How do I remove 3 Google icons persisting in Safari (14.1.2) tab bar (Mohave)?

I figured this out. The icons in question are "pinned". See the Safari help file.

If you drag a tab to the far left of the bar, it becomes pinned. To remove a pin, drag it to the right and it becomes an normal tab with a small "x" to close it.

The interesting thing is that these pins survive in new safari windows for all users of the computer, independent of history or caches. Seems to me that this is a minor security breach and a bug in the OS.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes on IntelMac.

No tiny X appears on hover. CmdW does not close the tabs.

Safe boot: held shift at startup chime, held shift at user login: No help. Reboot normally: no help.

See the screenshot below. The "G" icon is for a google search; the other two are for google map searches.

Clearing all Safari history doesn't help. I cannot locate any google plugins in any of the three libraries. Logging in as a "virgin" test user does not solve the issue.

My google account is set to not save search history and to not use personal info for ads - basically everything is turned off.

This is weird - I'm stumped.

Because a "virgin" user shows the same issue, the cause is not in my user library or my google account.

Maybe someone knows if there is a file in /system/library or /library that is the culprit? An invisible file?