Hi all! I’m reopening the case Address bar on bottom would be amazing because I want to point out the very handy solution that got lost (at least I had some time until I found it) in the depth of the thread:
A good hint is mentioned by Annonymous in this thread that by hitting the search-button on the toolbar the cursor jumps directly to the address bar.
This is actually a very good workaround!
Why do we need an address bar on the bottom?
On mobile phones we have bigger and bigger screens, to allow navigation on apps it is very userfriendly to have the controls near the bottom, so that it is easily accessible with the thumb without stretching it all the way across the screen.
@Amiss979 this actually already exists as part of Chromium.
Go to brave://flags and look for Bottom Toolbar, which is also #android-bottom-toolbar and set it to Enabled. It will say it needs to relaunch Brave, Go ahead and do that.
Then go to Brave’s Settings and you’ll see Address bar appear as an option under General…just below Leo and right above Search engines.
Tap it and switch it to Bottom.
All pages except for the Dashboard on New Tab Page will have the Address Bar on the bottom.
NOTE
If you do this, make sure Settings → Appearance → Enable bottom toolbar is disabled. If not, then it will hide the three dot menu and tab switcher from you when you visit websites. So to make it work, make sure that part is disabled but then enable in the other area as said before the note.
Keep in mind the above is just part of flags and would be considered experimental. As I mentioned, you have to be cautious of some settings, such as how certain settings will cause the hamburger (three dot) menu to vanish and all. But at least it’s there.
Biggest annoyance overall is the New Tab Page (Dashboard) will only show with the address bar on top. This is just a design that Brave will have to eventually change when they actually introduce the bottom toolbar as an official part of Brave.
As Mattches has shown, this is something that’s been pending for Brave for a very long time. At this point I have no idea what’s taking them so long, but at least is an issue open for it.
