Chrome 97 Disallow Users to Delete Default Search Engines

Google Chrome is a very popular browser, its performance, stability and security are very good, and Google has been actively maintaining, fixing bugs and security vulnerabilities, regularly pushing updates and upgrades, the overall experience is satisfactory.

Generally speaking, most of the updates focused on continuously improving the security and stability of the browser, and there are basically no significant changes to its appearance and UI. However, for Chrome 97, many people may have overlooked a very important detail, that is, in this version of Chrome, users can no longer remove the default search engines.

You cannot remove default search engines in Chrome 97

Those who are using Chrome 97 can check it out for themselves. Click the menu in the upper right corner, select "Search engine" and then click "Manage search engines". Here you can see the "Default search engines" area.

Click the three vertical black dots behind the search engine, you will find only two menu options, respectively, "Set as default" and "Edit". The first option is well understood, after enabling the corresponding search engine will become the default search engine for the entire browser, later in the address bar, enter keywords, the browser will automatically open the use of this search engine, display its return search results. The second "Edit" menu does not have any substantive functions, after clicking, you can modify the relevant search engine tag characters, that's all.

Here you may think, why can't I delete it? In fact, this delete function used to be there, but now it has been removed.

All Chromium-based browsers bring in this new rule

All Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Opera, will no longer be able to remove the built-in search engine option in the future.

It is reported that this feature adjustment proposal was made in October 2021, Chromium developers believe that it is too easy for users to remove the built-in search engine, but if you want to add it back later, it is very troublesome and may also bring subsequent problems. So after the developers group discussion, finally decided not to allow users to delete the built-in search engine proposal was finally adopted, and in the subsequent release of Chromium 97 formally implemented.

For this practice some security experts said that this move can prevent malicious extensions, toolbars or websites, attempting to use the browser's add search engine feature to inject malicious search providers in the user's browser and set it as the default search engine harmful behavior, therefore, can increase the security of the browser. However, some users believe that this hinders their freedom of choice.

About ten days ago, Google Chrome 97 was officially released, becoming the industry's first Chromium engine based browser to remove the remove button from the search engine feature settings area. Subsequently, Microsoft, Opera and Brave have followed suit and removed the delete button from the relevant options in their respective browsers, and the attitude of Firefox is currently unknown.