Searching a particular term in brave search engine redirects to a Canadian government website

[opendoughnut]

Description

When entering a particular query into brave search engine on either desktop or android browser it redirects to a Canadian government website. ie ontario.ca

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enter this search term into search.brave.com: The environmental variable TZ has been set which is not supported by AIO since it only supports running in the default Etc/UTC timezone! The correct timezone can be set in the AIO interface later on!

Actual result:

Search engine doesn't produce results and instead redirects to: https://www.ontario.ca/search/search-results/?query=The%20environmental%20variable%20TZ%20has%20been%20set%20which%20is%20not%20supported%20by%20AIO%20since%20it%20only%20supports%20running%20in%20the%20default%20Etc\/UTC%20timezone\!%20The%20correct%20timezone%20can%20be%20set%20in%20the%20AIO%20interface%20later

Expected result:

Search engine produces relevant search results.

Reproduces how often:

Happens everytime I enter this particular search query

Desktop Brave version:

[Version 1.61.116 Chromium: 120.0.6099.217 (Official Build) (64-bit)]

Android Device details:

• Install type (ARM, x86): Brave 1.61.116, Chromium 120.0.6099.217

• Device type (Phone, Tablet, Phablet): pixel 4a

• Android version: 13

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release?
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel?
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel?

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields?
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards?
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome?

Miscellaneous Information:

[kenherbert]

You need to remove the exclamation marks from your query.

Exclamation marks in Brave are a special operator to trigger bangs. !on specifically is for the Government of Ontario website.

[valynor]

Using common words for !bangs is probably a really bad idea as it leads to unexpected results and user confusion. Especially when it's not only working for !on but on!, too.

[kenherbert]

They need to be short and easily remembered otherwise the feature becomes kind of useless.

But otherwise I agree. I've always thought they should only be triggered by an exclamation before, since after is its traditional place in normal text.

[daniel-pg]

The same thing just happened to me. I searched Richard Myhill - Woe Is Me! in Brave, but it kept redirecting to a totally unrelated Fandom website I have never heard of. I was confused by this weird behavior and didn't even realize that the cause was an exclamation mark in my search query. What a dumb feature.