Browser settings
Configure user-agent, device emulation, network throttling, Google search parameters, geolocation, and caching in SERP Lens.
The browser settings panel lets you customize how SERP Lens renders pages, interacts with servers, and displays Google search results. Changes apply to all open tabs.
Looking for app-wide settings like theme, color scheme, or default home view? See Preferences.
Device emulation
Switch between desktop and mobile views to see how pages render on different devices:
- Mobile devices — choose from a list of predefined devices (iPhone, Android, tablets)
- Fit to view — scales the emulated device to fit the available space
- Actual size — renders at the device's native resolution (1:1 scale)
Device emulation changes the viewport size, user-agent, and touch behavior to match the selected device.
User-agent
Override the default browser user-agent to browse as a different client:
- Browse as Googlebot to see how Google's crawler experiences your site
- Browse as Bingbot, mobile crawlers, or other bots
- Set a custom user-agent string for specialized testing
Combine user-agent switching with the Crawling panel to test whether your server responds differently to bot user-agents — some WAFs or CDNs block specific bots at the server level.
Network throttling
Simulate different connection speeds to test page performance under real-world conditions. Useful for evaluating Core Web Vitals on slower connections.
JavaScript, CSS, and cookies
Toggle individual browser capabilities on or off:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| JavaScript | Disable JS to see how pages render without it — useful for testing crawler rendering |
| CSS | Disable CSS to see the raw document structure |
| Cookies | Disable cookies to test cookie-dependent behavior |
| Caching | Disable browser cache to force fresh requests on every load |
Google search settings
These settings customize how Google search results appear when you search from the browser:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Google domain | Search on a specific Google TLD (google.com, google.co.uk, google.de, etc.) |
| Language | Set the Google interface language |
| Time filter | Restrict results by time period (past hour, day, week, etc.) |
| SafeSearch | Toggle Google's SafeSearch filter |
| Personalization | Disable Google's personalized results for neutral rankings |
| Hide ads | Remove Google Ads from the search results page |
| Custom URL parameters | Append custom parameters like gl=us&hl=en to search URLs |
Google search settings work alongside VPN. Use the VPN for IP-based location, then add
gl and hl parameters for explicit geo and language targeting to reinforce the
location signal. See geo accuracy for details.
Geolocation
Enable browser geolocation and set custom coordinates. This tells the page your reported geographic position — useful for testing location-aware features like maps and local search.
Applying settings
Click Apply to save your settings. All open tabs reload with the new configuration. Settings persist until you change them again.