The Brave sidebar appears to be a new feature.
It looks to be an important part of the marketing funnel to monetize Brave users by gradually, consensually helping to direct their attention to new Brave features & services. Though consensual might be too generous here. Opt-out settings don’t opt you out.
I was surprised when the sidebar first appeared, but thankful for the deep-link it provides into Settings to change its default configuration, pictured.
Initially, on following the settings link, brave://settings/?search=Show%20Sidebar, I’m brought to the setting: Show Sidebar.
The Setting provides 3 options, “Enabled” “On mouseover” & “Disabled”, and a (false) dependent indicator “Enabled”, sometimes fleetingly appearing as “Disabled”.
Toggling this option from “Never” to either “On-mouseover” or “Always”, and then back to “Never” updates the “Enabled” indicator to “Disabled”. Success! My sought outcome.
However, distressingly, refreshing or reopening the Settings page, returns the indicator to Enabled. Is this how consent works?
I would prefer an opt-in consent, a features blog post, a prompt to try out new feature, but now I can expect this bar to:
- appear randomly on new window loads, (“Never” / Enabled),
In this “Never” setting, which was set when the feature first asserted itself, and again, still, when it appeared on—a new window, I don’t recall how it was opened—the Sidebar still appears. - or spring to life & divert attention anytime my mouse crosses the left edge of a window (“On mouseover” / Enabled)
Why does the Sidebar keep appearing, despite “Never” default (and explicit) setting?
It looks like the brave://flags/#side-panel does not affect this feature. What’s wrong with a bookmarklet or extension?