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).

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.

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.

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

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