Hating the new Google bar? Make it look better with a quick script.
June 28, 2011 19
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Updated 6/29 with a better script.
As part of Google’s newest, most social redesign yet, the search engine giant has decided to go for a whole new color scheme, one of whites, reds, greys and blacks, as apposed to their old scheme of light blues and whites.
This new black bar, which many find ugly and brackish, doesn’t quite fit in to the rest of the search results page.
Luckily for all internet users, Greasemonkey script writer Olmer has created a script to fix the bar and make it white again. To install this script, you’ll need to prepare your browser. Chrome and Opera have built-in user script support, while Firefox and Internet Explorer do not. To prepare Firefox, just install the Greasemonkey addon from the official Mozilla Add-Ons site.
After preparing your browser, go to the script’s official page. Click on the install button; depending on the browser you’re running, you’ll get one of many prompts.
In Firefox, you’ll get a popup window asking you if you want to install this script to run on the site /google/. Just wait for the countdown and hit yes:
In Chrome, it’ll ask you if you want to install the script by showing a message in the Downloads bar:
After you’ve installed the script, try visiting Google.com.
Voila, the navigation bar is back to its beautiful, clean white self and even keeps the new search box to compliment it. This fix, which is more permanent than the previously mentioned script by Techie Buzz, is just one way the internet shows itself to be independent. What’s your least favorite thing about the new redesign? Do you love it or hate it?
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I think that the new search page will look nice, but I agree with the black bar being an eyesore. Why would Google do something so silly? Thanks for the script though.
I hate Google and their Bar. All they do is spy on you.
I just changed to Bing to replace my search provider.
@Mr Pippers: Amen to that bro!! Should be called the “Google Spy Bar”
Thx
I already had Grease Monkey, but didn’t know about this script. So I updated it and viola the ugly black bar is gone.
BTW I also hate that Google spys on people.
It will be better if the script author changed the color of the bar to white or transparent instead of disabling it completely, otherwise you can’t login to/logout from your account!
Locutus,
Excellent choice of a Google map for your screen capture. I’m just down the street from the Center on Merritt Island.
Don
The Google home page has been acting wierds lately. If it doesn’t fix soon I will be back to Yahoo or testing Bing.
Don
@Hamza: Good news–I’ve updated the post with a new script that actually changes the color of the bar rather than hiding it. It even works in Google Reader too!
@RecklessMaverick: They’re done rolling out their new page, it should work better now.
@Mr Pippers:
Try startingpage.com. Search results powered by Google, but without records of your searches or ip address being stored anywhere.
Thank you
Hi,
No problem in Firefox, but don’t work in IE7. I get an error message (document is undefined – code 800A1391).
Thanks.
I made also a script that can change the bar color (to transparent by default) check this http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105913
The bar is not black. Stop calling it black. It is a dark charcoal gray, but not black. If you are going to criticize something, at least get it right.
@Matt: Actually, it’s different colors in different apps. Google search and Gmail are charcoal, but Google Reader is truly black.
Another add-on solution for Firefox users is the STYLISH add-on that sits in your status bar and allows you to download and edit CSS-formatted styles or to create styles for *ANY* website. If no styles exist for the site you need to “fix”, you can copy one of your existing styles into a new style (and then edit the new style, if you like) OR you can add a new website to one of your styles for another site (apply your YouTube.com style to the Google.com website).
Styles and information are available at http://userstyles.org/.
Downloaded and installed this program. It works very well and so I am quite a happy camper with it!
Not worth using.
It still loads the black bar, it then flicks to white. it’s more distracting that it was before.
Google have recently changed something. This script no longer works correctly