For years, Google Chrome had an option in their settings to let you see more than just 10 results. I used it for a long time, and there was a slider in the settings, that let you show up to 100 results for any search, and that became my default setting for Chrome on multiple computers over the years.
Then, in December of 2022, Google announced “Endless Scroll” where they changed the default from just 10 results to show 100 for any given search.
I personally didn’t find it much different when it first launched, but over time it became slower, and you still had to click to proceed further, while ultimately sifting through more ads. It wasn’t just a simple “endless scroll” anymore.
Then a few weeks ago, Google reverted back to just showing 10 search results, which I found to be a big inconvenience, so I remembering the slider, I went into my Chrome settings, and it was gone.
A Quick Solution
A quick Google search reminded me that the easy way to get Google to show a larger number of search results is by adding &num=X to the end of your search. If you want the first 5 pages of results, you can add &num=50, or whatewver number you want.
This involves too many steps, and is sort of ridiculous, doing a search, clicking into your address bar, hitting the end key then manually typing &num=100 and pressing enter. Sure that’s fine for a single search, but that preference doesn’t hold, and you’re right back to only seeing 10 results the next time.
There Must Be an Add-on, Right?
This morning going multiple pages deep in Google, it dawned on me that there surely must be an extension that would let me see 100 results easily for any Google search, right?
Well if there is, I couldn’t find it, no matter how many pages I dug through, so that’s where ChatGPT came in. I admit I am NOT a programmer, but surely I should be able to do something as simple as this myself, and I did.
Now There Is
It’s just a simple extension, that when enabled lets you toggle back and forth between 10 or 100 search results. I was gonna make it complicated, and let the user choose the number of search results they want like the old Google slider used to, but for now it shows 100, and it does it without adding extra blocks of ads.
– If you want it, you can get my zipped local version here, but the full version will be at the Google Chrome store soon, I hope.
To install the zipped version, follow these steps:
- Download this zipped folder, and unzip it to a location you can remember.
2. Open Google Chrome and go to the Extensions page.
- In the address bar, type chrome://extensions/ and press Enter.
- Alternatively, you can click on the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of Chrome, go to “More tools,” and then click “Extensions.”
3. Enable Developer Mode.
- On the Extensions page, find the toggle switch labeled “Developer mode” in the top right corner of the page.
- Click the switch to enable Developer Mode. This will allow you to load unpacked extensions.
4. Click “Load unpacked”.
- A new set of buttons will appear after you enable Developer Mode.
- Click on the “Load unpacked” button.
5. Select the unzipped extension folder.
- A file dialog will open. Navigate to the location where you unzipped the extension folder.
- Select the folder and click “Select Folder” (or “Open” on some systems).
6. Verify that the extension is installed and enabled.
- You should now see your extension listed on the Extensions page.
- Make sure the extension is enabled (the toggle switch next to it should be blue).
7. Pin the extension to the Chrome toolbar (optional).
- If you want to access the extension quickly, you can pin it to the Chrome toolbar.
- Click on the puzzle piece icon in the top-right corner of Chrome (next to your profile picture).
- Find your extension in the list and click the pin icon next to it.
- Drag the icon where you want it to appear
8. Start using the extension.
Your extension is now installed and ready to use. You can click on the extension icon in the toolbar to toggle back and forth between 100 search results and Google’s default.
