It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Pop!_OS or the computers produced by System76. But one thing the operating system has done lately that annoys me has been the integration of web search with the launcher/application search prompt. Ubuntu caught a lot of flack for doing something similar way back in the day and it’s a behavior that Microsoft has also tightly integrated with recent versions of Windows.
Why does this annoy me so much? I think its because I know enough to open my web browser if I want to search something online. If I’m searching on my computer, I want that search to stay on my computer. I shouldn’t need an internet connection to find files or to open an app. When I type “lib” into my application search, I want it to pull up “LibreOffice” and not run a search on the domain “libraries.io”.
To combat this thorn in my side, I remove the file responsible for this feature:
sudo rm /usr/lib/pop-launcher/plugins/web/config.ronIf you’re more comfortable simply renaming it, try this instead:
sudo mv /usr/lib/pop-launcher/plugins/web/config.ron /usr/lib/pop-launcher/plugins/web/config.ron.backHowever, every time an update is released for the Pop!_OS pop-launcher, this fix is broken and will need to be reapplied. It seems as thought I’m not the only person who is interested a method for disabling these plugins so watch out for a setting to disable it in a future release.
