I dislike hamburgers, and much prefer to browse a full service menu. 
PLEASE bring back the optional Menu bar.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep using Firefox (with Menu bar enabled and uBlock Origin installed).
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I created an account specifically so I could reply/add my response. I dislike the new ChromeBrave. If I wanted a chrome layout I’d use Chrome. I like the menubar at the top (like EVERY other desktop application I’ve used for 2+ decades), the addressbar below that, and tabs below that. Rearrangeable for people who like to swap their tabs and addressbar around, but I prefer mine in that order.
On top of that, I noticed the settings menu feels significantly less customizable. I have something like 5 browsers I’ve been playing around with, and so far I like the sheer amount of customization of Vivaldi. I’ll probably swap to something like that once Brave Muon gets killed.
The little menu widget is fine for phones with small screens, but desktop programs shouldn’t be penalized too.
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Hamburger doesn’t even animate… boring. Just kidding it’s not that bad, once you get used to no menu it’s like whatevs…
downside is it does seem to add some clicks (motion) to some tasks, clearing cache is a pita to navigate to… make it a button (option) on the menu, 1click easy money.
I’d like to be able to rearrange my back/forward/refresh… I always refresh on right of url… this is not fun to go cleeeeeear left for a refresh and no i don’t want to reach for keys.
Please make option for normal menu sans hamburger, or reactive to screen size so > (nPixel) full menu thanks!
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I was using the old version of Brave for this exact reason. Now that we are practically forced to use the ‘new’ version, in what is the least “brave” thing to do from the developers (I mean wasn’t the whole point of switching to Brave to not be dictated to as to what version / options / addons you use?) who are taking a page out of Microsoft’s book with this.
I’m now at a loss as to whether I should continue using Brave, or once again look for an alternative - like I did with Chrome etc. Not just because it’s “only a menu bar”, but deliberately taking options and features away from software, then FORCING the users to “upgrade”, is what Brave’s competition did that pissed people off enough to get them to switch. This is exactly how it started with literally every other mega corp, this is exactly what Microsoft is doing now - WHY are devs so hell bent on shafting their users?
TLDR: Please can we have our menu bar back?
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It took me a while to figure out what all the hoopla was about. Until someone mentioned Windows.
I’m on a Mac which has a system wide menu at the top of the screen. So Brave windows have no menu bar, but the Brave menu bar is ever present at the top. And I use it. A lot.
Just imagining having NO MENU BAR would drive me bonkers. You all have my vote, if it counts!
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Both having a dedicated menu bar and not having it have merits. I’m happy either way as long as we have a toggle option to personalize how we’d like to have it for ourselves.
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Yup! That’s all we’re asking for.
Making it a togglable setting means ALL users are catered for.
I really, really dislike this attitude that Microsoft / Google and co have nowadays. “We’ve made it like this because it’s AWESOME, and you HAVE to like it and use it how WE tell you, (because it boosts our stats that say everyone loves it).”
It’s ME using the f****** browser all day, not a Microsoft employee sat at my desk. Let the user customise it to benefit their own experience, then everyone is happy.
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I was a bit confused at this too. On KDE I too have a global menubar enabled (similar to how macOS does it) and it’s working fine.
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Menu bar? Yes, please! 
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I just came from FireFox because they blocked all my plugins.
No menu bar? Seriously… this is a basically usability issue. Those Android style combo boxes are horrible UI elements. They make simple tasks take far far far longer. Bring back the menu bar!
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Did this get fixed? I use DESKTOP/LAPTOP and was so annoyed with NEWBrave’s not having the TOP MENU (File - Edit - View…) that I uninstalled NEWBrave and went back to OLDBrave… Now I get a WARNING(!!!) that I can only use OLDBrave for nine more days… So, will it disappear? Well, if NEWBrave has not been fixed, AIN’T GONNA USE IT. Has the TOP MENU (File - Edit - View…) been restored?
