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Forget Everything Else: Exclude Browsing History When Searching via Chrome’s Omnibox

By Charnita Fance

As you may already know, in the Google Chrome web browser, the address bar and search bar is combined into an all-in-one area called the Omnibox.

When you perform a search via the Omnibox, Chrome will display suggestions from Google’s top results as well as your personal bookmarks, your browsing history and previous typed URLs.

Your results will look similar to this before using this trick.

So, what would you do if for whatever reason you did not want all of that extra information to display when performing a search in the Omnibox? Meaning, you only want to see Google’s top suggestions displayed. Well, you’d use this quick little trick.

Type a question mark in the Omnibox and then begin to type your search query (ie. ?technology). Now, you should only see web search suggestions displayed, minus your browsing history and everything else.

When using a ? before your search query, only web search suggestions will be displayed.

As an added bonus and an additional way to protect your privacy, if you use the question mark trick in Incognito mode, Chrome will only show suggestions from your search history.

via Google Operating System

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Charnita Fance Avatar
Charnita Fance
Charnita has been a Freelance Writer & Professional Blogger since 2008. As an early adopter she loves trying out new apps and services. As a Windows, Mac, Linux and iOS user, she has a great love for bleeding edge technology. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

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