How To Enable Google’s New Navigation Menu Bar

Google is soon going to enable the new navigation menu replacing the current black navigation bar.

“The Google bar, which runs across the top of the browser of nearly all Google services and offers easy access to Google’s products, has recently updated its look for a more consistent, streamlined user experience and increased visibility of the most popular services,” explains Google.

The new navigation looks much more elegant and compact. You will find the gray navigation bar above each of Google’s products. The bar basically has three main areas. When you hover your mouse pointer over the Google logo on the left or click on it, a drop-down menu will appear with links to Google services. The menu links to Google+, Web Search, Image Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google News, Gmail and Google Docs, but you can mouse over “More” to see more services. The central area has a search box for the Google service you are using now. The right side features a share box and notifications to take part on Google+ from any Google page.

Google's New Navigation Bar

Watch the introductory video below:

How to enable and test Google’s New Navigation Bar?

If you use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, than simply visit www.google.com in a new tab.

If you’re using Chrome, open JavaScript console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+J. In Firefox, open Web Console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K. IE Developer Tools can be accessed by pressing F12.

Apple Safari users are need to turn on the “Develop menu” first before they can get access to the “Web Inspector.” To enable “Develop Menu,” follow the steps below:

  1. Open Safari Preferences and click on the “Advanced” tab.
  2. Check the box beside “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Close the Preferences window.
  3. A new Safari menu item appears, labelled “Develop”.
  4. Now, right-click on the Google.com web page and click on Inspect to bring Web Inspector.

Now, all users of the above browsers, just select the “console” tab. Paste the following code and press Enter. After that you can close the “console”.

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();

After reloading, you will be greeted by the new navigation bar:
Google's New Navigation Bar with Menu

If you’re not in the US and you’re using a different Google domain, replace .google.com with your domain in the code. For instance use .google.co.in in India.

Please note that this cookie hack only works for the English interface, so if you are using a localized version of Google, you many need to adjust your language preferences to English.

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