In Brave (or any Chromium-based browser), you can define your own search engines. Most people overlook the power of this feature. Here I will tell you how I am using it to speed up my browsing. To begin with, go to this address in Brave: brave://settings/searchEngines.

• Most of this article should also apply to other browsers that support custom search engines (e.g., Firefox).

Tip #1: Handling multiple Google accounts

If you log in to multiple Google accounts (e.g., Gmail, YouTube, …), the browser learns to distinguish between them using an index in the URL. For example, let’s say I log in to my personal Gmail. The URL will be https://mail.google.com/mail**/u/0/**?nocheckbrowser#inbox.

• Notice the bold part /u/0/.
• BTW, speed up Gmail loading by adding ?nocheckbrowser to the URL.

Now let’s log in to my work Gmail account. This time, the URL will be .../mail**/u/1/**....

Each time you log in to a new Google account, the index after /u/ will increase. To quickly access any specific account, you might think that it’s a good idea to just bookmark each page.

Wrong!

The problem with bookmarking Gmail pages like this is that if you log out of an account (or if Google logs you out), you lose its /u/ index. For example, if I get logged out of my personal Gmail because I haven’t checked it in a while, then my work Gmail’s index changes from 1 to 0, meaning that the bookmarks of both my personal and work accounts lead me to my work account! What’s worse is that if I log in to my personal account again, its /u/ index will be 1. So basically, the /u/ indexes are swapped! Not good 🥴

Solution: Use the actual Gmail address instead of Index

It’s so simple I don’t know why I didn’t know this before. If I change the bookmarked URL from https://mail.google.com/mail**/u/0/**?nocheckbrowser#inbox to https://mail.google.com/mail**/u/[email protected]/**?nocheckbrowser#inbox, then this bookmark will always open my work Gmail! I can do the same for my personal Gmail too.

But what does it have to do with custom search engines?

The trick I mentioned can become super useful when instead of bookmarking a webpage, you treat it as a search engine! In brave://settings/searchEngines, Add a new search engine and fill out the form like so:

The search engine name can be anything you want. Next, assign a shortcut to it. Here, I am using gm for my work account but there’s no limit about it (You can also use special characters). From now on, whenever I so much as type “gm” in the address bar, the very first item will be my “OFFICIAL” search engine (which is in fact, my work Gmail account):

Pressing enter then opens my work account!

This works for any website.

As you might see from my screenshots, I have created multiple shortcuts for my favorite websites. No more bookmarking and then forgetting where my bookmarks are! With just a simple shortcut, I can open any specific page on any website. Some of my most favorite links are: