How do I turn off Google Instant which autocompletes what I enter?

Some people have expressed they aren't happy with the distraction of the Google Instant feature and would prefer to type in search criteria without autocomplete.

You can turn Google Instant off via the settings link on the Google page, but sometimes I think leaving the default settings standard, means if others use the computer they aren't confused as to why it works differently than expected.

With my clients in the past, they'd often set up Google search as their home page. I showed them this wasn't necessary as modern browsers have a search field at the top right. The good thing is the search field doesn't do the autocomplete (except it does show you the history if you did a similar search).

Even better is you can select a different default search engine and if you want, have multiple search engines available. I find many Australians prefer to set the default search to be pages from Australia yet this isn't easy to do in Google. By setting the default to pages from Australia, we reduce the number of results significantly and they tend to be more relevant.

If you visit my Fun With Search page you can install Google Search with the default as pages from Australia. No more autocomplete and as a bonus you obtain pages from Australia as the default.

Kelvin Eldridge