The most recent Brave update on Android now features a bubble notification on the screen whenever there is an active or completed file download. There is no option to disable this bubble notification (turning off Android notifications doesn’t work).
This bubble is just annoying and it gets in my way, it blocks the view of the screen and it just slows me down because I have to manually swipe away the bubble notification for each and every completed download. This is absolutely unnecessary as there is already an Android notification of the download so there’s no need for me to see the popup bubble on the screen. The app was already fine the way it was before this bubble notification feature was added, I already had Android notifications for active and completed downloads (now I have to swipe away notifications TWICE, once on the Brave app and again on Android notifications, this is just a big waste of time and energy).
Please add an option to disable bubble notifications (because I can’t see any in the settings). The notification settings in the options is only for Android notifications, not the pop up bubble notifications on the Brave app itself (I tried turning off all notifications and it still shows the notification bubble for downloads).
I have the latest version of the Brave browser on Android, there is no option that I can find to disable the bubble notification for downloads. Turning off notifications in the Android app settings doesn’t work.
Possibly, but there’s a lot of other things to work on.
Did you turn off bubble notifications? I mean, if it’s happening on downloads I’m curious if it’s in Download Manager or if it’s Brave giving you the notification, though you’d think just be Brave. Yet maybe turning them off in general would be worth it?
Sadly, I only have Android 10 at the moment, so I can’t test it and troubleshoot to see what you’re referring to. More or less asking questions and making the suggestion(s) I did so I can get feedback from you and better understand.
In order to test, all you need to do is download something from the Brave browser… such as downloading an image. You will see the “file downloaded” bubble message on the Brave browser screen at the top after it’s complete.
I have completely disabled Android notifications for Brave and the download bubble message still shows, it’s coming from within the Brave app and not Android. It is very unnecessary and annoying, and it slows me down since I download a lot. There are no options in the Brave settings to turn it off.
Notice at the top, it says “downloading file” and later “download complete”. The message stays on the screen until I swipe it clear or leave the browser window.
Yeah, I get that. What’s weird is the permissions for those bubbles would actually be part of Android. If you have it disabled there, it shouldn’t be showing within the app itself. I’m assuming you checked the links I sent and tested on your own, but haven’t been able to disable it. And since I don’t have the version of Android you’re on, I can’t toy with things myself.
We’ll tag @Serg here as he’s one of the Android developers and he might have better answer. Plus, if it is an issue directly with the browser, maybe they can work on it for the future. I can’t say when or if he’ll check and respond here, as he’s a developer and not a forum support. But we’ll hope we get lucky and happen to catch him for some quick assistance this week.
Such a bad update ever happened to brave browser for Android. I have both Android 11 (one UI) and Android 12 (pixel). I disabled pop ups for both of my phone completely. But brave still showing those download pop ups…it’s so annoying to manually swipe them up it’s only slows me down when I had to download images fast. Never knew technology was meant to make life harder.
I think brave developers are slacking off. I wouldn’t mind shifting to any other chrome based browser if this pop up thing is not there. But all chrome based browsers are plagued with it. Seriously? Cut this thing off! We are tired of it.
Take monthly fee from me i don’t care. I would happily pay for things useful to me.
I have the same issue. It started today. I found the reason in chrome and was able to disable it, at least for now. It was at
chrome://flags/#download-progress-message
It appears to bring back the notification bar at the bottom. Not as good as being gone but still better than the bubble. I can’t find a similar flag option in Brave.
I don’t mind the notifications in the system bar or even at the bottom of the page but this bubble is annoying as it is on top of everything and interferes with browsing.
So is there any way to disable it? Everyone hates it. It only started happening when I updated Brave and doesn’t happen in any other browser (chrome, firefox, etc). It is one of the most annoying and useless “features” I’ve ever seen on an app.
Not to take up much of your time, but hoping you can explain something if able.
Just how much control does Brave actually have over what it implements on its browser? Like I see where we talk about issues “upstream” but does that mean you can’t change it? If not, who is it that’s “upstream” who can?
I thought I understood it that Chromium overall is open to all. Then Brave was taking it and able to modify everything as they pleased. Once this modification was done, they kept some parts of Chrome but had “de-Googled” it and made it fairly unique. Which includes being able to add features or take away aspects, such as to modify bubble notifications talked about here.
I could understand if it’s said this was a lower priority and might be something in the future. I’m just not sure how to take it when I hear it’s “upstream” and “there is nothing to disable it…” As that makes it sound like Brave has very little control over its own browser/app.
If you, @Mattches, or anyone else can help clarify that…it would be great to know and make sure there’s no misunderstandings.
@Saoiray,
In a nutshell, technically we could change whatever we want. But every change to the underlying systems requires constant upkeep and code changes to maintain. Major changes to the engine in particular are non-trivial and require a good amount of overhead,
When we refer to “upstream” fixes, we basically mean that the Chromium team is going to fix/resolve this issue when a new update to the engine is pushed. So a lot of times it doesn’t make much sense for us to push a fix unique to Brave with all the overhead included if the option will be fixed “for free” in an upcoming Chromium bump.
We obviously do and will make these changes, but they will go through quite a bit of consideration and testing before actually being implemented, if at all. It also depends on whether the change is adding something unique to Brave or changing something in the underlying engine.
A good example of this is the recent “tab view” debacle on Android:
I highly recommend reading the comment from one of our developers on what’s required to re-implement the desired “stacked”/“card” view option and the different considerations that need to be taken to implement something that may seem non-trivial from the outside looking in:
