What is Google Toolbar Notifier and how to get rid of it

Posted on October 21, 2008 at 5:43 am

Google Toolbar is the one and only toolbar I use with Firefox and Internet Explorer because it has some very useful features and benefits that I use on a regular basis. However, I do not normally like software that spawns numerous useless services that I can live without.

One of those that comes with the Google Toolbar is Google Toolbar Notifier.exe. It’s a Windows service that runs all the time to make sure that Google is your default search engine! Now personally I don’t really think it’s necessary to have a Windows service to just make sure my default search provider remains the same. I don’t think I’ve EVER had to manually change it back to Google.

Now I would normally tell people to turn off startup programs using MSCONFIG, but oddly enough Google Toolbar Notifier keeps coming back even if I uncheck it in MSCONFIG. So how can you truly prevent the service from starting up?

Step 1: Open Internet Explorer or Firefox and click on the Settings button at the far right of the Google Toolbar. Then click on Options.

Step 2: Click on the More tab and then uncheck the box that says “Set and keep search settings to Google” under the “Search Settings Notifier and Browse by Name” heading.

Click OK and restart your browser window. You can now open up the Processes tab in Task Manager and you should no longer see the GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe process running.

You may also notice the Google Updater service runs all the time to as GoogleUpdater.exe. You can also prevent this process from running by the normal method of going to MSCONFIG, then clicking on the Services tab and unchecking the Google Update Service.

Google Updater Service just keeps checking to make sure your Google products are up to date. If you are like me, you do this yourself every couple of weeks and don’t really need a service hogging up your CPU resources! Enjoy!

» Filed Under Google Software/Tips

Comments

5 Responses to “What is Google Toolbar Notifier and how to get rid of it”

abada said on : December 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am

Hi.Thanks for the information it was very helpful on my other computers.But one of my computer is using

(Internet Explorer 8).(And google toolbar for Windows Internet Explorer 8).

Ian F said on : August 4th, 2009 at 6:35 am

Very helpful information – this problem has been bugging me ever since I installed Google Toolbar !

Ian F said on : August 4th, 2009 at 6:40 am

P.S. …………. You might want to amend your instructions for IE 8, as there is no “Settings” button (the required settings can be found under the “Adjust Toolbar options” button).

Maximus said on : September 18th, 2009 at 7:32 am

I just renamed the folder containing the updater…

c:\documentandsettings\[user]\application data\local settings\google\UPDATE to UPDATE2

now updater doesn’t work !!!!

Marlene said on : October 2nd, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Thanks for that. What I actually did was “end process” in Windows Task Manager, for the GoogleToolbarNotifier, which had appeared for the first time today. Hope my action wasn’t a no-no, but it certainly made it disappear.

I have a question I hope you can answer for me. GoogleDesktop.exe appears three times in the Task Manager processes list. Memory usage is 7,052k, 3968k & 7024k. I was wondering why this would be? And then there’s BGGOOGLE.exe, 2032k?? I do use GoogleDesktop for only one thing, the searchbox that sits in my utility tray at all times whether I have my browser open or not. So handy for any queries I want to search.