Consider a phone without a browser. Heh, you can’t. Although we have an app for almost everything, we still prefer a mobile browser to access the web. Today we are spoiled with so many options that if a browser does not have a feature, there are many available in the Play Store.
Users of phones running Xiaomi MIUI are lucky as their phones come with two browsers pre-installed: Google Chrome and Mi Browser. If you prefer to use Mi Browser instead of Chrome, luck seems to be on your side again.
In this article, we will share 15 tips and tricks to get the most out of Mi Browser. Lets start.
1. Change Scrolling from Edge Gesture
When using Mi Browser, swiping from the right or left edge of the screen while browsing any web page will take you back and forth respectively. This is a very nice feature and people are requesting it in Chrome as well. However, some people don’t like it because accidental swipes can ruin your efforts. Especially when filling out forms.
Fortunately, Mi Browser lets you customize these gestures so you can switch between tabs instead. So swiping from the edges will take you to a different tab.
To change this, tap the icon with three bars at the bottom, then tap Settings. Then tap Swipe from edge and select Switch tabs.
2. Close Tabs Directly
Instead of opening the tab switcher screen to close the tabs, you can close them directly from the home screen. For that, tap and hold the tab switcher icon in the bottom bar. This will reveal a delete icon. Now swipe up towards the delete icon without releasing your finger. The current tab will be closed immediately.
3. Open New Tab
The usual way to open a new tab is a tedious task as you have to tap the tab switcher icon and then the new icon. You can touch and hold the home icon of Mi Browser to quickly open a new tab.
4. Start Search
Whenever you need to search for something or open a web page, you have to first tap on the address bar and then feed the letters from the keyboard at the bottom. For large-screen phones, reaching for the search bar doesn’t feel comfortable, and the general operation requires you to move your fingers from top to bottom.
All this can be avoided by tapping the three-bar icon, which will open the keyboard directly with the search bar selected.
5. Fast Swipe
When you hurriedly scroll through a web page, you will see a small icon on the right edge of the screen. Hold and drag to scroll fast.
6. Change Search Engine From Home Screen
Mi Browser supports search engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo. Tap the globe icon in the search bar to instantly switch to a different search engine from the home screen itself. Then choose a search engine of your choice.
7. Close the feed
Besides being pompous, Mi Browser’s feed or home screen is data-intensive. While there is no direct way to turn it off, you can disable it by replacing the start page with a custom one.
To do this, tap the three-bar icon at the bottom, then tap Settings. Then go to Advanced and then Set start page. Change it to a web page of your choice here.
8. Change Download Location
Mi Browser helps you easily manage your downloads by allowing you to change the download location.
To do this, go to Mi Browser Settings by tapping the icon with three bars. Then tap on Advanced and then on Download location. Change the download folder here.
9. Change Tab Switcher Layout
Browsers often offer a single layout for switching between tabs. However, Mi Browser takes it one step further by offering two types of views, portrait and landscape.
To change this, go to Mi Browser Settings > Advanced > Multi-window management. Choose the view.
10. Enable Dark Mode
I can see the sparkle in your eyes when I read the title. While dark mode is readily available in Mi Browser (and Chrome as well), some might miss it due to the option’s placement. To activate dark mode, tap the icon with three bars, then tap the dark mode icon (it looks like a crescent moon).
11. Program Reading Mode
Mi Browser provides an option to enable reading mode in two places – search bar and bottom bar. However, both of these places require you to tap them to manually enable read mode. If you regularly read a lot of text online, you can set it to activate automatically using the scheduling feature.
To schedule reading mode, go to Mi Browser Settings > Reading mode. Here turn on the toggle for Program and set it to your preference.
12. Generate QR Code for a Website
You can generate a QR code for any website using Mi Scanner. Useful when the page URL is long or difficult to remember. In such cases, you can use the QR code to open the page without typing the URL address each time.
To generate a QR code, follow these steps:
Stage 1: Open a specific website in Mi Browser.
Step 2: Tap the address bar. It will reveal a QR code option. Tap on it.
Stage 3: Your QR code will be generated. Tap Save to Gallery to download it to your device.
13. Show Full Feed
On the browser home screen, you usually only come across two articles. Swipe up from the home screen to reveal the full feed featuring categories from cricket, tech, entertainment and more.
14. Change Feed Language
You can change the language from English to your favorite to take full advantage of the stream and its content. For this, tap on the language icon located in front of all categories of the feed.
15. Close All Tabs
Typically, we use the tab switcher to close all open tabs from a browser. But in Mi Browser, you can do it with a tap using the Exit browser option located under the three-bar menu icon. Tapping it instantly clears all tabs and you have to start over.
Bonus Tip: Add Website Shortcut to Home Screen
You can add frequently accessed sites as shortcuts to your phone’s home screen. To do this in Mi Browser, open the website and tap on the three-bar icon at the bottom. Then press the Shortcut icon in the menu and select Home screen.
You will find the newly created shortcut on your home screen. Tapping it will open the page directly in Mi Browser.
everything is not okay
Although Mi Browser serves as a useful alternative to Chrome, we have some sad news for you. The future of Mi Browser looks bleak. Xiaomi has recently released a new polished version of Mi Browser known as Mint Browser for all Android phones. The browser is ad-free and extremely small in size and only weighs around 11MB. It looks like Xiaomi will phase out Mi Browser and replace it with Mint Browser.
Until that happens, enjoy Mi Browser on your phone. If you have a different tip to share, let us know in the comments below.
Next up: Looking for guest mode on your Xiaomi phone? It’s not there as it is replaced by the second space. Read the difference between the two.
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