In June of this year, the Brave browser introduced its own search engine called Brave Search. Fast forward to October, the company changed 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 results or accuracy of Brave Search, here is how you can change the default search engine in the Brave browser on your desktop or mobile device.
Change Default Search Engine in Brave Browser (2021)
We’ve added a separate set of instructions for changing the default search engine in the Brave browser on your desktop and mobile. Depending on the platform you use Brave to browse the web, you can go to the relevant section.
Change 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-centric options like DuckDuckGo, you can do it with just a few clicks. Find out 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 drop-down list of options ‘Settings’.
2. Switch to the ‘Search engine’ tab from the left sidebar and Find ‘search engine used in address bar’ choice.
3. Click on the drop-down list next to ‘Search engine used in address bar’ and select the default search engine for your Brave browser on Windows, Mac or Linux. Default options include: Brave, Google, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Bing and Startpage. If your preferred search engine is one of them, you are ready and you have successfully changed the default search engine.
4. In case your preferred search engine is not listed, you can add it manually. What you need to do first Click ‘Manage search engines’.
4. 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.
5. Now a popup will appear asking you to name the search engine, assign a keyword for it, and add the URL with %s instead of the query. Check the next step to learn how to fill it.
6. For example, if you prefer to use Neeva, give it a name, assign a keyword, and in the Brave browser add the URL following the search engine’s syntax. Most search engines use ‘search?q=’ after the top-level domain name. After filling the details, Click ‘Add’ to save.
7. You will now see the search engine you have added manually under ‘Other search engines’. Click on the vertical ellipsis menu and Choose ‘Make default’ to set it as your default search engine.
Change Default Search Engine in Brave Browser (Android or iOS)
1. Open the Brave browser on your iPhone or Android device and tap the vertical ellipsis menu from the bottom navigation bar. When the pop-up window appears, choose ‘Settings’.
2. Under 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 custom tab.
3. Here you can choose from Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Bing, Startpage and Ecosia for standard and custom tabs. After setting the search engine for the standard tab, repeat the step for the custom tab. Brave says it will list other search engines after visiting the page in the ‘Recently visited’ section, but I didn’t see it after using Yandex and Yahoo.
Switch to Your Favorite Search Engine in Brave Browser
A bold switch to its own search engine seems like the next step to help increase its user base. But that doesn’t mean you have to use it if you don’t want to. If you are someone who prefers other popular search engines, we hope this guide will help you make the transition. If you’re no longer interested in using Brave, you can also check out our list of the best browsers for privacy.
