How to Block Doodle in Chrome's 'New Tab' page?

Question

My goal is to block the annoying Google "doodles" (i.e. animated soccer-related promos, etc.) that appear in Chrome when a New tab is opened.

Here's what's been tried so far:

1. Use AdBlock Plus to specifically block the doodle. This actually works very well on the Google.com page itself but as it turns out, opening a New Tab (Cmd-T) doesn't actually load Google.com. It loads some kind of plug-in where AdBlock has no influence.

2. To which you're probably thinking, "Just change your homepage to Google.com in the Settings". Strangely, this doesn't work. Chrome will hijack the request to Google.com and redirect it to the opaque plug-in described above.

3. I also tried to be clever by setting my start-up page to a more specific URL like https://www.google.com/search. It resulted in the same outcome. I even tried using a tinyurl.com redirect for a start-up page, but this still doesn't work. Chrome still hijacks the request if it knows that the end result is the Google search page.

The only thing that's been remotely helpful is this extension which replaces the New Tab plug-in with a blank page. This is a step in the right direction. The Doodle goes away and I can perform my search from the URL bar. But the ideal scenario would be to make use of the default Google New tab page but without the annoying doodles.

Do you know of a clever way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

There's a new flag (use-google-local-ntp) that allows disabling New Tab Page service worker and therefore also Google Doodle. Currently it's available in Google Canary 61 so let's hope it lands in stable (soon).

chrome://flags/#use-google-local-ntp

Switch it to "Enabled" and restart Chrome. I wrote about it in this blogpost.

EDIT: It's already available in the stable Chrome 60.

Answer 2

The only solution I've found so far is Blank New Tab Page extension

It removes Google search bar from the new tab altogether. But I'm used to searching from the address bar using Alt+D anyway.

Answer 3

Maybe not a complete solution, but if you go into Settings and change your omnibox search engine to something that's not Google, then the new tab page will only show recently visited pages (no huge Google logo and whatnot). You can still set your homepage to Google for quicker access to searches, but for most of my omnibox searches, Bing works acceptably. If Google wants to play it that way...

Answer 4

I tried Chad Decker's idea given in his comment: "If I click the "manage search engines" button, could I create my own entry that (in)directly points to the Google HTML page and avoids the plugin?"

I copied the URL of the default Google search engine to a new name, and made that the default search engine, namely:

{google:baseURL}search?q=%s&{google:RLZ}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:bookmarkBarPinned}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:instantExtendedEnabledParameter}{google:omniboxStartMarginParameter}{google:contextualSearchVersion}ie={inputEncoding}

For me this works (on openSUSE 64bit, latest updates, October 31, 2014). So I don't have to see those ugly Halloween doodles any more. ;-)

Answer 5

In Chrome Version 79.0.3945.130 (Official Build) (64-bit) I had to:

1. Go to Menu -> More Tools -> Developer Tools
2. In the lower panel click "Request blocking"
3. Add local-ntp/doodle.js

Enjoy!

Answer 6

Since Chrome 73 you have to set to Disabled the next flag:

chrome://flags/#doodles-on-local-ntp

Answer 7

For MacOS Chrome Version 88.0.4324.182

• Install "Site Blocker" Extension (Offered by: sabitovt28) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/site-blocker/abbjadgihgopjhbhlpmglakadnfhphmp

  • Add www.google.com/logos/doodles/ as the address to block with the Blocking keyword/pattern dropdown choice.
  • Do the same for google.com/logos/
  • May need to force refresh the New Tab page to avoid cache issues. I noticed it took several refreshes and New Tab opens for the doodle to be gone for good. Might need to do a cache clear more generally, though I did not need to.

• Some of Google's served NewTab ads are done through data urls, so the above won't work. Need to additionally perform the following:

  • Click Customize button inside NewTab page.
  • Select Color and scheme
  • Choose any color choice other than the default-selection (Changing the background image should also work if you prefer.)
  • The data image should now be replaced by Google text

• Smile and say goodbye to political virtue signaling.

Answer 8

Just install Clear New Tab and you're good to go.

Answer 9

[Edit: No longer works]

Solution I found:

The url chrome-search://local-ntp/local-ntp.html directs to an identical chrome search page but with just the "google" text and not the doodle

Using the extension "New Tab Redirect" which I found in the chrome web store (here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-tab-redirect/icpgjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna/) you can set that url to the new tab redirect.

This still functions without a network connection and the page loads for all I can tell exactly as quickly as the default new tab

Answer 10

I found this extension works really well for Chrome's dark mode:

Answer 11

You can actually block the Doodle animation with AdBlock Chrome's extension (or similiar) like if was an advertisement.

• Go to the Customize panel of the AdBlock extension

• Add a new custom filter with this line:

  www.google.com##A#ctDoodleNotifier
  

• Then save, the Doodle animation will disappear!

If you also want to disable the "Most visited" panel, also add this line:

www.google.com##div#most-visited

---

Some Notes:

• If you live outside USA, you should update the google.com domain to the one your country belongs (the AdBlock filter doesn't work apparently with wildcards).
• This assumes that the Doodle animation is inside an A tag with ID="ctDoodleNotifier"
• Similiar, the Most visited panel is inside a DIV tag with ID="most-visited"
• This was tested on Chrome version 43.
• When Chrome is launched, the New Tab page loads as original. I infer is because the AdBlock plugin is not loaded at that time. Updating the page will work as expected.

Answer 12

It might sound over sensitive, but I found Google's 'doodles' distracting.

I downloaded firefox, it has an option to import site logins/passwords, history, and bookmarks all with a single button when installing.

5 minutes later I now have a similar browsing experience without google doodles.