On google.com, there is a toggle switch allowing you to turn off personal results on a particular search (it's been there since the launch of SPYW).
And if you're looking for a more permanent setting, there's one available in the Google search preferences (available through the gear on the search results page or at https://www.google.com/preferences) which allows you to set it to "Do not use personal results".
Even when explicitly specifying English, it still doesn't work. For example, the alt text for Google logos will appear in the "geo-language", regardless of UI setting.
Other Google sites, such as blogspot, switch to the geo-language without any apparent way to override.
Sometimes, Chrome even kicks in and asks if you'd like to translate the content into the correct language.
This is moronic.
Since you are on HN, I assume you either are an engineer of some sort or something close to that and you are working on some product, so I expect you to know that the answer to questions that begin like that is very, very often “more than you expected”.
(I would like the option of a “neutral” Google Search too)
Can someone confirm that the following query gives non personlized search results?: http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu&ncr=1&pws=0
btw, this thing has been my #1 complaint with google for years. How hard is to make a completly 'neutral' non personalized version of Google available at a specific adress or with a checkbox in your google account.