ORU How-To

1. How to disable the Gemini setting embedded into Google Chrome:

1. Chrome has a handful of AI settings embedded directly. To toggle those off, you will want to:

• Open Google Chrome and click the three dots in the upper righthand corner and then click on Settings.

• Within Settings, you’ll click on AI innovations (or System).

• From there, you will be able to toggle off “Gemini in Chrome”, "History search, powered by AI", "Help me write", “Skills in Chrome”, and “Google Search AI Mode” as well as "On-device AI".

• If you see a floating Gemini icon (it looks like a sparkle) in the upper righthand corner, you can right-click on it and “Unpin” it.

• Note: To stop Chrome from downloading the hidden 4 GB Gemini Nano model in the background, type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for "Optimization Guide On-Device" and set it to Disabled, then relaunch the browser. 

2. Remove AI Buttons in the Address Bar:

To take it a step further and be a bit more thorough:

• Type chrome://flags into your address bar and hit Enter.

• Search for "ai mode".

• Set all the related AI-flag options to Disabled and then click the Relaunch button at the bottom of the page.

3. Bypass Google Search AI Overviews

Google Search now automatically generates an AI overview with every search. To disable that feature and ensure you the relevant web links, you can set up a custom "Web Only" default search. There are two ways to do this:

• Type "-AI" in any search

Or

• Open Google Chrome and click the three dots in the upper righthand corner and then click on Settings.

• Within Settings, you’ll click on Search Engine and then Manage Search Engines and Site Search.

• Next to Site search, click Add. 

• Fill in the fields:

  • Name: Web Search

  • Shortcut: @web

  • URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14 

• Click Add. Then, find the newly created "Google Web" in the list, click the three dots next to it, and select Make default. 

4. Turn Off AI in Your Google Account (And Other Apps)

Your data preferences also live at the account level. 

• Go to Google My Activity and turn Gemini Apps Activity to Off.

• If you use a Google Workspace account (Gmail, Docs), you can disable smart AI assistant integrations entirely by visiting your Gmail settings and managing your Workspace Smart Features.

• If you use Google Photos, open the app, tap your Profile icon, then Preferences, and then Gemini features and turn off "Use Gemini in Photos". 

The above steps have been tested by yours truly in a Chrome browser and come courtesy of John Truempy in this thread. If you are more of a visual learner, we also recommend this video as a great place to start.

If you get stuck or need a hand, send us an email at hello@orunplugged.org - we’ll happily help over Zoom or over email to get your settings where you want them to be.