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…just to support so many previous postings: without the menu bar I prefer ol’ firefox as slow and overloaded as it may be…
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You’d think the devs would get that following the latest fad by morons (yes, morons) that make the user conform to the app rather than the other way around is a very bad idea. Particularly given the circumstances that led to Brave existing.
Simply put: GET. THIS. FIXED.
It’s a real shame, when on a Mac this is a must have browser. I even like it on iOS and Android. Won’t touch it on Windows until this issue is resolved.
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I am appalled that a menu bar isn’t an option. Some of us who are more old school and aren’t obsessed with getting every millimeter of screen real estate prefer the traditional navigation. Looks like I still can’t move away from Firefox just yet, which I’m fine with, been using it since 2004 and it never steered me wrong until the Extensions expiring fiasco a few weeks ago.
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Am I the only one that genuinely just doesn’t understand why this is a big deal?
The consensus seems to be that the added click it takes to open the “hamburger” menu just takes too much time in a PC interface. But if you really wanted to save time in a PC interface, why wouldn’t you just use the keyboard shortcut? That’s always WAY faster than clicking around whether we’re talking about a “classic” or a “hamburger” menu.
I’m baffled… 
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Hear hear!
I also miss the menu bar. I’m one of the old fogeys (and there is A LOT of us out there) who like their menus where they can see them. Yeah, I dig the appeal of the new “clean” look for those young whippersnappers but I can tell you that a menu bar is the first thing someone used to firefoxes and whatnots looks for, especially if the person is primarily a desktop user (and again, there are A LOT of us out there). Transition would be much easier with a menu bar in place, and facilitating transition is what is important at this stage of the project.
So, a definite +1 for menu bar.
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Of course you are baffled. I’m baffled that some people prefer strawberry icecream to chocolate one. But if I were to run an icecream shop I’d definitely offer both.
I despise how mobile design is creeping onto desktops. It’s godawful. Bitchute for example is suffering terribly because of it. I simply cannot stand how godawful it looks on my huge desktop monitor and how much scrolling and clicking I have to do to perform simple functions that I don’t even have to think about in youtube. I’d really like some “design genius” to please explain to me how a design philosophy based on a tiny 5’’ touch screen is somehow better for 30’’ mouse and keyboard setups than UI that was built and evolved over decades specifically for that environment? I’ve got an acre of screen real estate and I want to cover it with stuff, knobs and dials and I want everything to be within easy reach. This is what desktops and laptops are FOR - and not to try and ape an INFERIOR environment that is your phone. This blight of design “minimalism” is what is holding back a lot of alt-tech companies - in another example I spend a lot less time on Minds than I could simply because it’s suffering from a terminal case of “mobilitis” - just scroll and scroll and scroll and squint at the screen because text is somehow bad now… it’s all about tiny tiny icons with huge swathes of “whitespace” (or “deadspace” as i call it) - it’s godawful both visually and ergonomically compared even to the otherwise dreadful facebook which at least functions properly in PC environments.
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Mobile design is a factor in a lot of design decisions, but it’s not just that. I hide toolbars/menus every opportunity I can in any app that I can on my desktops and laptops precisely because they have the benefit of a keyboard. I can’t remember the last time I actually “clicked” a menu in any program I use regularly or even my OS. Keyboard shortcuts render mouse-based menus irrelevant; anyone truly concerned with “speed/convenience” on a desktop or laptop learns keyboard shortcuts. I’d rather have that screen real estate for actual content than boundless clickable menu options–I’ve got 6 different windows open & scattered across my 2k 27in monitor right now.
It’s definitely a preference thing. Clearly anyone who wants to use a mouse to click around can do so! To each their own. But mousing around menus is not ever faster or more convenient than keyboard shortcuts. And I think you’ll see old-style menus largely gone from all devices in the next 5-10 years; that’s just the way UI design is going. I don’t fault Brave for doing what Chrome, Edge, & Firefox have already done. All major browsers have a similar hamburger-ish menu now.
