How to Search Google Without AI Rubbish & Clutter

Remember when you used to use Google search and it would only return a list of links for web results, letting you easily find what you’re looking for? Google was once the best way to search the web, but as almost all Google users have noticed, the web search engine has become less of an engine to search web pages and links and turned into more of a clutter-filled mess with AI regurgitation, so-called “knowledge panels”, ‘related questions and queries’ instead of matching results, unwanted video and photo results when you want web results, and all sorts of other rubbish clutter that degrades the search experience.

While it is frustrating to see what was once the best search engine in the world turn into a cluttered mess with crummy results and rewritten AI content without compensating the original sources and often with deep bias and dubious accuracy, the good news is that you can use a search modifier for Google to make it actually search the web again, and give you actual web results.

How to Actually Search the Web with Google Again, Without AI & Google Clutter

You can set Chrome, Edge, Brave, Chromium, Opera, Epic, and any Chromium based browser to perform web-only searches with Google by forcing the browser to use web search rather than the cluttered everything-but-the-web default:

1. Open Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Brave, or your Chromium-based browser
2. Go to the browser ‘Search’ settings by going to the following in the address bar:

edge://settings/search

3. Click on “Manage search engines”
4. Click the ‘Add’ button
5. Give this an obvious name, something like “Google Web Search” or “Google Minus Clutter”, and a shortcut that suits you (“WebSearch” or similar), and then in the URL section use the following URL exactly:

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

6. Click on “Add” to add it to the list



7. Next, locate your “Google Web Search” search and click on the three-dots button, and choose “Make Default”



8. Now, search for something as usual in the address bar / search bar of the browser, and you’ll actually get web-only results again

There you go, you’re searches are now back to getting actual web results with Google again!

Look at the difference with this web-only result list, for a sample search query:

And compare that to the default cluttered result for the same sample query, where finding an actual web result or link is like a game of Where’s Waldo:

This little change makes the Google search engine so much better right away, behaving much like it used to some years ago before they started injecting all sorts of clutter with regurgitated AI content, knowledge panel nonsense, unnecessary images, useless YouTube videos, related questions and searches that are not what you searched for, and all the other noisy nonsense that plagues the modern Google results. Indeed, with this simple settings change, you’ll be getting web results again by default. And if you want to see all the other noise and clutter, you can just click on the “All” option at the top of the search page to return to the Where’s Waldo of Web Search experience.

This great trick, which was quietly announced on X/Twitter by Google, appears to have been first promoted by tedium.co but has been covered elsewhere as well, obviously covers Chrome and Chromium based browsers, including Edge, Brave, Epic, Opera, and similar, but you can make similar changes in other browsers too if you’d rather actually search the web with Google again. And if you use Safari, you can use this homepage trick in lieu of changing search parameters, which are not possible in the app at the moment.

What do you think of this change, and what do you think of the new Google results with AI rewritten content originating from sites like this one and other small businesses that Google expert Danny Goodwin describes as “Google […] taking their content, without permission, for profit“, knowledge panels, videos, images, and everything except web results? Do you like all the other stuff or do you miss the old web link style search? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments!