vim - how to remove netrw?

I was testing https://github.com/skwp/dotfiles) and unfortunately it did install a lot of things I do not want.

For example, right now (with empty .vimrc) when I open vim I get

" ============================================================================
" Netrw Directory Listing                                        (netrw v149)
"   /Users/user/.vim/bundle
"   Sorted by      name
"   Sort sequence: [\/]$,\<core\%(\.\d\+\)\=\>,\.h$,\.c$,\.cpp$,\~\=\*$,*,\.o$,\.obj$,\.info$,\.swp$,\.bak$,\~$
"   Quick Help: <F1>:help  -:go up dir  D:delete  R:rename  s:sort-by  x:exec
" ============================================================================

thing. I am in the beginning of my journey with VIM so I don't know what is new and right now I don't want to use it.

I am on OSX Mavericks with home-brew installed. Still, I cannot find where is this coming from and how to remove it.

Solution 1:

Look at the first few lines of $VIMRUNTIME/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim:

" Load Once: {{{1
if &cp || exists("g:loaded_netrwPlugin")
 finish
endif

If you want to disable it, just add

let loaded_netrwPlugin = 1

to your vimrc file.

Solution 2:

You can remove the commented section by adding let g:netrw_banner=0 to your .vimrc

Solution 3:

Since netrw's pages recommend removing older versions of netrw before updating it, I wound up finding a different way from the answers posted here. This might be especially useful for those of you looking to remove netrw (that is, uninstall netrw) before upgrading:

Download https://www.drchip.org/astronaut/vim/vbafiles/netrwclean.vba.gz, which can also be found under the netrw heading at https://www.drchip.org/astronaut./vim/index.html#NETRW
Open vim and do :so netrwclean.vba.gz, giving the full path to wherever you saved the file if necessary.
:NetrwClean to remove user-local copies or :NetrwClean! to remove both user-local and centrally-installed copies of netrw. Note of course that you'll need the right system-privileges to touch the files that will be removed, so you may wish to start vim as root.
(Optional) download the new version of the netrw vimball and :so netrw.vba.gz to update.