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Now look you hipster. I’ve been using keyboard “shortcuts” way before there were even mice around. What you call “shortcuts” wasthe only way of doing things and you know what? It sucked. It sucked real hard.
You know what a “shortcut” is ? It is an ALTERNATIVE way of doing things. If you don’t have the main road, shortcuts becomes pointless - or to be more precise, your whole traffic infrastructure is inferior because it’s all built on shortcuts, there are no main thoroughfares that can take the bulk of traffic. And again, don’t you go teaching me what a goddamn keyboard is.
As for all menus being gone in 5-10 years… Good luck with that. It’s a stupid hipsterish fashion that is bound to fail in the end because humans are what they are. You cannot change it. I’m a professional user and when I do professional work a hamburger menu or a shortcut only system is an automatic garbage bin for me. There is a reason why professional cameras have all the “uncool” knobs and dials all over them and why a professional editing station does not have touch screens but big fat knobs and physical sliders. Professionals require maximum comfort, maximum intuitiveness from their equipment so they can fully concentrate on the work itself. And “minimalism” is not comfortable. Not in the least. It is a kind of cynical affectation, a mannerism that it purports to oppose - like modernist architecture, pretending to be functional while pointedly ignoring its main function - people living there.
But to return to “minimalist” UI/UX. Humans like to see what they are doing, to feel what they are doing with their hands. Humans like to be in (perceived) control of their environment, and a hamburger menu or a shortcut “system” is not it. I could write books on the decadence of modern utility design, how it all started with Jobs’s drive to turn computers into TVs and appliances for the “masses” which then created a need for cryptic hipsterish shortcut cult. All in order to compensate for the artificial problem that was already solved a long time ago. “Yeah, let’s remove all the menus and buttons, it’s CLEANER now” (btw, in psychology obsession with “cleanness” is a strong indicator of psychotic personality, and Jobs was as clear an example of a psychotic personality as ever graced a medical textbook) but now we cannot do anything… I know, let’s put in cryptic shortcuts that hipsters have to learn by heart! And that will tie them to the particular piece of software because who would switch to competing software if they’d have to learn all the new shortcuts!"
So you start with the desire to make everything simple and easy and end up with something that is needlessly complicated and convoluted. You start with a universal visual language which enables users to engage with amazingly wide array of software and end up with a tower of babylon of competing systems and standards for each particular piece of software. And why? So you can show off to your teacher/employer how many “shortcuts” you have learned by heart? And that will make you “better” at what you do? Well don’t come looking for work in my company…
Despicable. This design philosophy is a just a fad. In 5 to 10 years people will be looking at today’s UX design with pretty much the same horror as we view web sites from the nineties. “What were these people thinking?!?”
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And why do we have to follow a fad, again? Why not make it OPTIONAL?
This “It’s better because we say so” is a load of BS. Each user is different and has different preferences.
Just how are you going to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate your bookmarks, eh? You really telling me hammering that down arrow is faster than just clicking it? When you’re opening several bookmarks, that extra click all adds up. If you use a keyboard shortcut to open the menu, you’re mousing over it to click what you need anyway, so shortcuts are irrelevant.
Regardless, great if you prefer that mode! I prefer different. Why can’t we have an option that suits BOTH again? Especially in a brand new browser.
Following hipster trends is the worst way to go, especially with something like UI, which is subjective. Why only please half your users when you can literally please both? We can already detect what device you’re using, so why not enable a menu bar only on desktops. Don’t tell me “it’s too much work”, when we’ve been programming them just fine for YEARS.
This just smacks of a “change it for the sake of it, look at all the cool NEW things we’ve done!” mentality.
This is LITTERALLY the main thing stopping me from using the Brave browser! (The other being the Alzheimer’s script blocker, but that’s for another topic…)
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