Same for me. I use lots of 1 or 2 letter shortcuts all the time when using brave. its incredibly annoying to have this feature broken.
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Me, too. I changed from Chrome to Brave, and a main reason why I did this was because I used Search Engine Site Search as a shortcut (almost like a bookmark). I also use this ALL THE TIME. I am going back to Chrome because I literally use this like hundreds of times a day. Until Brave fixes this, I won’t be back. I really wish that Brave would not try to change things when things aren’t broken. I do NOT use this as a search, but as a work around as a shortcut. PLEASE change it back!!!
@christopheryuan it’s always important to read things. If you go through what’s been shared, this is a Chromium change. So going to Chrome isn’t going to do anything for you…
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My Chrome hasn’t updated yet so my shortcuts are at least still working today in Chrome.
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I see. So just temporary at least, until it does auto update or whatever. At least it’s all being looked into and considered. If missed it, might want to see Site search shortcut keys not working in Brave browser - #37 by Saoiray and/or check the related Github at https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/44450 as conversation is happening on it.
No idea what the end game will be, but at least they are thinking of workarounds and considering if can bring it back. At least has been confirmed it’s an intentional removal by Chromium and so it would have to be something worked on directly by Brave.
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Just to summarize everything here:
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The issue here is that using custom shortcut keys in the “site search” feature no longer work as they did previously. The
%scharacters must be appended to the end of the search string, otherwise it will be read as invalid. -
This change was made upstream in the Chromium engine, not a change that was implemented intentionally by Brave.
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The team is currently considering reverting this change. Note that while this is possible, it would require continuous maintenance of the feature for every update to the underlying Chromium engine. So while possible, it is not guaranteed that this change will be reverted given that it may require a non-trivial amount of upkeep.
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In the meantime, there is a workaround that can give you similar functionality already in the browser. Please see this comment on the Github issue for more information on the workaround.
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For users who feel strongly about this feature, I recommend commenting on the Github issue directly, so that the developers can see that this functionality is highly desired.
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Can you give us a timeline when it will be done?
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+1 to please allow shortcut to any URL (without %s).
I use that a thousand times a day!! I can’t live without that anymore 
Even better (cleaner), allow to define a shortcut to any bookmark.
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I guess chrome and brave are now out of the race for my default browser… removing this feature was a wild, out of touch miss by google.
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Does it say somewhere, in a changelog from Google, that it’s intentional?
If it’s not we can hope for a fix in the next update.
I created a new account just to post on this topic. This is a huge productivity issue for me. I don’t understand why Chromium would make this change and I hope they roll it back.
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So… Search Engines are COMPLETELY BROKEN for me now. Nothing works, not even valid queries. Doesn’t seem to matter which version I run from the last week (excluding nightlies, which I’m not using at all). What a freaking nightmare.
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@wavemechanic how so? Only issue I’ve encountered is just the idea of needing the
?q=%s so it will generate queries. But you’re saying even if you have the “proper” URL it’s not working to do searches? If so, can you give some more details?
@Saoiray, Turns out it does work; it just gives no visual cue that it will work. You type in the shortcut, hit space (enabled for me in addition to tab), enter the search term, hit enter. Works (only for queries, not for non-query sites). It used to give a visual cue to enter the search term as soon as I hit the space bar after the shortcut was entered.
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It still should. Guess I’d be curious what you’re seeing, but to show how it’s working for me…if I’m looking at the same thing.
Before hitting space (shows G on left as I have Google as my default at the moment)
After hitting space:
And I’m seeing that on all, where it shows what I’m searching. But it only shows the icon for whatever default is.
No cue at all now. In the first image, I have hit space after eb in the screen capture. Nothing visually happens anymore. I’m on Mac (latest OS). I have the dark flag enabled on content, but I’ve tested without it, which makes no difference. I’ve also tried disabling wide URL bar, which also makes no difference.
@Saoiray, this (loss of visual cue on search shortcuts) is happening in any version of Brave now. It seems to be something related to my profile at this point, but I have invested far too many hours in customizing Brave, post migration from Chrome, to start over. I also tried disabling wide bar and dark flag at the same time, but that doesn’t help either.
@wavemechanic I think I know the origin of your problem. Though haven’t chased it down too much. So just now I went to brave://settings/appearance and turned off the toggle for Show autocomplete suggestions in address bar. When I did that, I’m experiencing what you mentioned.
Interestingly enough, none of the individual toggles under it seems to impact it. But if I just turn off the main one it will have the issue as you’re noticing.
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BULLSEYE! I was trying to think of anything else I changed, and didn’t remember that. Outstanding and rapid solution! THANK YOU!
Back to the point of this thread, I have reverted to Version 1.75.181 Chromium 133.0.6943.141 (arm64) and blocked go-updater.brave.com and variations.brave.com in Little Snitch at least until the dust settles on this issue. I can’t function without the old shortcut behavior. I’ve tried. I’m losing my mind.
Thank you profusely for the tip on the visual cue!
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I wish I could help, but as of mid-January Brave suddenly throws 404 errors for every web site, including this one. It makes me sad because Brave was noticeably faster loading pages than Chrome, Firefox, and Edge but I’m stuck using them (e.g. Firefox to write this) until I can find a fix.