NothingOS Tip: Launch Google Search Directly from App Drawer

nextcloud_com_occupier405

If you typed anything in the app drawer which is not an app and pressed the enter button, it’ll automatically open up Google search, ready with the thing you wrote. Idk if it’s a new thing but it’s really helpful for someone like me who doesn’t use Google search as default.

Daniel

nextcloud_com_occupier405 did not know this, thanks for sharing

sean (1)

Does it perform the search using the default search provider or is it only Google?

Daniel

sean (1) it just opens the Google app with the text you’ve entered, I’d imagine this only works with Google.

sean (1)

Daniel

That’s disappointing. For users who have concerns over privacy and big data, and choose to set privacy respecting search engines and browsers (for example, Brave for both) as the default on their devices, inadvertently sending search data and its meta data to Google might be considered a privacy leak.

Do you know of any way to switch it off?

Daniel

sean (1) It opens the Google app to search, I think If you have that main Google app disabled it won’t do anything.

sean (1)

But lose the function. Good that it can be switched off though. Hopefully Nothing will look at developing this idea so alternative providers can be used.