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Getting rid of stupid sidebar on android tablet Google search. Anyone?

Chock Full o Nuts

Voting for Pedro!
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I've looked and looked, and cannot find a setting to make it go away. Find everything else but...

I'll usually scroll with left thumb, and if I am too close to left edge, I'll hit one of the icons and takes me away from what I was reading. Annoying AF, and sidebar is useless to me. Make it go away!

This...
Screenshot_20250322_091105_Google.webp
 
Does this appear as a faint little tab on the side of ALL your screens?

I remember putting instructions into a training document for our firefighters how to turn that on (if they wanted it) but mine does look different to yours so I could be barking up the wrong tree.
 
Does this appear as a faint little tab on the side of ALL your screens?

I remember putting instructions into a training document for our firefighters how to turn that on (if they wanted it) but mine does look different to yours so I could be barking up the wrong tree.
Shows up across bottom on my phone search, not present on PC. I've searched for solution, looked through device setting, Google settings, etc... Nothing.
 
Perhaps try a different browser to see if they work differently. Vivaldi and Firefox probably have methods to change your browser agent to tell websites you're not browsing with an Android tablet – it might get Google to not show the menubar.

I don't have an Android tablet, but I rarely use the default browser on any of the devices I do have.

I set my user agent to Android on the iPad I'm on right now and made the window small like a phone, but didn't get any sidebar menu on Google – although I was not signed into my account there (because I don't remember my username, email or password and am not ambitious enough to pull out my old laptop to look them up).

Hopefully someone shows up with an actual answer...
 
Used to not be there a while ago, IIRC. Think it was implemented with an update. Can't even find an option to at least move it right or something. Would think they would make it like some other side bars that you can swipe to hide or bring it to the screen. Nothing.
 
message-22571478-11083039226661080666.png
forum software wouldn't open this link from stackoverflow - https://i.sstatic.net/irP5i.png

Does the sidebar change with different apps?
Really only shows when doing a search and scrolling links.
Once to a site, no.

Just irritating as shit to be scrolling links, happen to hit, and it return to a fresh search or whatever.

...Let's do this again...
 
And also, if I'm vertical, as with phone it puts at bottom. In landscape(horizontal) which is how i use my tablet it shifts to left side. Just go away!
 
I assume it's a touch screen... Try pushing /holding ur finger on the bar.. See if you can move it to an X that might appear on the top of the screen.. Or an option pops up to delete it..
 
And also, if I'm vertical, as with phone it puts at bottom. In landscape(horizontal) which is how i use my tablet it shifts to left side. Just go away!

I've got you now - you are in the Google App itself. So in the image below - you would have tapped the multi-colour G Google icon to open it up - I see it now because I rarely use the App itself when I'm on a tablet.

PH_GS_S21_Apps_Google-folder.png



This is not an overlay side bar like I suspected and it's not the Google Search widget that you can tap and hold and then resize or move around the screen.

At the moment and I've gone into settings within the App itself and not tablet settings and can't see anything to change it. I'll have a look separately afterwards but at the moment I see the only option is to download and use some other search App like Brave, DuckDuckGo or Ecosia.

EDIT: if you are happy to go Incognito, that gets rid of the side bar altogether.
 
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I've got you now - you are in the Google App itself. So in the image below - you would have tapped the multi-colour G Google icon to open it up - I see it now because I rarely use the App itself when I'm on a tablet.

PH_GS_S21_Apps_Google-folder.png



This is not an overlay side bar like I suspected and it's not the Google Search widget that you can tap and hold and then resize or move around the screen.

At the moment and I've gone into settings within the App itself and not tablet settings and can't see anything to change it. I'll have a look separately afterwards but at the moment I see the only option is to download and use some other search App like Brave, DuckDuckGo or Ecosia.

EDIT: if you are happy to go Incognito, that gets rid of the side bar altogether.
Ah-ha. Didn't think about the pre-installed search bar being an app, so just went to Google homepage and added a shortcut to home screen.
Delete search bar and bye bye stupid ass sidebar.
 
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