Sites using Opensearch don't always appear in Brave "recently visited" search engines

[Brave-Matt]

Description

Some search engines will not appear in Brave's Recently visited sites (Settings --> Search Engines --> Standard tab) and therefore cannot be set as the default search engine for the browser. The behavior seems to be inconsistent with Chrome's behavior, the expected behavior, and no discernible pattern is there.

When testing in Brave, I got the following results for different search engines — these sites do not appear Brave but do appear in Chrome:

• Yahoo! search
• Amazon.com
• dogpile.com
• mojeek.com
• you.com
• carter-cash.com
• scholar.google.com

Since they use the same protocol, search engines that appear in Chrome should also appear in Brave. Further, any site that supports opensearch should appear in Recently visited in Brave.

Issue reproduces how often

Every time

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current Play Store version? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the current Play Store Beta version? No
• Can you reproduce this issue with the current Play Store Nightly version? No

Device details

• Install type (ARM, x86): ARM
• Device type (Phone, Tablet, Phablet): Phone
• Android version: Android 14

Brave version

1.65.126

Additional information

A user reporting the same issue: https://community.brave.com/t/add-presearch-as-my-default-search-engine-on-brave-mobile-on-android/541072/10

[bsclifton]

@Brave-Matt this should be happening on purpose. Maybe we didn't do a proper UI on Android, but there's a preference (disabled by default) that can be enabled to index OpenSearch compatible engines (Index other search engines). You can find it (on Desktop) on brave://settings/search

We may need to make this visible on Android if it's not there already cc: @deeppandya

[deeppandya]

@Brave-Matt this should be happening on purpose. Maybe we didn't do a proper UI on Android, but there's a preference (disabled by default) that can be enabled to index OpenSearch compatible engines (Index other search engines). You can find it (on Desktop) on brave://settings/search

We may need to make this visible on Android if it's not there already cc: @deeppandya

That's interesting. We can have a similar option in the search engine page for android. I am going to add the issue for triage.

[deeppandya]

@bsclifton upon checking the details, it seems Index other search engines option is enabled by default for android based on https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/78c4a3fa0bf401aec67aee299a8f522286947866/browser/brave_profile_prefs.cc#L399

[deeppandya]

@Brave-Matt i have verified the issue, it should be resolved with 1.65.133. i have also checked latest beta and nightly, both works as expected.

[kjozwiak]

Labelled as QA/Blocked till we get https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/40705 addressed which is causing issues. It's only allowing for three Opensearch websites to be listed under both Standard Tab & Private Tab which is causing a lot of isuses.

[hffvld]

Verified on Pixel 7 using version(s):

Device/OS: Pixel 7 / panther_beta-user 15 AP41.240823.009 release-keys
Brave build: 1.71.112
Chromium: 130.0.6723.44 (Official Build) (64-bit) 

---

STEPS:

1. Launch Brave
2. Open Settings > Search engines Verify Index other search engines is ON
3. Standard Tab/Private Tab > Verify, no Recently visited is shown
4. Close the settings and go to www.yahoo.com
5. Search for something > Open Search engines > Standard Tab > Verify, yahoo.com is shown
6. Repeat steps 4 - 5 for www.amazon.com, www.dogpile.com, www.mojeek.com, www.you.com, www.carter-cash.com and www.scholar.google.com > Verify

ACTUAL RESULTS:

• Verified that Index other search engines is ON by default.
• Verified that Recently visited is not shown on the Search engine screen, if OpenSearch SE is not visited yet.
• Verified that OpenSearch SE is shown on the Search engine screen under Recently visited after a user searched with that SE.
• Verified that OpenSearch SE is not shown if Index other search engines is OFF and user searched with OpenSearch SE.
• Verified that only 3 options of OpenSearch SE are shown at a time based on Chromium changes.
• Verified that OpenSearch SE can be set as default SE.

---

Index other search engines is ON

1	2	3	4

Index other search engines is OFF

1	2	3	4