I have been using Brave as my default browser on iPad Air 2 (running iOS 13.3.1). I will be going back to Safari because Brave has become unusable - examples of malfunctions:
(1) set to delete all content on closure and after manual delete, Brave now occupies about 700MB on iPad. What is this bloat?!? Either Brave or Apple are hoarding crud. I hate crud.
(2) my main email is Hushmail, based online. I cannot read emails using Brave because the ‘focus’ does not move when I try to scroll down the page.
(3) when accessing websites with large image content, the browser cannot shift focus - focus locks on the first image and the screen ‘shudders’ as the image goes in and out of focus, and scroll is disabled. Is the cache (?) overwhelmed by large file sizes?!?
(4) I get alerts when using eBay to ‘update browser’ and key functions on the website no longer work - for example, when I do a search, the eBay default is to show ‘most relevant’ results. There is a dropdown menu to select other ways to sort results e.g. by price or ‘ending soonest’. That dropdown list no longer works on Brave.
I like the idea of a private browser without the nuisance of adverts or spyware but Brave does not deliver this on an iPad.
@hermit2020,
Thanks for reaching out and for leaving the detailed feedback – we do truly appreciate it. Lets see if we can get some of this addressed:
The 700MB could be the Shields and/or Rewards features running – can you give me some exact steps to reproduce this?
I was able to reproduce the behavior you’re describing – it’s as if the page jumps or “springs” back to the original focus point. This occurred both with and without Shields up. I’ll be filing an issue for this on our Github later today.
Can you share a website that you can consistently reproduce this issue on? When I tested, I went to a few desktop wallpaper and photography websites and was able to navigate (including slideshows and pages with a grid of images) without any issue. I would note that I also tried Deviantart.com, and the page would hang for some time, load slowly, and be generally unresponsive. Not sure if this related to what you’re seeing or something else altogether.
I was unable to reproduce this one – both logged in and logged out, the search function and accompanying dropdown menus all worked without issue. Are there any other details surrounding the eBay issue(s) that you can provide?
Again, we do appreciate your feedback and I am passing your feedback on to the iOS team right now (literally).
I installed DuckDuckGo browser - and the same issues mentioned in my first comment appear on that browser too which suggests something in the underlying engine assuming Brave and Duck are using same foundation? … That’s as far as my browser engineering knowledge takes me.
(1) I do not have Brave rewards as I prefer not to see adverts. Everything is turned off to keep it simple and secure, I use no background images etc. The only customisation is that my bookmarks (about 40) are saved. That should be only a few bytes added to the vanilla browser. I delete any downloads/cached images when I log out. I considered uninstalling/reinstalling to delete hidden junk but that means restoring my bookmarks and the effort involved depresses me. Maybe its easy but it feels like a chore.
(3) For reading Hushmail emails, I click link to ‘read in browser’ and that gives a scrollable page for long messages full of images/letterheads/logos etc Not sure if opening in browser destroys my Hushmail privacy… I used to be able to read everything on their website.
(4) eBay problem with unresponsive dropdown lists etc has been corrected in the last hour - I messaged them about it, maybe an engineer took his elbow off a keyboard and fixed the glitch
If there is a fix for these things, I am interested. Until these glitches appeared (following recent updates to Hushmail and eBay) I liked Brave. I guess Brave is having to do ‘catch-up’ to see what others have changed so they can make the browser function again. Its an endless task.
I appreciate all the hard work. I would pay a subscription to use the Brave browser to pay to keep it updated - but I don’t like ad-based business model. I help fund Linux development through monthly donations, and send money to AOSP developers to encourage the ‘alternative’ engineers. Please consider that business model.
