How do I go back to Muon?

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So, I was at work when Core installed on my work PC. IMMEDIATELY hated it. Frankly, it’s a reskinned Chrome. Ugly, buggy, and no faster than Muon in real world use. I attempted to go back to the old version by uninstalling Core and renaming the shortcuts, but found that the original Brave install was broken beyond repair. So brave is basically Done on my work PC. Just great.

Really guys, if I wanted Chrome, I would have installed Chrome.

So, I got home, and I had left the browser running. It was telling me to close the browser to update. So instead of closing the browser I disabled “update.exe” and then cleared the Windows Temp folder hoping that would stop the update. I was wrong. Upon closing and reopening Brave, I found myself presented with the hideous new interface. Argh!

All I want to to go FULLY back to Muon. NOT some greyed out icon where upon opening it I get a huge “USE OUR NEW VERSION!” splash. Just good old Muon, as it was prior to the update. I realize that this means that I won’t get updates, but honestly, I would prefer that over the new version. Sorry, I’m just not interested in Yet Another Chrome Clone.

So, how do I just “go back” to the last version of Muon? Do I need to reinstall? If so, how do I back up my existing settings? Is there a location where I can download the old installer so I can archive it?

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@Wearyman, no problem.

The muon version is still there unless you deleted or uninstalled it.
You can find it in the directory ~/AppData/Local/Brave

If for whatever reason you can’t seem to locate it. You can always download previous releases from our GitHub page:

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Please re-read my post.

I don’t want an altered version of Muon that displays a “We see you’ve already updated to the latest version” splash. I don’t even want a reminder that “Core” exists. I want my old, clean experience without having to risk all my settings and history. How do I uninstall Core and revert CLEANLY to Muon?

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Thanks for the github link. I’ll use that to reinstall on my work PC. Hopefully it can pick up the settings from the old folders. (When I uninstalled I told it to keep the settings.)

Now I just have to figure out how to cleanly remove Core without breaking Muon. Might have to spend some time digging in the registry…

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Nope. No digging required.

Uninstall it like you would any program and elect to remove browsing data.
Browsing data for Core is in ~AppData/Local/BraveSoftware
If this folder remains after uninstall, delete it.

You should now be able to install whatever Muon build you’d like and not receive the update message.

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That sort of worked. I got Muon back, but I STILL get the “You’re using an old version” message and now the browser icon is grey with no “app.ico” file to make it properly orange again. Was there a change in 0.26 on Github to alter the Brave.exe file and remove the Orange?

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OK, Fixed!

I basically Uninstalled everything and then reinstalled 0.25.2 from Github as that seems to be the last “unaltered” version of Brave as 0.26 appears to be the “Hey get our NEW browser” version.

So I will back up that copy and use it. For now.

Honestly though, and I don’t say this to be mean, but Brave is dead as a browser project as long as they use the Chrome engine. They are now just another Chrome reskin, as Firefox has become, ultimately existing at the whim of Google.

Reskin projects either fail or putter along with a microscopic user base. You had a good thing going, but Brave corp won’t survive as another reskin project. I had high hopes we could have a really good browser. You have no idea how sad I am so see you guys buy into the Google monster.

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Not really, they deactivate all the stuff that would normally communicate with Googlee.

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Just a linux “noob” and I would like to share my understanding of “re-skinning”. Chrome is a proprietary build of Chromium, which is open source. Brave is built on Chromium. By your logic Chrome and Brave are just “re skins” of Chromium. I think its unfair to label all the work involved in Brave core as a cosmetic “re-theme”. I take Brave’s mission statement seriously and hope you would continue to support Brave. I also understand that Google is stripped from any shared “google/chromium” code that is shared.

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I for one like the new browser. Made it easy to switch from chrome.

Just because I’m use to the Chrome UI. In the Muon version the address bar and tab bar location bothered me.

I understand the want to stay on the muon version though. I hope you were able to get the old version working.

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I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Firefox is my default browser, especially since Brave moved away from Muon and lost features (though I’m keeping an eye on Brave for when it has feature parity with the old Muon version).

Firefox is not a Chrome, or rather Chromium, reskin. Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, the new upcoming Edge… sure. They are all based on Chromium. Firefox is not, however. That’s one of the main reasons I use and prefer it. (Plus the new-ish containers feature, which is now indispensable to me and many other Firefox users.)

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Hi, this way back:

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