Making searchthat.net your ultimate default search engine
I will show you how to make ST your ultimate browsing experience from changing your browser’s Startup, Address Bar Search Engine and new tab with some settings in the browser to some plugins you may need.
Before I explain, you might wonder what ST is and why I would want to change my settings.
SearchThat.net (ST) is a multi-search engine that allows users to search on multiple sites from one unique search bar. It offers customizable themes and features tools such as news, search results, generators, converters, calculators, lists, and notes.
SearchThat.net does not have a database and relies on APIs and local storage to save settings.
Pretty much saying, it’s a pretty cool site that I designed. Yes, I am the owner of it. If you want to check it out first, you can do so here: https://searchthat.net/
In this tutorial, the settings are all pretty much the same but some browsers are not as flexible as Google Chrome. So some may require extensions to go further to pull this off.
Chromium Browsers
Desktop: Google Chrome / Canary / Chromium
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
chrome://settings/onStartup - Under “On startup” you will see “Open a specific page or set of pages”. Click “Add a new page” and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Default Search Engine”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
chrome://settings/searchEngines - At the bottom, press “Add“
- Enter the following…
– Search engine: Searchthat.net
– Shortcut: s
– URL with %s in place of query: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s - Press “Add“
- Click the “3 icons dots” by Searchthat.net on the right and press “Make default“
- You’re now done!
“Home button”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
chrome://settings/appearance - Under “Show Home Button” add:
https://searchthat.net/ - Move the slider to the right on: “Show home button“.
- You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
- Go here: “Custom New Tab” https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/db-custom-new-tab-url/iebnbdbplclbfpjpelhllmnciijiallf
- Add to Chrome
- Add the following in “Set New Tab URL” https://searchthat.net/
- Press Save.
- You’re now done!
Desktop: Brave
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
brave://settings/ - Under “Get started” you will see “On startup“. Click “Open a specific page or set of pages“.
- Press “Add a new page” and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Default Search Engine”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
brave://settings/searchEngines - At the bottom, press “Add“
- Enter the following…
– Search engine: SearchThat.net
– Shortcut: s
– URL with %s in place of query: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s - Press “Add“
- Click the “3 icons dots” by Searchthat.net on the right and press “Make default“
- You’re now done!
“Home button”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
brave://settings/appearance - Under “Show Home Button” move the slider to the right.
- Click on the checkbox with “custom web address” and enter the URL:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
- Go here: “Custom New Tab” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/custom-new-tab/lfjnnkckddkopjfgmbcpdiolnmfobflj?hl=en-US
- Add to Brave
- Add the following in “Set New Tab URL“
- Press Save.
- You’re now done!
Desktop: Microsoft Edge
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
edge://settings/startHomeNTP - Under “When Edge starts” you will see “Open these pages“. Click “Add a new page” and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - Make sure “Open these pages” is selected and it will open ST as the default homepage.
- You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Default Search Engine”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
edge://settings/searchEngines - Press “Add“
- Enter the following…
– Search engine: SearchThat.net
– Keyword: s
– URL with %s in place of query: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s - Press “Add“
- Click the “3 icons dots” by Searchthat.net on the right and press “Make default“
Bing now forcefully changes the search engine to Bing after every update. Let’s turn that off.
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
edge://flags/ - Search for “Bing”
- The flag called “Allow Microsoft Search with Bing for any default search engine” Set it to Disabled and restart the browser.
This should stop the search engine from changing back to Bing after an update!
“Home button”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
edge://settings/startHomeNTP - Under “Home Button” Move the slider to the right on “Show home button on toolbar“.
- Enter URL: https://searchthat.net/
- Press Save
- You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
- Go here: “Custom New Tab” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/custom-new-tab/lfjnnkckddkopjfgmbcpdiolnmfobflj?hl=en-US
- Add to Chrome
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
edge://extensions/ - Move the slider to the right on “Custom New Tab“
- Add the following in “Set New Tab URL” https://searchthat.net/
- You’re now done!
“Remove Nagging Message”
(Use Microsoft recommended browser settings)
- In Edge URL/address bar:
edge://flags/#edge-show-feature-recommendations - Set the flag to Disabled.
- Restart Microsoft Edge.
Desktop: Vivaldi
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
vivaldi://settings/onStartup - On “Homepage” Check “Specific Page” and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - On “Startup with” Check “Homepage“
- You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Default Search Engine”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
vivaldi://settings/search - Click on “Manage search engines and site search“.
- Press “Add“
- Enter the following…
– Search engine: Searchthat.net
– Keyword: s
– URL with %s in place of query: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s - Press “Add“
- Click the “3 icons dots” by Searchthat.net on the right and press “Make default“
- You’re now done!
“Home button”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
vivaldi://settings/appearance - Under “Show Home Button” move the slider to the right.
- Click on the checkbox with “custom web address” and enter the URL:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
- Go here: “Custom New Tab” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/custom-new-tab/lfjnnkckddkopjfgmbcpdiolnmfobflj?hl=en-US
- Add to Chrome
- Add the following in “Set New Tab URL” https://searchthat.net/
- Press Save!
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
vivaldi://settings/tabs/ - Under “New Tab Page” press “Controlled by Extension“.
- You’re now done!
Mozilla Firefox Browsers
Desktop: Firefox / Firefox Nightly
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
about:preferences#home - Under “Home” you will see “Homepage and new windows“.
- Select “Custom URLs…” from the drop-down menu and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
“Default Search Engine”
- Download the extension: “Add custom search engine”
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-custom-search-engine/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search
- Click on the “blue magnifying glass” at the top right.
- Enter the following…
Name: Searchthat.net
Search URL: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s
Icon: https://searchthat.net/favicon.ico - Press “Add custom search engine“
- Right-click on the taskbar and press Add “Searchthat.net“
- Close Tab and enter this into the address bar above: about:preferences#search
- Under “Default Search Engine“, select “Searchthat.net“
- You’re now done!
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
- Download the extension: “Add custom search engine”
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-new-tabs/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=searchPress Okay “Allow this extension to run in Private Windows” is optional. - Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
about:addons - On Custom New Tab press the “3 dots” and select “Options”
- On “URL to Open in New Tabs” enter the URL:
https://searchthat.net/ - You’re now done!
Opera Browsers
Desktop: Opera
“Default Browser – On Startup”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
opera://settings/onStartup - Click on “Open a specific page or set of pages” Click “Add a new page.” and add:
https://searchthat.net/ - You can now close the settings and relaunch the browser.
Default Search Engine”
- Enter this into your browser’s address input and press enter.
opera://settings/searchEngines - At the bottom, press “Add“
- Enter the following…
– Search engine: SearchThat.net
– Shortcut: s
– URL with %s in place of query: https://searchthat.net/search.html?q=%s - Press “Add“
- Unfortunately, you cannot press “Make Default” as opera is stubborn. But can still somewhat be default just by pressing s and the space button to use ST.
“Make ST your Default NewTab”
Unfortunately, another feature won’t work on Opera.
You now have the idea of the tools and features to make ST the ultimate one-stop site for all. I hope this helps you for future use of searchthat.net