FIXED Chrome for Android search settings: Mojeek doesn't appear under "recently visited" search engines

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1

In Chrome for Android, if you want to change the default search engine, the options are:

Google
Yahoo! UK and Ireland
Bing
DuckDuckGo
Ecosia

…and then there’s a “recent search engines” section, where you can pick something that isn’t on the main list that you used recently.

However, the chances of a particular site being recognised as a search engine aren’t great. Currently, no matter how many times I use Mojeek in Chrome, it isn’t offered as an option. On the other hand, the site search for a board games shop in Stockport has been added!

Do you know how Chrome decides what constitutes a “search engine”, and is there any way to nudge it to recognise Mojeek so we can set it as the browser default?

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Vanadium is a Chromium-based browser (the same browser Chrome is based on), and these are the steps to setting Mojeek as the default search engine: [GrapheneOS] How to set Mojeek as the default search engine in Vanadium

It also explains a little of how it works:

Another glaring omission, though this is intentional because upstream Android Chromium doesn’t do this either, is the inability to add custom search engines. Vanadium needs to pick this up from the OpenSearch metadata; you can’t just add a new URL like in Firefox.

Chrome on Android will pick up this document when you make a search with mojeek.com: https://www.mojeek.com/opensearch.xml

This is the document which tells Chrome that Mojeek is a search engine and how to import it into “Recently Visited”.

I tried Chrome on Android last month, and I was able to set Mojeek as the default search engine. I’m not sure why you’re having difficulty, but I know Chrome also won’t pick up Wikipedia because it doesn’t serve an OpenSearch document.

This page is a little outdated because it doesn’t include the new OpenSearch method which was implemented in Chrome a year or two ago, but it explains another way of using Mojeek by default: Add Mojeek To your Chrome Android

I don’t think there is any way to convince Chrome to recognize Mojeek except through this method.

On the bright side, Google is looking into giving users the ability to add search engines manually this year: 1440189 - chromium - An open-source project to help move the web forward. - Monorail

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Bizarre - I wiped my browser data/settings and afterwards Chrome does indeed offer Mojeek as an option, now I’ve used it. Not sure why it wasn’t previously :person_shrugging: Thanks very much for your explanation and help!

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