Brave, what happened?

Brave,

What happened to your browser? I just downloaded the new build and i am upset/confused with all the changes. I used Brave because it was different and had many features i loved.

The new update is basically google chrome now. It looks and feel the same while taking some features i loved (hovering over tabs, private sessions in the same window or telling me how fast a web-page loaded in the URL) away. I do enjoy the redesign of the Brave Rewards though so all is not bad. Please bring back some of the old settings that i used to love!!

This doesnā€™t mean i do not still use Brave!! It is still my favorite browser to use

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Totally agree. I used Brave because it was different.
Im really upset, i hate Chrome.
Im going back to Firefox

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I see many new users registered after this new update, it is no coincidence. I am also one of them

Long story short, with this new update Brave lost everything liked it for. Appearance, tab setsā€¦and other advanced settings.

When I opened up settings I was in shock - it is Chrome rip-off. And I donā€™t like Chrome.

Sorry, but I will have to uninstall new Brave and never look back. I will still use old one from time to time.

P.S.
I probably know what is happening behind the scenes, so I just want to say Thank You to original Brave team. Wish You all the best!

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More GUI updates are planned, it will look different :slight_smile:

Here, too, work is still being done, I guess all or most (???) functions will be reinstalled.

:sunglasses::+1:

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Me too, there are a few things I canā€™t do now with these changes & I am not impressed.

The earlier version was based on muon which was an experimental browser. Recently as planned Brave switched to Chromium base. Still it retains all the privacy enhancements. One additional feature which many people were looking for is availability of extensions. Now in the chromium based Brave browser all extensions from chrome webstore can be used. But the points you mentioned are valid. Hope the team bring back some of the old features from the muon based browser.
Thanks

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Me too, Iā€™m very disappointed with the new Brave.

  1. I do admit that it looks more streamlined, but I value functionality more than looks. For me, the new Brave is a big step back in user experience. I do not feel in control.
  • The active tab does not stand out. It takes me 5-10 seconds to find which tab Iā€™m currently looking at. Thatā€™s insane. I couldnā€™t find how to make the active tab stand out.

  • Every time I visit a site for which I have a password I get pestered with a popup that invites me to manage my passwords. I couldnā€™t find how to disable that popup

  • I want torrents to download in my torrent client, not in Brave. I couldnā€™t find how to change that.

  • I want my browser to look the same every time I use it. So I donā€™t like the ever-changing pictures on new tabs. I couldnā€™t find how to disable those pictures.

  • I wanted to add history, downloads and bookmarks to my toolbar, because thatā€™s how I configured Firefox. I couldnā€™t find how to customize the toolbar.

  • When i exit Brave I want to retain some of my login cookies so that i donā€™t have to login over and over again. I couldnā€™t find how to make that happen.

Maybe these things can be done, but the fact that i found how to do them in Firefox, but not in Brave, is not a sign of good design.

  1. The new Brave looks way too much like Chrome. I can understand that this is a difficult balance. If Brave looks and feels like Chrome, then the transition will be smooth for users that migrate from Chrome to Brave. On the other hand, if you migrate away from Chrome because you donā€™t like Chrome, then why would you want Brave to look and feel exactly like the browser you donā€™t like?

  2. One reason why I donā€™t use Chrome is that I donā€™t trust Google. Now Brave looks like Chrome. If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, then it is a duck. This is an issue since trust is a selling point for Brave. How can I trust that this is not Chrome if it looks exactly the same?

  3. Another reason why I donā€™t use Chrome is the terrible settings menu. It seems purposefully designed to be confusing and to prevent getting an overview of all settings. Way too much space between items results in way, way, waaaaay too much scrolling. By the time you scrolled 47 screens down, of course you canā€™t remember what the settings were on screen 29. Apart from the endless scrolling, most settings hide in subsections that lead to subsubsections that each have their subsubsubsections, most of which require additional scrolling. No overview.
    Itā€™s a major disappointment that Brave chose to copy this most terrible of all settings menus.

To funny I have the polar opposite, love the Chrome integration it gives me a few Apps that I consider essential but I donā€™t need apps like UMatrix and AdBlockPlus, so impressed Iā€™ve changed all of my browsers over to Brave (1xUbuntu, 1xWin & 2x Mobile)
Thanks Brave please keep up the good work :grinning:

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I too was quite shocked when I updated to the new Brave Browser, only to find it was Chromium basedā€¦ I had just removed Chrome & do not use Chromium ( stock browser) out of principle as I HATE Google.

I do wish Brave continued down the Muon routeā€¦ It was fresh, experimental, different & joy to use! Yes it was lacking in some extensions, however the point of open source & community led projects is to improve & improve as time goes on. Going to Chromium is quite a backwards step & as someone quotedā€¦ If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duckā€¦ Its a duck!! The same can be said for Chromium based browsers - They are just horrible to use & people who initially heard about the Difference Brave was about to bring (and to gladly move from Google) will be sorely disappointed.

EIther the featureset of the new Browser needs to implement the brand new fresh approach of the original Brave Browser or Development of the Muon Variant need to be brought back into life!

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Well we all know this isnā€™t true - could be a hunter setting a trap for other ducks. What if Iā€™ve never seen a duck before and mistake a goose for one?

