How to uncensor Google search results

Censorship is an amazing thing in that you’ll never know it’s there until it suddenly isn’t. Censorship is often used by governments to keep regulate what information is available to its citizens though other forms of censorship may be used by organizations to restrict content e.g., in schools, or in prisons. When censorship is on a government level, it’s usually done by asking companies to refine or restrict content e.g. Google search results. If you want to uncensor Google search results, you can. You can do this in Firefox, or Chrome, or in Chrome Edge.

In order to uncensor Google search results, you will have to side-load an extension/add-on in Chrome or Firefox (whichever browser you use). This is because the extension that we’re going to use has been removed from both the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Marketplace for obvious reasons.

Uncensor Google search results

Download the Google Unlocked extension from Github. Go to the Releases tab. If you’re looking to download the extension for Chrome, or Chrome Edge, download the CRX file. If you want to install the add-on for Firefox, download the XPI file.

To install the app in Chrome, check out our post on how to install extensions in Chrome. The sideloading section is the one you want to check out. Since this is a Chrome extension, it’s highly likely going to work in Chrome Edge.

For Firefox, the process is much easier. Open the browser and tap the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut. In the Select File box that opens, select the XPI file you downloaded. You will see a prompt asking if you want to add the add-on or not. It will also display the permissions that the add-on needs. Once you click Add, it will be installed.

Uncensored search results

The uncensored Google search results may feature new entries on the first page, or on subsequent pages. It’s hard to point you to a search term that you can try since it may not be censored in your part of the world. That said, you might have seen that under some search results, the results page tells you that some items were removed in response to a copyright claim. This extension will likely add them back to the search results.

A lot of people recommend using other search engines instead of Google. DuckDuckGo is often recommended and while it will give you uncensored results, its algorithm isn’t as efficient as Google’s which is why, this extension may be worth installing.