How do I stop Google Chrome for automatically suggesting searches in the omnibox?

For those of you who are unaware, unchecking "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and urls typed in the address bar" in Settings DOES NOT WORK. Unchecking any of these options will not solve it. Clearing any sort of history or cache will not solve it.

Type "asdfghjkl" in the omnibox and press Enter. Then open a new tab and start typing it again; Chrome will automatically fill in the rest of the letters for you.

What physically possible way is there to stop this absurd behavior? Do I need to develop my own browser plugin for this basic anti-feature?

Bob Bobson

Posted 2017-02-16T16:52:32.903

Reputation: 31

I think you can achieve this by turning of prediction service in the omnibox. To do this, go into Chrome's settings. Scroll to the bottom and click advanced settings, then under the privacy section uncheck `Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar." You'll also have to clear your browsing history before or after doing this. – DrZoo – 2017-02-16T17:13:40.363

2@DrZoo, did you even read past the title? OP states that those things aren't working for him. – None – 2017-02-16T17:19:19.667

I'm not sure if Omnibox sync history also affects this? If you are signed into Chrome on your devices and have sync enabled, I would try unsyncing omnibox. You would first want to turn off sync by going to Chrome Settings > People > Advanced sync settings > uncheck Omnibox History. I would then delete the browsing history again, and try unchecking the same option from before. If that doesn't work, I'm out of options. – DrZoo – 2017-02-16T17:36:13.023

@SiXandSeven8ths I wasn't done yet. – DrZoo – 2017-02-16T17:38:32.207

It shouldn't require you to delete history to do this. – Zuoanqh – 2018-05-27T15:09:52.870

"Clearing any sort of history or cache will not solve it." Well, clearing history will get rid of past matches. But it does not disable the feature for the future. You can also use shift+delete in the omnibox to delete a single history item instead of clearing your entire history. – wisbucky – 2018-10-18T22:18:01.400

The question is: How do I prevent SEARCH entirely from the "omnibox". I think the answer is: you can't at least not with the existing Chrome code. I think this is a WONTFIX bug that the Chrome developers refuse to change, for reasons that escape me. Seems simple enough, but for whatever reason they don't want to change it. – Duncan – 2019-05-14T19:09:29.240

No, that does not work, and I don't think you understood the question. The question is how to stop Chrome from doing any kind of search at all. If I put http://foo.bar/bla into the address bar, I want Chrome to initiate a connection to foo.bar. I don't want it to search anything at all. I think that's what the OP is asking too.

– Duncan – 2019-05-14T19:06:31.890

How do I stop Google Chrome for automatically suggesting searches in the omnibox?

Answers