Google removes ‘OK Google’ voice search from Chrome for desktops

If you want to do a voice search, you will have to touch a button. OK Google may have been wiped out from Chrome for desktop in entirety, but users can still do voice search by tapping the microphone icon from the New Tab Page or on Google.com. But with this latest version of the browser, users will no longer be able to start Google Search’s with their voice. Unused features also pose a security risk because an attacker can still exploit it even if you never use it yourself.

As ZDNet reports, the feature was removed in the Chrome 46 update.

Apart from the removal of the hotword, the updated Chrome has the ability to mark webpages with “HTTPS with Minor Errors”, new CSS animation features and a few improved performance controls.

In U.S. Google Chrome is considered as the one of the best web browsers, because of its rich-in-class features and its additional features.

Google has not given any specific reason for removing the hotword from Chrome.

Google says that it removed this feature since not many users were using it. Earlier in the week, Google said that it was going to remove the notification center in this new version as well to keep it simple.

Google may revive the feature in the future in the form of an extension. Critics said the extension that powered the web browser’s voice search was downloaded by default whenever a user launched the browser, and there was no way of turning it off because it didn’t feature on the extension list. It is now present only on the ChromeOS version of the browser and can not be accessed from Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. Add to it the fact that we are living in an era of smartphones and tablets where we are constantly bombarded with updates, the Notification Center comes across as rather unnecessary.

While the feature has been removed, the Chrome desktop version still supports voice search, albeit it now requires one to click on the mic icon first. We may assume that it was also a move to simplify Chrome and make it less of a resource hog. But it makes more sense to include these features for Chromebook and Chromebox users, since there are no other voice search or notification systems on those devices.