[Android] Add extension support to Brave Core Android

[bbondy]

This is a placeholder for adding extension support for Android. This was already in progress by @AlexeyBarabash

See also another browser that completed it already: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src

[ghost]

Reference: #4117

[bbondy]

@thepcwiz101 the current repo is indeed https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs/
This is a new initiative to start to create android builds from this repo though. So he wasn't wrong at the time.

[ghost]

@bbondy oh ok.

[szaimen]

Any update on this?

[hjyoung1]

Any updates on this?

[ghost]

The feature is non-essential. It may take up to a year to implement or it may not be implemented at all.

[ghost]

Report i made to google regarding extensions on android. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1000168#c3

[Pluripotentt]

Brave Android needs extension to work, otherwise the ETH 2 way wallet (Metamask fork) can't work on android.

[srirambv]

Multiple +1's from #7606

+1 from @Raul1198 via #9151

[ghost]

#9312

[alagga]

Any news on this? It was planned for Juni for the nightly wasn't it? :)

[broadstairs]

Just to add that despite my liking of the Brave browser on the desktop the Android version without extensions is impossible for me to use on Android. As others have already said Kiwi has extensions but without a sync capability it is also not worth running. So please actually make this happen I'm sure this will only be good for Brave.

[bridiver]

We take substantially more care than that with patching and also avoid it whenever possible by either subclassing and/or using the preprocessor to change class or method names. Even with all the care we take to avoid and minimize them, maintaining patches is not a trivial task.

…

On Aug 31, 2021, at 1:37 AM, Tortino ***@***.***> wrote:  I have just tried kiwi on my phone: installed ublock origin and it works correctly. it seems faster than brave with it's adblocking enabled. I'd like to keep using brave but ignoring kiwi is getting harder. about patching the chrome codebase I have found on reddit this comment from kiwi developer: "True, basically the new strategy is to not remove code, but instead go all around if #if 0 and #endif and bind code at the very edge of functions (start or beginning) trying to change minimum things (like if Kiwi was a plugin to Chrome) It's absolutely horrible in terms of logic ("show toolbar", "ahem, actually no, don't show toolbar"), but in terms of maintenance it's fantastic (I've conducted at least 20 rebase already). I hope it'll pay off long-term yes :)" maybe brave developers could try using the same approach. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[ChaosBlades]

• I along with a not insignificant number of Brave users would like Extension support on mobile
• The Brave team have stated numerous times there stance on the subject. Which I can respect.

Now can we either lock this issue to contributors only or us users restrain ourselves from simply responding with complains and immature jabs so that all of our email boxes can not be filled with useless notifications and still get updates on actual developments on this issue?

I have been on the internet for far too long to actually believe people can restrain themselves but always enjoy being proven wrong.

[kimkha]

I think the maintainer of kiwi was trying to raise the issue with Chromium here https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1074710. So you guys could follow or request on that issue instead of Brave browser. No?

Simply comment on that issue, so every Chromium developer sees it.

[lazymonkey2]

maybe all companies interested in forking chromium should get toghether to perform community patching on the chrome source (common patches for de-googling, for adding extensions, etc). think some sort of "open chromium foundation"
each company will contribute some common patches useful to all companies, then each companiy will apply it's own special patches for it's browser. think about brave, kiwi, vivaldi, opera and microsoft collaborating on this :-)

[tajnymag]

maybe all companies interested in forking chromium should get toghether to perform community patching on the chrome source (common patches for de-googling, for adding extensions, etc). think some sort of "open chromium foundation"
each company will contribute some common patches useful to all companies, then each companiy will apply it's own special patches for it's browser. think about brave, kiwi, vivaldi, opera and microsoft collaborating on this :-)

Isn't that already a thing?

[sheikh-azharuddin]

I guess this thread can be locked or closed....when no progress made for more than 2 years..I don't think it will be added ..regarding chromium or chrome they are deliberately not interested in adding extension support for chrome as it is one of their revenue source...

[bridiver]

I guess this thread can be locked or closed....when no progress made for more than 2 years..I don't think it will be added ..regarding chromium or chrome they are deliberately not interested in adding extension support for chrome as it is one of their revenue source...

@sheikh-azharuddin if we had no intention of ever doing it then we would close it. The time the ticket has been open is not relevant. It's something we want to support, but it's a matter of priorities and we don't have the time/resources to allocate to it right now. I don't necessarily want to lock the issue because what other browsers (like kiwi) could potentially be helpful information, but I'm going to delete comments (past and future) that aren't relevant. This is a forum for discussing the feature, not which browser you like better or whether or not you think Brave will ever implement this feature

[bridiver]

I think the maintainer of kiwi was trying to raise the issue with Chromium here https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1074710. So you guys could follow or request on that issue instead of Brave browser. No?

Simply comment on that issue, so every Chromium developer sees it.

the buildflags are definitely part of the problem and chromium devs have previously indicated that they would accept patches to change is_android -> enable_extensions where appropriate

[nathanmp]

I won't pretend to know how useful this info is or how much it fixes the issues that prevent(ed?) this feature without making major changes to Chromium, but this comment is on the link that kimkha provided above, dated Sep 1 2021 (but I don't see any comments since then that addressed this). Does this change the situation any?

In addition to what Winston from Samsung, the Chromium team has done considerable improvements in the .gn files to resolve the ambiguous statements from is_desktop to is_extensions so this specific ticket seems resolved from a tech perspective.

[kimkha]

@nathanmp It's unconfirmed from Chromium team, so we don't know if that issue is fixed. Perhaps someone should look into the newest code of Chromium? But if it's fixed, then no blockers on this.

Also, the comment of @bbondy here #4493 (comment) could give us another perspective: Whether or not the extension feature is higher priority now? The answer is still no, as we haven't had any updates from the brave team yet.

[tathastu871]

Add option in menu called bookmarklet where we can store or add javascript bookmarklets and run as a workaround for some extension

Example:
Adding translate bookamarklet to translate webpage because brave android has no translate feature
Adding bookmarklet to search archive.org etc

[zsoltsandor]

I nth this. I would use extensions beyond the capabilities of vanilla Brave, eg wallets (for Tezos, Cosmos, others), Coil, Microsoft products, etc.

[blogmangit]

is it possible for brave android to implement an element picker come element hider which will connect to the custom filter ? in this way we don't even need extensions to block ads just hide them with element selector and which will automatically add them to the custom filter.

Since brave android doesn't have developer tool integrated we need element selectors to detect the ad element without which we can't even report what element to block.

[git10135405]

I also look forward to brave's support for extensions, which will make the brave browser stand out in the Android camp！

[samlux04]

is it possible for brave android to implement an element picker come element hider which will connect to the custom filter ? in this way we don't even need extensions to block ads just hide them with element selector and which will automatically add them to the custom filter.

Since brave android doesn't have developer tool integrated we need element selectors to detect the ad element without which we can't even report what element to block.

Brave contains ads. It's in the play store header. I don't think they will allow as much flexibility regarding adblock while they still depend on ads. Brave isn't like other browser developed by a group of enthusiastic open source devs but a company to make profit.

[bridiver]

Brave contains ads. It's in the play store header. I don't think they will allow as much flexibility regarding adblock while they still depend on ads. Brave isn't like other browser developed by a group of enthusiastic open source devs but a company to make profit.

@samlux04 we already have built in adblock on android and you can turn off brave ads without losing any functionality in the browser so the implication that we are not adding extension support to prevent the use of adblock extensions (which wouldn't work on brave ads anyway) is clearly not correct. Also every major browser is written by a company to make a profit.