BareBrowser/bare-browser v1.0.0-alpha.3

Bare 1.0.0-alpha.3

on GitHub

Third alpha. The Chromium base moves from 153.0.7999.0 to 153.0.8010.27, picking up upstream's
security fixes along the way, and the series grows to 128 patches. The project now lives at the
BareBrowser organization; existing installs follow the move without doing anything.

Bare is Chromium with the Google parts taken out, maintained as a patch series rather than a fork
so every change stays readable. It is still alpha. Treat it as something to test, not something to
depend on.

Which APK should I download?

• Bare-1.0.0-alpha.3-arm64-v8a.apk is for most modern Android devices. If you are unsure, this
  is the one you want.
• Bare-1.0.0-alpha.3-armeabi-v7a.apk is a compatibility build for 32-bit ARM devices only. It is
  not better or lighter for a 64-bit phone.

What's new

• A List view for tabs. Settings, Tabs and tab groups, Tab view: Grid or List. A list row is
  favicon, title, domain and a close button, with no thumbnails. Grid stays exactly as it was.
• Customizable toolbar shortcuts. The two left positions of the bottom bar can hold Home,
  Incognito, Share, Translate or Bookmark, arranged from a picture of the bar in Settings,
  Appearance, Toolbar shortcuts.
• Tap and Hold actions. Each configurable button can carry a second action on a long press,
  chosen per position. None is the default, so buttons keep their own behaviour until you decide.
• A toolbar swipe action. Off by default: a sideways drag along the bottom bar adjusts
  brightness or volume.
• Open links in apps. Always, Ask every time, or Never. Never is the default and keeps web
  links in Bare, including links wrapped in app intents. Ask puts one dialog in front of an
  otherwise-eligible handoff and remembers Stay here for that page.
• Exit, and Clear on exit. Exit is the last item in the app menu. Clear on exit, under Privacy
  and security, chooses what leaves with you: browsing history, cookies and site data, cached
  images and files, site settings, autofill form data, saved passwords. Nothing is selected by
  default. Bookmarks and extensions are never touched.
• Black backgrounds on darkened sites. When Bare's dark theme darkens a site itself, an
  optional switch takes the generated backgrounds to true black for AMOLED screens. Sites that
  ship their own dark theme are left alone.
• Bookmark import and export. Bookmarks, top-right menu: carry your bookmarks in and out as an
  ordinary HTML file. Import only ever adds.
• A cleaner toolbar by default. Extensions are no longer pinned to the toolbar automatically;
  pin the ones you want from the extensions menu, and the extensions button itself now honours its
  Pin to toolbar setting.
• Fixes and cleanup. Navigation no longer blurs and washes out to white on some pages; the
  extension icons arrive with the rest of the toolbar instead of popping in late; the new tab page
  no longer fetches suggested sites from Google; the sign-in avatar that could appear on the new
  tab page is gone; the Google Password Manager row is gone from settings; autofill wording no
  longer assumes Google is your provider; the update check follows the project to the BareBrowser
  organization.

Upgrading from 1.0.0-alpha.2

Install alpha.3 over your existing Bare. Do not uninstall first. Tabs, history, bookmarks,
extensions and settings all survive.

The welcome screen appears once after upgrading, and that is expected. It shows because the
version changed, and it is a review: your existing choices are already filled in, and pressing
Start leaves anything you did not touch unchanged.

Known limitations

• Alpha software. Expect rough edges.
• Android 10 or newer. 64-bit ARM and 32-bit ARM only.
• The 32-bit build has seen less hardware than the 64-bit one. Reports from real 32-bit devices
  are especially welcome.
• One host is still contacted on its own, deliberately: Chromium's component updater, which
  carries certificate revocation, Certificate Transparency, TLS interstitial quality, download
  danger classification and Widevine. Bare is not completely free of Google and does not claim to
  be.

Download

64-bit (most devices):

Bare-1.0.0-alpha.3-arm64-v8a.apk

SHA-256  f192b74173795e1150b2c89eb9a005a8fd41d60c0d2c7bc099fac8bc5daad90b

32-bit ARM compatibility build:

Bare-1.0.0-alpha.3-armeabi-v7a.apk

SHA-256  ad6c0fc2ecacecbca06ca063b91cd1313131050cc5f8b9948ad4856d1eb094f3

Verify before installing:

sha256sum Bare-1.0.0-alpha.3-arm64-v8a.apk

Feedback

If something breaks, open an issue at
the issue tracker with your device, Android
version, and what you were doing.