than from the Google app. Turning off Discover in the Google app (above) hides the feed; removing the page itself, where your launcher allows it, takes one more setting.
- Touch and hold an empty spot on the home screen.
- Tap Home settings (on some phones the menu item is called Settings or Home screen settings).
- Look for an option that mentions the Google app or Discover on the left page, and turn it off.
The wording depends on the phone maker and launcher version, so the option name on your device may differ from the one shown in older screenshots. If your launcher has no such option, turning Discover off in the Google app is the way to hide the feed. For more ways to tidy the launcher, see our guide on how to organize your Android home screen.
How to turn off Discover on google.com
Discover on google.com is turned off in Google Search settings, both on a phone browser and on a computer. Google has shown Discover on the mobile google.com home page since it renamed its feed to Discover in September 2018.
On a phone browser:
- Go to google.com.
- Tap your profile picture or initial, then More settings.
- Tap Other settings.
- Turn off Show Discover on home page.
On a computer:
- Go to google.com.
- Click Settings in the bottom right corner, then Search settings.
- Open Other settings and turn off Discover.
This setting is tied to the browser and Google account you use, so repeat it in other browsers where Discover still shows up.
Where to turn off Discover: quick reference
Each surface has its own Discover switch, so use the table to find the one that matches where you see the feed.
| Where you see Discover | Path to the setting | Setting name |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome New Tab page (Android) | New tab > More > Customize new tab page > Discover feed | Discover feed |
| Google app | Profile picture > Settings > General | Discover |
| Home screen left page | Touch and hold home screen > Home settings | Varies by launcher |
| google.com on a phone | Profile picture > More settings > Other settings | Show Discover on home page |
| google.com on a computer | Settings > Search settings > Other settings | Discover |
How to keep Discover but clean up the feed
Discover can be tuned instead of turned off, which helps if you like the feed but not the clickbait. In Chrome, open a new tab and go to More, Customize new tab page, Discover feed, then use these controls:
- Interests: mark each topic as Following or Not Interested.
- Per article: tap More under a card and choose Not interested in [topic] or Don't show content from [publisher]. Google says topics and publishers marked this way are not suggested again.
- Hide this: removes a single card from the feed.
- Report this: flags misleading, sensational, violent or hateful articles.
- Activity: open Activity controls and turn off Web & App Activity to stop new activity from personalizing the feed.
Pausing Web & App Activity affects more than Discover, because the same setting personalizes Search and other Google services. If you want to clear what Google already stored, see our guides to deleting all of your Google history and setting Web & App Activity to delete automatically. Google's Manage suggested articles page lists all of these options.
FAQ
Why is there no Discover option in my settings?
Google says Discover is not available in all countries or languages, so the switch only appears where the feed is offered. On the home screen, the option name depends on your launcher, and some launchers do not offer one.
Does turning off Discover delete my Discover history?
No. The toggle only hides the feed. To remove past Discover activity, review and delete it in My Activity in your Google Account.
Do I need to turn off Discover in Chrome and the Google app separately?
Yes. Chrome's New Tab page, the Google app and google.com each have their own Discover setting, so switching one off leaves the others as they are.
Related: Organize your Android home screen, Delete all Google history, Secure DNS in Chrome and other browsers
“To combat shady data brokers”
What’s great with Google is that they are powerful enough to do lots of their immoral and illegal actions in the open. So only their other immoral and illegal actions can be called shady. They like to insist on that for their defense.
Google is a privacy cancer. They already control the android operating system, why in addition buy their hardware ? It’s because of a barrage of lenient articles like that that most of people never learnt how much they should be hating Google, and more IT oriented people forgot it.
The worst is that Google sells its added value now as being from privacy ! They shill in privacy communities as Pixel being the reference private phone instead of the de-Googled ones. And because they often silently control those communities, it works.
“Not all Enterprise customers may be happy about the quarterly security updates that Lenovo and Esper promise. Google Android receives monthly security updates”
The main security problem with android is not security updates but the android developer Google and the developers it allows and encourages on its platform (because, to begin with, Google decided to control who can use its platform, for a large cut of developer revenue and with abusive rules, but for some reason the applications ended being more malicious than from uncontrolled Windows developers).
Android is so evil because mobile phones were the new device every one has to own but without a past of user resistance to capitalist rule, contrary to Windows devices. Taking that to desktop is bad news for user rights.
Are there any alternatives to APKUpdater? Search seems to work somewhat, but anytime I try to click anything, absolutely nothing happens.
“…The PC is powered by a custom version of Android 11 that supports customizable branding. Lenovo promises quarterly security updates and at least three years of support.”.
Errr, no thanks. I would rather monthly security updates, with 10+ years support – that you get with various Windows SKUs. Not to mention, they’ve launched it with a “custom” Android version that is already three years old. Enterprise users should probably give this a wide berth.
I don’t have an account on either, but as I replied to an earlier post of yours, there is this userscript, which hides older posts on new articles:
[https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/476362-ghacks-hide-older-comments-final-version]
Screenshot:
[https://i.postimg.cc/nhxnYdXn/Screenshot-g-Hacks.png]
(doesn’t hide newer unrelated posts in old articles though…)
[Edit]
It looks like it stopped working…
[Edit2]
It still works, but when I posted my response here, I got redirected to this older article, where the comment was placed as well:
[https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/17/how-to-remove-androids-discover-page/#comment-4574670]
The work around is to just look at the date the article was posted and scan down the page for relevant dates. Or use the “find on this page” option if the comments are too long.
Quote: “One question that still needs to be answered is how replaceable the Pixel 8 battery is.”
“Still not simple” is the answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmTDk2R1GMw
Anybody got Twitter? If you click Martin’s name (in upper case) at the beginning of this, or any other article you’ll find his Twitter and Facebook links. Maybe somebody can pose a question to him about what’s happening to the Comments to see what the response is. I don’t have an account at either unfortunately and can’t help.
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
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
@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.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
Do you still really believe that at this point Martin still has any control over gHacks? It seems clear enough to me that Softonic is phasing out Martin, Ashwin and anyone else who is actually getting paid and/or writing objective articles, and quickly turning this site one that is fully AI driven with revenue coming from articles which are drawn directly from advertising copy.
As support for this thesis, please note that Martin has now started his own weekly tech newsletter and an additional news and review website called Chipp.in.
Chip.in [https://chipp.in/] and ‘Weekly Tech Insights’ [https://martinbrinkmann.substack.com/] indeed.
I knew nothing of the former, thanks for sharing.
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
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]
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
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.
>”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.
@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.
@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.
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.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
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.
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?