We don't have to live like this: you can set Chrome to default to Google's new nonsense-free 'Web' search, which also completely bypasses that awful AI answer box

Google's recently-introduced Web search option feels like a cheat code: it just gives you a list of websites related to your search query, sorted by relevance, with no cruft, sponsored links, or other nonsense⁠—it'll even skip over the search giant's new AI Answer box that insists on inserting itself at the top of your results. 

What's more, as outlined by Tom's Hardware, you can set desktop Chrome's address bar to default to Web search, removing the hassle of manually setting it each time. The process is blessedly simple:

1. Go to your Chrome settings: click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the browser and it will be the second-to-last option.

2. Click on the Search Engine tab on the left side of the screen, then Manage search engines and site search.

3. Scroll down to Site search, and click Add to create a new entry:

4. Click on the three dots to the right of the new Google (Web) entry and select Make default

And that's all there is to it: typing a search in Chrome's address bar will now send you straight to Web search. Your options are a bit more limited on mobile, where the vast majority of my own "[insert game] solve annoying puzzle/cheese unfair boss" -style searching occurs, but at least on PC, this bastion of user control and customization, you can cultivate a Zen garden of Google search working more how you want it to. Tom's Hardware's guide does break down how to default to Google Web search on Firefox's mobile app if you're a user of that yeoman browser.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

While Chrome extensions like Tom's Hardware editor Avram Piltch's own Bye Bye, Google AI are also a viable option for skipping AI overview, and even offer an option for defaulting to Web search, the Chrome settings route strikes me as the most straightforward, least likely to be borked by an update way of doing this.

As someone whose living depends on traffic from Google in a big way, I've