Google cuts ‘OK Google’ voice search feature from Chrome because no one was using it

By Jason Hahn Published October 19, 2015

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google appears to be trimming the fat in Chrome. Shortly after the company announced that it would cut the notification center from its browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, it was discovered that the “OK Google” voice detection feature was removed from Chrome 46, the latest version of the browser.

The “OK Google” voice search feature was built into Chrome 35, which was released in May 2014. It allowed users to say “OK Google” to begin a search from Google.com or a new tab (if Google was set as the default search engine).

Recommended Videos

While this functionality has been slashed from the desktop version of Chrome for Windows, Mac, and Linux, users can still use their voice to conduct searches in the browser. The difference is that now you’ll have to go to Google.com or a new tab and click on the “Search by voice” microphone icon sitting in the right side of the search box to initiate a voice search.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Google removed the “OK Google” feature because not many users were utilizing it, according to VentureBeat. This was also the reason for getting rid of the notification center.

These decisions are in line with recent efforts to streamline and improve the performance of the browser. Google recently announced that Chrome will automatically pause Flash videos, which it said would reduce power consumption. In June, the Chrome team said it made improvements to make the browser less battery-hungry on OS X.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

Computing

Here’s why you need to update your Google Chrome right now

Google Chrome opened on a laptop.

Google has just released a new version of Chrome, and it's crucial that you get your browser updated as soon as possible.

The patch was deployed to fix a major zero-day security flaw that could potentially pose a risk to your device. The latest update is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux -- here's how to make sure your browser is safe.

Computing

Chrome just added a great new way to protect your passwords

Chrome will soon let you use biometric data to autofill forms online, according to Chrome Unboxed. This is something Safari has allowed for years on Mac, but if you use Chrome, you must confirm the details by reentering your password or receiving two-factor authentication notifications on another device.

The password flag was spotted in the Chromium Gerritt repository as an alternative way to authenticate yourself when autofilling your passwords stored in Chrome. It's not meant to be a replacement, and when it does roll out to the public, it appears to be a setting you need to turn on. That could change between now and then, of course.

Computing

Google says Chrome is now 20% faster on Macs

A MacBook with Google Chrome loaded.

If you feel like Google Chrome is running faster on your Mac, then you're not mistaken. Google recently shared some new statistics behind the web browser, and is claiming that Chrome is now 20% faster on Macs based on the Speedometer benchmark testing.

According to Google's data, Chrome on Mac hit over 360 on Speedometer testing. That comes just three months after the browser became the highest scoring browser on Speedometer, ever with a score of 300. For reference, Goggle tested Chrome on the M1 Max MacBook Pro running macOS 12.3.1, with Chrome version 104.0.5102.0. The browser was the ARM64 native optimized version. The below graph shows the differences between older and newer Chrome versions in scoring, where higher scores are better.