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I would like to type in "server" in the address bar in Chrome on Android, and have it go to http://server (like things worked in the old days) rather than searching Google for the word "server". Is this possible to do?

I'd also consider other browsers, such as Brave, if they have this feature. Thanks!

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If you have root on the device, you should be able to access and edit your host file on-device. If you don't have root, you can still look into:

  1. configuring something at the router level,
  2. add site as a search engine (I know Vivaldi supports this), or
  3. search for browsers that support "!bangs".
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  • Note that you can produce the desired behavior by selecting the omnibox choice with the website icon rather than the search icon, but defaulting it is not currently an option that I'm aware of. There's a thread in the Vivaldi forums that discusses this very issue.
    – Arctiic
    Apr 26, 2021 at 1:18
  • Yea, the DNS the phone is using already has a record for the thing I'm trying to go to. It's just that if you don't fully qualify it with the DNS suffix (like server.mynetwork.local or something), it thinks it's a search query rather than a DNS entry. Honestly I just want to turn off search completely, but it doesn't seem that's an option. You must select some sort of search provider.
    – Mike Christensen
    Apr 26, 2021 at 4:30
  • Then perhaps the !bangs would be a more painless option, as it doesn't require root or any additional backend or network configurations and you're only sacrificing an additional keystroke in exchange. I've also seen people posting questions about whether a particular browser can be deployed and configured to exclusively access a company intranet/captive portal, which I would know nothing about; just mentioning it as food for thought!
    – Arctiic
    Apr 27, 2021 at 7:19

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