The Overzealous Omnibox
The address bar in Google Chrome (known as the Omnibox) is designed to be highly predictive. As you start typing a few letters, Chrome automatically connects to Google’s search engine and pulls down a list of suggested searches. If you type “how to b”, Chrome might immediately suggest “how to boil an egg” or “how to bleed brakes.” While often helpful, this constant stream of suggestions transmits your partial keystrokes to Google servers in real-time. Furthermore, if you are presenting your screen in a meeting, these automatic suggestions can sometimes display embarrassing or highly personal previous searches.
Disabling Search Autocomplete
To maintain your privacy and stop Google Chrome from automatically suggesting searches as you type in the address bar, you must disable the specific predictive service within the browser’s sync settings.
Open Google Chrome. Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on You and Google. In the main panel, click on Sync and Google services. Scroll down this page to the section labelled “Other Google services.” Look for the option named Improve search suggestions. The description explicitly states it sends what you type to the default search engine. Click the toggle switch next to this option so that it turns grey (Off). Chrome will now only suggest websites you have actually bookmarked or previously visited; it will no longer pull live predictive search queries from the internet.