Chrome 99 lets you Uninstall Web Apps from Windows Settings and remove default Search engines

Google has released Chrome 99.0 on March 1st and is now available for download. As of now, the update is still rolling out, if the about dialog doesn’t show you the update, wait for it to arrive or download Chrome and overwrite the existing installation to use the latest version. Check out new features, what’s changed and fixed in Chrome below.

What’s new in Chrome 99

The update comes with two significant changes:

New feature related to PWAs integration with the Windows platform,
Reverts the previous change to allow removal of default Search engines.

Chrome Web Apps can now be uninstalled from Windows Settings

Chrome and Micorsoft Edge supported Progressive Web Apps or Web Apps for some time now. Though Micorsoft Edge being the default and built-into Windows recognizes PWAs installed in it as the normal apps so that you can uninstall them from Control Panel or Settings app. This is not possible for PWAs installed in Chrome.

Google has now made that possible with the Chrome 99 release.

Chrome 99 uninstall PWAs from Windows Settings or Control Panel

What this means is when you install Web Apps in Chrome, they’ll be registered, recognized, and appear in Windows Settings App or Control Panel to remove like any native Win32 App.

Here is where Chrome PWAs uninstall option will appear on Windows

Start Menu
Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features
Settings > apps (on Windows 11 & Windows 10)

You can now remove default Search Engines in Chrome

While working on Chrome search engines and site search redesign, Google has removed the option to delete default Search engines from Chrome 97.

After users complained they use that option to remove search engines hijacked by malware, the company has restored the option in Canary. The change has been landed in Chrome 99 recently.

You can now remove default Search engines in Chrome 99 by visiting Chrome > Settings > Search engine > Manage Search engines where you can click on the 3-dot icon for specific search engines listed under Default Search engine and click Delete.