Google recently added a Google+ widget to the search engine homepage. I wrote BlockPlus when Google+ was first released and first integrated into other Google properties. The idea was to remove all the links to Google+ and Google+ widgets from other Google properties so that you aren’t distracted by them and so that the page would load faster.

Today I have released version 4 (don’t ask about the version numbering and how it went from 0.7 to 4.0). It has been updated to remove the new widgets and to also speed up page loading on the Google homepage, the search results page and within other apps such as GMail and Docs.

To install BlockPlus for Chrome click: https://github.com/nikcub/Blockplus/raw/master/chrome/build/blockplus-4.crx. If you installed it previously your browser will auto-update to this new version within a few hours.

The project also has a new homepage at GitHub which you can find at https://github.com/nikcub/Blockplus. Issues can be submitted at https://github.com/nikcub/Blockplus/issues.

Thank you to those who have previously contributed bug fixes, issues or other feedback. There are no outstanding issues with this release.

If you are interested in porting the extension as a user script, a greasemonkey script, for Safari or Firefox then feel free to fork it and submit a pull request. I have organized the directories to allow for builds and separate source for other browsers – I just haven’t gotten around to implementing the ports myself.

Screenshot