Google Now on your home screen is a good thing — but you can turn it off if you wish
It was a couple years ago when some seer of an Android editor predicted that we’d one day find Google Now serving as our home screen. And in Android 4.4 KitKat, that has come true. Google Now is on the far left home screen. It’s not just a widget. It’s not some separate app. It is, for all intents an purposes, an integral part of the launcher and is a home screen.
But what if you want to get Google Now off your home screen?
There are a couple ways to do it — and one of them is going to cost you a fair amount of functionality.
How to turn off Google Now in Android 4.4 KitKat
Consider this the nuclear option. If you don’t want Google Now serving as a home screen, you can simply turn it off in its entirety. To do so, scroll to the very bottom of Google Now, then tap the overflow button. (It looks like three dots.) Then tap Settings. Now you can turn off Google Now.
Of course, that means no Google Now at all. Even if you try to open the old way — pull up from the Home button — you’ll just open Search, and not Google Now. It’s gone.
(To turn Google Now back on, long press on the home screen, then choose Settings.)
Your other option is to download another launcher from Google Play — one that also lets you pull up from the Home button to launch Google Now. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds.