Due to recent regulatory changes (specifically the Digital Markets Act in the European Union), Google Chrome now periodically displays a massive, un-dismissable “Search Engine Choice” prompt when you open the browser. This screen forces you to manually select your preferred default search engine (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) before you are allowed to continue browsing.
While intended to promote fair competition, this prompt can occasionally glitch and appear repeatedly, or appear on automated enterprise machines where user interaction is impossible. If you have already set your preferred search engine in the settings and want to permanently suppress this pop-up screen, you can disable it.
How to Disable the Search Engine Choice Screen in Chrome
You must modify Chrome’s hidden developer flags to bypass the regulatory prompt.
- Open the Google Chrome browser.
- Click on the address bar at the top of the window, type
chrome://flags, and press Enter. - In the “Search flags” search box at the top of the screen, type Search Engine Choice.
- Look for the specific flag labelled Enable search engine choice screen.
- Click the drop-down menu next to this entry (which is likely set to “Default”).
- Select Disabled from the drop-down menu.
- A prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen stating “Your changes will take effect the next time you relaunch Chrome.” Click the blue Relaunch button.
Chrome will restart. The browser will now respect whatever search engine is currently set in your standard settings menu and will never interrupt your workflow with the full-screen regulatory choice prompt again.