I can't really say when Google switched the default context menu of its Chrome browser to a white menu, only that I found it very irritating at first as I was not really sure what to make of it.

If you do not like the white menu that Chrome is now displaying when you right-click in the browser, you may be interested to know that there is a way to restore the old standard context menu.

A command line switch lets you do that, and while I can't promise you that the switch will be there for all eternity, I can confirm that it is working just fine right now.

Let me show you how to add the switch to Chrome's start up so that the old menus are displayed in the browser again and not the white ones.

The parameter that you need to start Chrome with is --disable-new-menu-style. The easiest way to add this to Chrome's start up is to add the parameter to the shortcut permanently. I'm going to show you how to do this in Windows.

If you are running Windows 7 or newer, a Chrome shortcut is likely pinned to the taskbar.

If that is the case, right-click the shortcut and select properties from the context menu.

If you do not have those operating systems or do not have Chrome pinned to the taskbar, open the start menu instead and locate Chrome here. Once found, right-click the shortcut and select properties from the context menu as well.

You need to locate the Target field here now and append the parameter to the end. So, after chrome.exe" you add the command. Note that there needs to be a space between the path and the parameter.

Restart the browser afterwards and you should see that the old or classic menu has been restored in it.

You can go back to the new menu at any time by deleting the parameter in properties again.

Update: As many may have noticed already, Google has removed the startup flag so that it cannot be used anymore. Some users may still see the regular "old" menu while most should see the new white menu instead.

There is another start up flag that you can use. While it won't get rid of the white menu completely, it at least compacts it and reduces the whitespace that is displayed in it otherwise.

You need to add --force-fieldtrials="NewMenuStyle/Compact2/" to the target field. If you have used the old start up command before replace it with this one.

The menu looks like this afterwards.

Thanks Bobby for finding out about it. Leave a comment below if you have troubles implementing this or know of another solution to the issue.

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