I think its important to remember that Brave Muon was also based on Chromium under the hood. Muon is a custom fork of Electron which, again, is based on chromium. But it was called something different and looked different so nobody mentioned it.

The only difference now is that weā€™ve adapted their frontend UI. Doing this has several advantages outside of extension support

:point_up: It was also lacking timely crucial security updates that were becoming more and more relevant. Reiterating what our CTO Brian Bondy stated in an article released spring of last year:

  • Because of way we updated Muonā€™s security and internal API constraints that came with, keeping up to date with the chromium base (which often implement important security fixes) was a huge hassle and could sometimes take up to six weeks for a singular update. With our new build, it takes less than a day.
  • Many boiler-plate UI elements that had to be manually written before now come standard with the engine which allows us to move around and style them with greater ease and less developer effort. This frees up time to implement Brave specific features like Rewards and Sync.
  • And one of my favorites (Direct quote): * The Brave shields filtering code runs on the network I/O thread in the browser-kernel process, which gives greater concurrency and responsiveness than in the Muon browser process, and which means our ad and tracker blocking is even faster than equivalent blocking done from JavaScript by Chrome extensions.
    So our ad-blocking and speed are actually faster now on the chromium rebase than on Muon.

Imagine you spend years building a small, cozy home but as time passes, your home keeps getting damaged and needs constant repair. Your only one person so these repairs can take a very long time and if you donā€™t address them the consequences could be severe. You realize that the very structure and foundation of your home worked for the time you built it, but is now not enough to protect you from the elements reliably.
What should you do?

Well, you may want to build yourself a new, better home with a stronger foundation and better overall support/protection. Sounds like a good plan. You then realize that the next house over is well fortified with a cement and wrought iron foundation. All the windows have a thermal sealant on them to keep out the cold and an AC inside for when it gets hot. Oh, and it has a Free sign on the front door.

Now, are you going to slave away and build your home again from scratch? Or are you going to move all your belongings into the empty house next door and build on that?

We still strip google code or anything that sends your data to a third party without your explicit consent. We still block ads and trackers, fingerprinting and a host of other unwanted content by default out of the box. We still offer private browsing via Tor windows. Weā€™re still Brave.

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Just installed the latest version of Brave (Version 0.60.47 Chromium: 72.0.3626.119 (Official Build) (64-bit) after using version 0.21.24 for the past year.

The menu bar has been removed without an option to get it back. Thatā€™s a deal-breaker for me (being a desktop user for 20+ years, not a tablet touch screen kiddo).

Making a browser more difficult and counter intuitive to use is not progressive, itā€™s regressive.

I was considering making Brave my main browser (even tho it is resource intensive) but no longer, unless they restore some user interface options.

BTW, the terrible design of Chrome / Chromium is why I never took to it in the first place.

FYI, been using exclusively Linux distros since 2004.

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If Iā€™m not mistaken, theyā€™re still working on Brave. Just wait :wink:

GUI changes are planned.

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I kind of agree tho.
They should overhaul the interface by taking some from Vivaldi and some from Firefox (Naver Whale is also a cool example).
Chrome is the worst one to pick from, its UI is one of the worst out there

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I donā€™t like the UI shift much, either, but the official switch was just October in general release, so Iā€™d encourage the dissatisfied to give it more time. As has been stated by @Mattches, @MediaBird, and others, the devs switched to the current Chromium base (NOT CHROME) including the default front end mostly to make updates/upgrades faster and easier, including security updates. Since Muon was the UI engine (if I understand correctly), dumping that as part of the switch was effectively an acknowledged UI setback, and itā€™s many peopleā€™s understanding that UI changes are on the way (hope so). Iā€™m having trouble finding explicit statements to that effect, but the Roadmap hints at it while putting other items as higher priority. And thereā€™s the Front End project page. I mean, Brave Muon was also based on Chromium, and the devs put all that work in the Muon UI probably because they didnā€™t like the default Chromium UI, so it would stand to reason theyā€™d work back toward what they had in Muon (or even better).

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@MediaBird - is there any indication of what this updated (hopefully a bit less ā€Chrome copyā€) GUI might look like? :smiling_face:

Sorry, I donā€™t know anything about that.

Completely disagree. Going for something familiar, well tested UX wise with some distinctions was a brilliant move. It looks great now, much better that muon by far IMO. Would love more lowkey distinctive changes, but guessing they are coming.

Oh, remove the buttom tab bar on mobile. Its horrible.

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@Ttttttt Iā€™m a massive fan of the bottom tab bar - therefore Iā€™d suggest it being toggle-able rather than ā€œget rid of itā€ (what works for some doesnā€™t work for all!)

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But since you donā€™t know what GUI changes are planned, you might be surprised by the result?

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hate HATE HATE the new brave!!! have been using Brave since I discovered it years ago and have gotten others to change, but will now quit; it wasnt broke - dont fix it! I want a menu bar -Im no ā€˜developerā€™ , no geek, I want the thing to be useable and intuitive. There is NO sense in disallowing the use of a toolbar. Plus, no matter how many times I try, the #%^& 'bookmarks toolbar' keeps popping up. Did I mention how much I hate this ^&*(ing thing now?