How to change the default search engine in Brave Browser

In June of this year, the Brave browser introduced its own search engine called Brave Search. Fast forward to October, the company replaced Google with Brave Search as the default search engine for new Brave users in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Similarly, Brave Search replaces Qwant in France and DuckDuckGo in Germany. If you are not satisfied with the Brave Search results or its accuracy, here is how you can change the default search engine in the Brave browser on your desktop or mobile device.

Change the default search engine in Brave Browser (2021)

We have added a separate set of instructions to change the default search engine in the Brave browser on your desktop and mobile device. You can navigate to the relevant section depending on the platform on which you use Brave to browse the web.

Change the default search engine in Brave Browser (Windows, Mac, or Linux)

If you don’t want to use Brave Search and go back to Google or privacy-focused options like DuckDuckGo, you can do so with just a few clicks. Learn how it works here:

  1. Open the Brave browser and click on the hamburger menu(three horizontal lines) in the upper right corner. From the list of options that appear, choose ‘Settings’.
  2. In the left sidebar, switch to the ‘Search Engine’ tab and locate ‘Search engine used in address bar’option.
  3. Click the drop-down list next to the option ‘Search engine used in address bar’ and choose the default search engine for your Brave browser on Windows, Mac or Linux. The default options include Brave, Google, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Bing, and Startpage. If your preferred search engine is one of these, you are done and have successfully changed the default search engine.
  4. In case your preferred search engine is not available in the list, you can add it manually. To do so, you must first click on ‘Manage Search Engines’.
  5. On the next page, you will see an ‘Add’ button next to the ‘Other Search Engines’ section to add a new search engine to Brave. Click on it to continue.
  6. A pop-up will appear asking you to name the search engine, assign a keyword, and add the URL with% s in place of the query. See the next step to know how to fill it.
  7. For example, if you prefer to use Neeva, give it a name, assign a keyword, and add the URL following the search engine syntax in the Brave browser. Most search engines use “search? Q = ”after the top-level domain. After filling in the details, click ‘Add’to save it.
  8. Now you will see the search engine that you added manually under “Other search engines”. Click on the vertical three-dot menu and choose ‘Set as Default’to set it as your default search engine.

Change the default search engine in Brave Browser (Android or iOS)

  1. Open the Brave browser on your iPhone or Android device and tap the vertical three-dot menu on the bottom navigation bar. When the pop-up window appears, choose ‘Settings’.
  2. In General Settings, tap on ‘Search Engines’to change Brave’s default search engine. On the next page, you will see options to change the search engine for the standard tab and the private tab.
  3. Here, you can choose between Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Bing, Startpage, and Ecosia for standard and private tabs. After configuring the search engine for the standard tab, repeat the step for the private tab. Brave says it will list other search engines after you visit the page in the “Recent Visits” section, but I didn’t see it after using Yandex and Yahoo!

Switch to your favorite search engine in Brave Browser

Courageous switching to your own search engine seems like the obvious next step to help grow your user base. However, that doesn’t mean you have to use it if you don’t want to. If you’re someone who prefers other popular search engines, we hope this guide helps you make the switch. If you are no longer interested in using Brave, you can also take a look at our list of the best browsers for privacy.

by Abdullah Sam
I’m a teacher, researcher and writer. I write about study subjects to improve the learning of college and university students. I write top Quality study notes Mostly, Tech, Games, Education, And Solutions/Tips and Tricks. I am a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.

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