Set Google Chrome search to ignore location

Question

The default search in Chrome 18 is

{google:baseURL}search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:instantFieldTrialGroupParameter}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s

How can I modify the search parameters to ignore the location, like in http://www.google.com/ncr

Answer 1

Find your Chrome User Data directory:

• Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data

• Windows 7: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data

• Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

• Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome or ~/.config/chromium

Open the Local State file in a text editor, and change the browser.last_known_google_url value to your desired domain. For example:

{
    ...,
    "browser": {
        ...,
        "last_known_google_url": "http://www.google.com/",
        ...
    },
    ...
}

Answer 2

Exit Chrome with Ctrl-Shift-Q.

Find the Preferences file in the user data directory, and change last_known_google_url to the desired value. Then restart it.