Google Search seems to be getting more cluttered with AI-generated content by the day. Sure, some of it can be useful, but sometimes I just want to see a straightforward list of links without having to scroll past an AI summary.
Fortunately, you can get rid of much of this clutter with uBlock Origin, one of our favorite free ad-blocker browser extensions here at PCWorld.
To start, install uBlock Origin in your browser. I recommend using Firefox since the full version of the extension is no longer supported in Chrome. The Chrome alternative is uBlock Origin Lite, which is a perfectly fine adblocker, but it doesn’t have the same custom filter option capabilities.
Next, navigate to uBlock Origin > Dashboard > My Filters, and copy and paste the text “google.com##.hdzaWe” into the box. This is a simple cosmetic filter that will block out all of Google’s AI Overviews.
To go a step further, visit Stevo’s AI Blocklist on GitHub. These are a set of filters that will hide Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode buttons, as well as AI features on sites like YouTube, Amazon, Reddit, and more. Click the one-click import link on GitHub or open uBlock Origin’s dashboard and navigate to Filter lists > Import. Paste the list URL from GitHub and click Apply changes.
If you want to go full scorched-earth on AI content, add the HUGE AI Blocklist on GitHub. This community-maintained list targets more than 1,000 websites that host AI-generated images. It not only blocks their content, but it also keeps them out of your Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo search results. The installation process is the same.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to install anything or just want to block AI-summaries from one-off searches, then use the udm14.com trick instead.
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