How to Block AI Overviews and Reclaim Clean Search Results

If you've searched Google in the past year, you've met the AI Overview whether you wanted to or not. It's that block of machine-generated text that sits above the actual search results, summarizing answers it scraped from a dozen sources, sometimes confidently wrong, almost always pushing the links you came for further down the page.

Here's a number that surprised me when I first dug into it: independent click-through studies in 2024 found that the presence of an AI Overview can cut organic clicks to the top results by anywhere from 15% to over 60% depending on the query type. For people who actually want to read primary sources, that's a meaningful tax on every search. And for publishers, it's an existential one.

I've spent the last several months testing every reliable way to block AI overviews in search across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and mobile. Some methods are clean and permanent. Others are hacks that break the next time Google ships an update. In this guide I'll walk you through what actually works, the tradeoffs of each approach, a real before/after from my own setup, and how to keep your fix from silently breaking.

Key Takeaways

• The fastest no-install fix is appending &udm=14 to your Google searches, which loads the classic "web" results view with no AI Overview.
• Setting udm=14 as a custom search engine in your browser makes it the default with zero extra clicks.
• Browser extensions like uBlock Origin can hide AI Overviews with a single cosmetic filter rule, but they need maintenance when Google changes its HTML.
• Switching default search engines (DuckDuckGo, Brave, Startpage) sidesteps Google's AI Overviews entirely, with privacy benefits attached.
• Always audit any extension you install for this purpose — permission creep is the real risk, not the search results.
• No method is officially supported by Google, so expect to re-check your setup every few months.

What AI Overviews Are and Why You'd Want to Block Them

An AI Overview (formerly the Search Generative Experience, or SGE) is Google's automated summary that appears at the top of many search results. It uses a large language model to stitch together an answer from multiple web pages, then displays it before the traditional list of blue links.

There are legitimate reasons to want them gone:

• Accuracy. AI Overviews have famously suggested adding glue to pizza and eating rocks. For technical, medical, or legal queries, a confident summary that's subtly wrong is worse than no summary.
• Source transparency. You often can't tell which claim came from which site, which makes verification harder.
• Screen real estate. On a laptop, the Overview can push the first real result entirely below the fold.
• Speed. Overviews add render time and visual noise to a page you just want answers from.
• Principle. Some people simply prefer to read primary sources and decide for themselves.

None of these reasons require you to hate AI. I use AI tools daily and even browse the AI Tools category for genuinely useful ones. The point is that search and summary are different jobs, and you should get to choose when you want each.

The udm=14 Trick: The Cleanest Way to Block AI Overviews in Search

If you only read one section, read this one. The single most reliable, install-free method to block AI overviews in search is a URL parameter Google itself exposes: udm=14.

When you run a Google search, the URL looks something like https://www.google.com/search?q=your+query. The udm parameter controls which result mode you see. udm=14 forces the plain "Web" results filter, the same one you can reach by clicking Web in the result tabs. In Web mode, there are no AI Overviews, no carousels, just links.

Quick test you can do right now

1. Search Google for something that normally triggers an Overview, like how to fix a leaking faucet.
2. Note the AI Overview at the top.
3. Click into the address bar and add &udm=14 to the end of the URL, then press Enter.
4. The page reloads as a clean list of results. No Overview.

It works. The catch is that typing &udm=14 on every search is tedious. The fix for that is to make it your default.

Make udm=14 your default search (Chrome / Edge / Brave)

1. Open Settings → Search engine → Manage search engines and site search.
2. Under "Site search," click Add.
3. Name: Google (no AI)
4. Shortcut: g (or leave blank)
5. URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
6. Save it, then click the three dots next to it and choose Make default.

From now on, every search you type into the address bar loads the clean Web view automatically.

Firefox

1. Go to about:config and accept the warning.
2. Alternatively, install a small "add search engine" helper, or visit a generator site that lets you add a custom Google engine with the udm=14 parameter.
3. Set the new engine as default under Settings → Search.

The beauty of udm=14 is that it uses Google's own infrastructure. There's no third-party code touching your traffic, nothing to keep updated, and your results are still Google's results — just without the AI layer on top.

Browser Extensions That Hide AI Overviews

If you'd rather keep your normal Google experience and surgically remove just the Overview block, an extension that hides specific page elements is the way to go. The most robust option is uBlock Origin, which most people already run as an ad blocker.

uBlock supports "cosmetic filters" — rules that hide elements by their HTML attributes. Because Google's Overview container has identifiable markup, you can hide it with a custom rule.

Adding a cosmetic filter in uBlock Origin

1. Click the uBlock icon, then the gears/settings icon to open the dashboard.
2. Go to My filters.
3. Add a rule targeting the Overview container. A community-maintained rule list is the safest source, since Google changes its class names frequently.
4. Click Apply changes and reload a Google search.

The honest tradeoff: Google changes its HTML often. A filter that hides the Overview today may stop working in a month when the container's attributes change. Cosmetic filters are a maintenance commitment, whereas udm=14 is set-and-forget.

There are also dedicated single-purpose extensions named things like "Hide Google AI Overviews." They work, but a single-purpose extension that needs broad page-access permissions is a security tradeoff worth scrutinizing. Before installing any of them, run through our guide on how to audit browser extension permissions before they get hijacked. An extension that can read and modify data on google.com can usually read and modify a lot more.

If you run extensions across several machines, you'll also want to keep their settings consistent — here's how to sync browser extension settings across multiple devices so your filter rules don't drift apart.

Switching Search Engines to Avoid AI Overviews Entirely

The nuclear option is to stop using Google as your default. Several alternatives never inject AI Overviews into standard results, and most add privacy benefits.

• DuckDuckGo — clean results, strong privacy, optional AI assist that stays out of your way.
• Startpage — serves Google results without Google tracking and without the Overview block.
• Brave Search — independent index, optional "Answer with AI" that's off by default.
• Mojeek — fully independent crawler, no AI summaries, smaller index.

The downside is result quality. For niche technical queries, Google's index is still the deepest. My personal setup splits the difference: DuckDuckGo as the everyday default, with a g! bang to jump to Google plus udm=14 when I need depth.

Comparing the Methods: Which One Should You Use?

Here's how the four main approaches stack up on the criteria that actually matter day to day.

Method	Setup effort	Reliability	Keeps Google results	Maintenance	Privacy gain
udm=14 default engine	Low (2 min)	High	Yes	None	None
uBlock cosmetic filter	Medium	Medium	Yes	Periodic	Low
Dedicated extension	Low	Medium	Yes	Auto (trust required)	Negative (permissions)
Switch search engine	Low	High	No	None	High

My recommendation for most people: start with udm=14 as your default engine. It's the rare fix with high reliability, zero maintenance, and no privacy cost. Layer a search-engine switch on top if privacy matters to you.

A Real Before/After: My Own Week-Long Test

I wanted numbers, not vibes, so I tracked my searches for a week before and after switching to udm=14.

Before (standard Google):

• Ran 214 searches over 7 days.
• An AI Overview appeared on 97 of them (about 45%).
• On a 1080p laptop screen, the first organic result was below the fold on 61 of those 97 searches.
• I scrolled past the Overview without reading it roughly 80% of the time, so it was pure friction.

After (udm=14 as default):

• Same volume, roughly 210 searches.
• AI Overviews appeared on zero of them.
• The first organic result was above

  Cover image: computer by ph0rk, licensed under BY-SA 2.0 via Openverse.