It could be an extension. If you put brave://settings/?search=start-up in the address bar you will be shown the browser statup options, and whether there is an extension controlling it:
When I put that in the address bar, a page loads but in a millisecond it changes to ‘no results found.’ Looks like something is preventing me from looking at that screen.
Yep, okay, i used a screenshot tool to grab the page before it goes away saying ‘no results found’ here: https://imgur.com/a/m5YY9QE ---- yep, something is up…
anybody have any idea how i get rid of this?
EDIT: I was able to load the settings page manually— that part is fixed (browser first opens to new tab page) but now my search engine I see no way to fix, everything is marked google in the settings but it’s only displaying the google search result a secoind before it loads to the yahoo search results.
@Mr_Internet okay, so let’s start from square one here.
Always try to be careful what you click and allow permission to.
This includes extensions you add. Often they can be malware. Go to brave://extensions/ to see everything you have installed. Long way to get there is Settings → Extensions → Manage Extensions
Any time you’re redirected when searching, most likely it has changed your default search engine. You can always check this out at Settings → Search Engine to see what your default search engines are. And you can go one step further to Manage search engines and site search to see a list of all search engines.
You may want to hit Edit on your default search engine to make sure it’s not been changed. Such as if you see Google for your default search engine, make sure the URL is going to Google and not some other URL. Also look for duplicates, as any malware could have created Google as a Site Search and set it as your default.
If your browser is going to something different at launch, it’s good to go to Settings → Get Started and check what it’s set to open to. If it’s to open on a set page, you would delete that and then could change it to whichever option you want to use by default.
If you ever see changes you did not make, you should know to check for any extensions, especially any you may have recently added. It’s also very critical to run scans with a good antivirus or malware scanner. Malwarebytes is a common one, but whatever you want. Just try to make sure it’s legitimate.
Depending on the above, it may be good to clear your cookies, cache, etc. You’ll need to login to everything again but this can help purge anything they may have put into your browser.
Thank you. So, the sneaky malware switched things up. They all said GOOGLE but the URL was different, and there was a tiny tiny Y beside the name.
I have since deleted all 8 of the shortcuts and crap they added, and restored google under ‘site search’
New problem: BRAVE is the only option for default search. Google used to be an option when I try to change it under “search engines” but only BRAVE is listed as an option. The three dots I assume would have a delete option or a way to add another search engine is grayed out.
I tried turning on ‘index other search engines’ and searched with google, but still, no other search engiees showed up. I reset Brave to default and all the other search engines were back being listed.
But, was the inability to select google in my search engine list a issue with the malware or what? Was there a way to get google back in that list without resetting Brave?
@Mr_Internet you may need to add it yourself if you deleted. Just so you know, Site Search and Search Engine is the same thing. It’s just a matter of what was added by default through Brave compared to what we have to add ourselves.
So go to the Site Search part and add. Then you can fill out like below:
But at this point, if we delete the default entry, there’s not a known way to put it back, at least not according to the last response I had seen by Support. Instead we just do as I mentioned above. No harm, no foul.
