This Safari Extension Removes Ads and Tracking From Google Search

Google Search has steadily worsened over the past few years. The number of scummy sponsored results, AI-generated garbage, and misleading, low-quality webpages is rising, and it's becoming harder to find useful things on the internet. The good news is, it doesn't have to be this way.

If you're pining for the Google of yore, when a search results page returned 10 links and nothing else, you'll want to check out Lucky. This Safari extension was created by Zhenyi Tan, the developer of Vinegar, a Safari extension that forces YouTube to run in an HTML5 player. Just as Vinegar has improved my YouTube experience, Lucky has made a big difference to my use of Google Search. While Lucky is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, I find myself using it the most on my iPhone because there are many other ways to block ads and tracking on the Mac.

Installing and setting up Lucky

There are a few steps involved in setting up Lucky, but it's a quick one-time process. First, install Lucky from the App Store. (The app costs $2.99.) Then, on your iPhone, go to Settings > Safari > Extensions > Lucky and enable the extension by hitting the switch next to Allow Extension. On the same page, under the Permissions section, select search.yahoo.com and choose Allow. Finally, you'll have to go to Settings > Safari > Search Engines and select Yahoo. 

This doesn't change the default search engine, but it's needed because Lucky picks up results from Google and shows them on Yahoo. Tan explained this in detail on his blog, but the gist is this workaround allows you to use other Google sites (such as Flights, Hotels, etc.) without issues. It also prevents Lucky from accessing any data on Google.com, which helps prevent tracking.

Using Lucky to improve Google search

Once the setup is complete, use Safari's address bar to search as you normally would. However, when Google pops up, you'll see 10 search results per page. There's no infinite scrolling here. When you reach the end of the page, you can tap a button to see the next 10 results. These results appear without any sponsored posts, images, videos, or shopping links in between. It's not flashy, but I don't think that's a bad thing: Now, you can focus on the results, click what you want, and leave the page.

On top of cleaning up the search results page, Lucky also blocks tracking: Typically, whenever you click a link in Google's search results, the search engine tracks your click and uses that data to develop a profile of things you're interested in. Google will also tell websites that you reached any given page via Google. That's not the case with Lucky installed.

If you encounter spammy websites in your search results, you can block them, too. To do this, open the Lucky app and click Blocked Domains. Hit the + button in the top-right corner, and add as many domains as you like. This will exclude all those sites from search results going forward. Your blocklist is synced across devices, so something you blocked on your iPhone won't show up on your Mac.

At the top of the search results page, you'll notice Lucky displays a few other search shortcuts. These links lead to Google Images, News, Maps, and Videos. You can customize these options by opening Lucky and going to Search Shortcuts.