How to disable Pre-loading of pages or Prefetch in Google Chrome?

Question

I'm debugging a web application running in visual studio with some breakpoints on some code that runs on every request to my web application.

I find that in Chrome, as I type the URL past the host, it triggers a request for everything I type as I type it... As if Chrome prefetches the page to make it load faster or something.

While great for browsing the web, it's highly annoying when debugging code..

Anyone know of a way to disable, I've googled it a few different ways and what I can turn off I have, but it still makes requests as I type.

Catharinecatharsis

Answer 1

Under the privacy settings (Settings -> show advanced settings... -> Privacy) in Chrome (Version 46.0.2490.80 m) uncheck these two settings:

• Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar or the app launcher search box
• Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly

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I'll do some testing later to see if this is fixed in new versions, but I already had those disabled and it was still hitting my web server as I typed last I tested. This is months ago though so it might not happen in new versions. – Catharinecatharsis

In Chrome Version 52.0.2743.116 the second option is: Use prediction service to load pages more quickly – Leticialetisha

Does this setting still exist? I can't find it in Chrome 98.0.4758.80. – Rigel

We face the same issue on local development where pre-fetch was confusing us as we see double logs on API calls. So this is just pre-fetch causing. The solution is either to add a timestamp at the end of the URL so its always unique on local development or in settings disable pre-fetch. – Shannon

Answer 2

Under Settings -> Security and Privacy -> Cookies and other site data (or by typing chrome://settings/cookies?search=Security+and+Privacy into the address bar and hitting "Enter" key), uncheck the following:

Preload pages for faster browsing and searching

Preloads pages that Chrome thinks you might visit. To do this, Chrome may use cookies, if you allow cookies, and may encrypt and send pages through Google to hide your identity from sites.

Additionally (to disable the "prediction service"), under Settings -> You and Google -> Sync and Google services (or by typing chrome://settings/syncSetup?search=autocomplete into the address bar and hitting "Enter" key), uncheck the below (ref):

Autocomplete searches and URLs

Sends some cookies and searches from the address bar and search box to your default search engine.

Lightweight

These do sound like the correct settings. But even with both unchecked, there are still requests being made to ops.google.com, www.gstatic.com, fonts.gstatic.com and others. However they are not maed in incognito mode. Maybe an extension is interfering? – Rigel

Could be possible. You could try disabling all (temporarily) here chrome://extensions/. – Lightweight

It's still happening even after a restart and even with all the extensions disabled. Seems like it must be a bug. I've awarded the bounty to this answer as I think it is a good update on the original answer. – Rigel

Answer 3

Since Chrome likes to shuffle around their Settings once in a while, here's the current way to disable these settings:

• go to chrome://settings/?search=preload (or search for "preload" in the browser settings) and disable the "Preload pages" option
• go to chrome://settings/syncSetup?search=improve+search+suggestions and disable the "Improve search suggestions" option

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