Very frequently I get users asking if we can remove Address/City/State/Postal/Country columns from the default search results table. Often they want to show some of our custom fields instead. Or to just remove clutter.
I know this is a common question, and I am aware of hook_civicrm_searchColumns and how to use profiles with advanced search.
But I am asking here to get verification that there is not a better way to simply remove some columns from the results of civicrm/contact/search