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Once upon a time — in the late 20th century — a search engine indexed the open, decentralized web and helped you find the information you were looking for. After we show you an ad or two, you’ll be sent on your way to the source.

Since then, ads have become more abundant and harder to distinguish from content – ​​and that content has become polluted with SEO-optimized websites that want to show you even more ads. But now, thanks to the explosive spread of AI, even the meaning of the verb “Google” is changing. Instead of sending you to a source of information, the tech titan now provides answers instantly – no need to go anywhere else or see anyone else’s ads!

Except these answers were unreliable, even dangerous.

Is it possible to go back in time, before AI Overview and Generative Search Experience, and just see a ranked list of links instead of AI rewrites and spam searches? With some tweaks and hacks, the answer is yes.

De-Google Google in Chrome, Edge, Brave

For better or worse, Google is also behind the world’s most popular web browser: Chromium. In addition to serving as the basis of Chrome, it is also behind Microsoft’s Edge browser and alternative browsers such as the privacy-oriented and crypto-aware Brave. Fortunately, this means that the same settings can get you closer to clean search results in these browsers and on the platforms that run them – Windows, MacOS and Linux.

The next change to Chromium’s settings makes Google’s recently spun off and probably deprecated “web” search section — you know, the way we understood search to work years ago — the default search type.

For Chromium on PC and Mac (Chrome, Edge, Brave, etc.):

1. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of the browser window, then select Settings.
2. Select the “Search Engine” option.
3. Search for “Site Search” and click “Add”.
4. Enter “Google Web” as the name and “www.google.com” as the shortcut.
5. In the URL field, enter:

   {google}/search?udm=14&q=%s

6. Click Add to add the rewritten Google site to the list.

There is also a browser extension called Hide Google AI Overviews that simplifies this process, but there is a risk that Google will ban it.

A trade-off—not eliminating AI, but getting less “optimized” search results—is to perform Google searches in “incognito,” or privacy mode, which eliminates tracking cookies.

For Chrome mobile on Android and iOS:

Unlike the desktop, you can’t manually set up a custom search engine as explained above, but there is a workaround, courtesy of TenBlueLinks. This is a free, simple, transparent and verifiable hack that will show “tenbluelinks.org” as the source, but all search queries will be sent directly to Google and not the TenBlueLinks website.

1. Visit TenBlueLinks.org.
2. Open a new tab and search everything on Google.
3. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of the browser window, then select Settings.
4. Select “Search Engine,” then select “Google Web” in the “Recently Visited” section.

For Firefox on PC or Mac:

Firefox users can download an extension called UDM14 to add the search engine customization above that removes Google AI:

1. Download and install the extension.
2. Go to Settings, Search, then Default Search Engine.
3. Select the extension and set it as the default search engine.

For Firefox on iOS or Android:

1. Install the Firefox web browser on your phone – if you don’t already have it.
2. Go to Settings, Search, then Default Search Engine.
3. Tap Add Search Engine.
4. Fill in the fields as follows:
   • Name: Google (web)
   • Search String URL: google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s
5. Click “Save”.
6. Select Google (Web) from the menu.

For Safari on Mac:

If you use Safari, Google search — as configured by Google — is the default. You have two options.

The first is easy:

1. Go to the App Store and download another web browser.

Another solution is a workaround for those who absolutely must use Safari, and it comes courtesy of Twitter user @ChookMFC. This involves running a script that checks your Google searches every two seconds and automatically adds the term “&udm=14” if it finds one.

“It’s like going back in time about 5-10 years (in all the best ways),” he claims.

The script can be found here.

For Vivaldi on PC:

With this niche browser, the solution is quite similar to Chrome users and involves setting up a custom URL:

1. Go to Settings and then Search.
2. Click the plus button in the lower left corner of the dialog box to add a new search engine.
3. Name the new element “Good Google” and give it an alias of “gg”
4. Set the URL to:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%20&udm=14

5. Set it as your default search engine.

For Vivaldi Mobile:

The mobile version doesn’t seem to have an option to customize its search engine, but you can add a shortcut to the Vivaldi home page.

1. Go to the home page (small house icon in the bottom center).
2. Click the plus button to add a new shortcut.
3. Fill in the fields as follows:
   • Name: Good Google
   • Search String URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%20&udm=14
   • Description: Good Google
   • Nickname: gg
4. Click “Save”.

For Opera on PC and Mac:

If you use one of the Opera browsers, the solution is similar to the one for Vivaldi mobile above: launch a shortcut that takes you directly to text links instead of the “Search Generative Experience”. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Go to the home page (the little house icon in the bottom center), which should take you to the Opera “speed dial” screen.
2. Click the plus button to add a new shortcut.
3. Fill in the field as follows:
   • Search String URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%20&udm=14
4. Click “Save”.

After saving, you can edit the shortcut to have a better name:

1. Go to the “speed dial” tab and find the button corresponding to the newly created shortcut.
2. Click on the three dots that appear on the top right.
3. Change the name to “Good Google”.

Other fish in the sea: some alternatives may surprise you

Instead of just removing Google from Google, consider switching to completely different search engines.

If you’re open to AI—just not Google AI—Perplexity AI is a promising alternative that AI enthusiasts are praising. Founded in 2022, Perplexity AI is a chatbot-powered search engine that provides clear and concise answers with embedded quotes. It offers a free basic search engine and a paid version, Perplexity Pro, which includes features such as GPT-4 integration and unlimited file uploads.

With Perplexity, you interact with the search engine conversationally, receiving natural language answers and the ability to ask follow-up questions for more detailed answers — or remove results. No need to switch your mind into keyword mode.

Alternatively, you can enlist the help of AI assistants like GPT-4 (via ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft’s Bing or Microsoft’s Copilot) to perform web searches and synthesize results. However, be sure to explicitly instruct ChatGPT to “search the web” if you want the latest information, because it may sometimes respond based on its fixed knowledge base instead of searching for the latest information.

If you use Microsoft’s Edge browser or are a Windows user, you can access Copilot by clicking the icon in the lower-left corner of the Windows taskbar or in the upper-right corner of the Edge browser. For reference, look at the red squares in the image below, highlighting the icon:

And let’s not forget old-school search engine underdogs like DuckDuckGo and model-shifting paid search tools like Kagi. These alternative search engines may also provide results that may be hidden by Google’s algorithm. However, keep in mind that SEO has affected the entire internet and there is no guarantee that these alternatives will be completely free of spam and AI interference.

Boy, do we miss AltaVista.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.