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Guide to Enabling the New Integrated Universal Google Navbar

The navbar is not available to all users yet, but you can enable it with a cookie trick

Dec 1, 2011 10:22 GMT  ·  By
The new Google navbar on Google.co.uk
   The new Google navbar on Google.co.uk

Google has just unveiled a brand new look for the navigational bar which actually gets rid of it altogether. Its features are now integrated in the search/header section that used to be below it.

Google has been working towards unifying the looks and functionality of its sites, the new navbar is just an extension of that. The new navigational bar is being rolled out to all users, but that may take a while and Google hasn't mentioned a deadline.

There is a way of checking out the new navgar in action even if Google hasn't enabled it for you and, as you may have guessed, it involves editing some browser cookies. Most browsers come with a way of issuing JavaScript commands via a console.

What you'll have to do is open up the JavaScript console in your browser and paste a snippet of code. Here are the steps:

1. go to google.com in your browser.

2. a. in Firefox press Ctrl+Shift+K;     b. in Google Chrome press Ctrl+Shift+J;     c. in Safari you have to enable the "Develop" menu if you haven't already:         - go to Safari Preferences > Advanced and check "Show Develop menu in the menu bar";         - in the Develop menu select Web Inspector and go to the Console tab;     d. in Internet Explorer press F12 to bring up Developer Tools and go to the Console tab;

3. Paste the following code in the console and press Enter:

code
document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com"; window.location.reload();
4. (Optional) If you don't use google.com, you will want to replace the domain in the code snippet with the one you use.

That should do it, the new nav bar with the app menu in the logo and the Google+ tools next to the search bar should be enabled for most Google products, at least the ones that use the new design.