This is regarding all versions of the Brave browser, as they show all the same behavior.
Local addresses e.g. “server.local” or “vm.ware” (whatever) are not completed to “https://server.local” and sent to the DNS to resolve, but instead directly to the predefined search engine (e.g. Google).
Expected behavior would be that the request is autocompleted with “https:\…” and forwarded to the DNS. Alternatively if the DNS still returns an error it could automatically be sent to the defined search engine.
Thanks and best!
Rob