I don’t use AOL but help hundreds of SOHO clients. A few days ago, one client showed me how the latest Brave for Mac (intel) browser did nothing when she clicked an email attachment’s download icon. She had to use Firefox to download them from AOL.
In Brave, sometimes the first AOL email attachment would download but never any others within the same email. Sometimes even the first one wouldn’t download.
No error or prompt appears when it fails. It just does nothing.
I see that this same flaw was posted in this forum in Oct 2024 but that thread is locked. Other people in this forum complained about the same problem in 2022 and 2018.
Only a few of my clients still use AOL but clearly Brave shouldn’t fail for such a basic task.
I was in the process of mass switching clients from Chrome to Brave to circumvent Chrome’s ban of Manifest v2 ad blockers like uBlock Origin. Brave has its own ad blocking plus still allows manifest v2 (superior) ad blockers like the full version of uBlock Origin.
uBlock Origin Lite (manifest v3) in Chrome just allowed a malicious ad that scammed a client. That ad would have never appeared in the full version of uBlock Origin.
I’m spewing about this because this unresolved many-year problem of Brave not opening AOL attachments is making me pause the migration.
Go to brave://settings/clearBrowserDataAdvanced tab
Time range: All time
ENABLE:
Browsing history
Download hsitory
Cookies and other site data
Cached images and files
Click Clear data
Exit / Quit BB. Start BB, and then . . .
A. Disable ALL extensions added by the user. “ALL” means all of them, added by the user ← who sometimes will cling to some extensions, and thus fail to properly test the issue.
Then test the issue without such extensions.
Then test the issue, with each extension individually enabled - no combinations of enabled extensions . . . while trying to find the troublemakers (if any).
After those tests, exit / quit Brave Browser, and then . . .
B. Launch Brave, go to Menu --> More tools --> Add profile and create a new browser profile (this will not overwrite the user’s current profile, and the user is free to delete the new profile after testing).
Close the user’s original profile window so only the new profile window is open.
Test the issue.
Possibly, the Brave Shields Block Trackers & Ads setting at Standard is better for AOL email access, than Aggressive.
Definitely, JavaScripts must be allowed for AOL email access.
The next time I help this client remotely, I’ll try your suggestions.
I already cleared all types of history for all time but didn’t disable the uBlock Origin extension, mainly because uBlock Origin in Firefox didn’t hinder downloading AOL email attachments.
But I’ll try that the next time I help that client. It might be days or weeks, though. I forwarded your suggestions and will see if she wants my help.