A lot of people are complaining about the blue bar that shows up on the default Google web page. If you have your browser set to automatically sign you into any of your Google apps, like Gmail, Google+ etc then you shouldn’t have this issue.
As you can see, the main aim of the blue bar is to advertise Google’s social networking site Google+, which is a great site to use, but not everyone will want to use it, but also don’t want it pushed into their face every time they open a new browser window. Luckily, the solution is pretty straight forward and simply involves using the encrypted SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) browsing method with Google. It’s also a safer way to surf as it uses end-to-end encryption for searching between your computer and Google.
Note that by doing this, it will also remove the text in the black bar at the top with the exception of the Sign In next to the Cog (settings) icon at the top right hand corner.
First let’s see how to remove it in Firefox (latest version)
At the top left, select the drop down arrow on the Firefox logo and choose Options>Options.
Under the General tab, change the Home Page to read https://encrypted.google.com/ and click OK.
Now hopefully, you have gotten rid of the blue bar.
Now let’s look at how to do it in Chrome:
At the top right hand corner, select the Spanner icon and choose Options from the drop down list.
In the Options window, choose Basics on the left (it should open on this by default).
Now next to Homepage, change the address to https://encrypted.google.com/ and then close the browser and reopen it. There is no save button.
Now lets take a look at Internet Explorer (latest build)
At the top right hand side of the browser window, click on the Cog icon, and choose Internet Options.
In the Internet Options window under the General tab, change the address to https://encrypted.google.com/ and then click Apply and OK. Then close and reopen the browser.
Another way to do this is via using Adblock Plus for Firefox, and to add the following filters:
- google.co.uk###gbx2
- google.co.uk###gbx1
- google.co.uk###gbpr
From the Firefox drop down menu, select Add-Ons. Then next to Adblock Plus choose Options.
Now click Add Filter at the bottom
Then one-by-one add each of the filters shown above. Every time you add one you will have to click OK and then start the process again to add the next one. Don’t worry though as it only takes a few seconds to do.
Once that is done you will be good to go. This way you still retain the text in the black bar for ease of navigation. I’d like to thank Jono123 for that suggestion.
That’s it, you’re done. Hope it helped.
Richard
[Update] I have some other articles for removing other annoyances in Google+ and Gmail and Bing below:
