Fifth beta of Bare 2.0 for Android, based on Chromium 156.0.8078.73, the same Chromium as beta.4. It is a pre-release. The series is now 292 patches.
Which APK to download
For most phones, download Bare-2.0.0-beta.5-arm64-v8a.apk. Use Bare-2.0.0-beta.5-armeabi-v7a.apk only on 32-bit ARM devices. Bare runs on Android 10 or later. There is no x86 build. I have not run either 32-bit build on a phone yet.
There are also two BareCrashLab APKs. You do not need them for normal use. See Bare CrashLab below.
Installing and updating
Install over Bare 2.0.0-beta.4 and do not uninstall first. This build has the same package name and signing key and a higher version number, so Android should treat it as an update that keeps your data. I have not tested that update on a phone. I have not tested moving between the Google Play build and this one either. If you want to be safe, export your bookmarks first.
The GitHub build checks for updates. The Google Play build does not.
What's new since 2.0.0-beta.4
Address bar and search
- Tapping a search suggestion opens it.
- Address text and the site icon keep the colour of the field, so pages no longer tint the bar.
- The address stays on one line in the minimal bar.
- The search engine logo shows from the first run, and the DuckDuckGo and Bing logos are round. Settings lists engines with their logos, and the engine list opens as a card from the bottom.
- Website icons are round everywhere.
- The autofill list no longer flashes when you tap a field.
Menus and cards
- The menu has a new order. Drag items to rearrange it.
- The site settings, task manager and extensions cards rise from behind the toolbar, take its colour and fold when you tap outside.
- Bare has its own storage page with a Free up space button. Free up space clears stored data, cookies and logins included, for sites you rarely use, with no question first.
- The task manager has a toolbar button.
- Three presses now give a small tick: the search engine logo, closing the menu, and dragging the menu card down.
Tabs
- Swipe up on the new tab page opens the tab grid when the bar is at the bottom.
- The tab grid has one three-dot menu, with Show as list and Show as grid.
- The sidebar opens on the open tab, its tabs are cards, and its button faces the side it opens from.
- A new tab rises in one smooth movement.
Scrolling and video
- Smooth scrolling is a new setting that limits fling speed. Changing it asks for a restart.
- You can press and hold a video to download it. If the page has several videos, Bare reads the first 8 KB of up to 12 recently loaded video files to tell them apart. The page makes those requests itself, so the page and its server can see them. They go to hosts the page already talks to, not to Google. It works in Incognito tabs too.
BareFilter
- BareFilter hides the "open in app" prompts on Reddit, m.facebook.com and m.youtube.com. It runs in uBlock Origin and is on by default. You can switch it off on the extensions card, and that applies after the next restart. The rules are built into Bare and it makes no network requests. They sit in uBlock Origin's My filters between two marker lines, and your own filters are left alone.
Bare CrashLab
- CrashLab is a separate build of Bare for tracking down crashes. It installs next to Bare as
org.barebrowser.crashlab, with its own icon and profile, and saves a log of each session in Downloads. The log stays on your phone. It cuts web addresses written asscheme://…down to the scheme and host, but nothing else is removed. It can hold anything the app logs, such as search text, tab titles, host names, IP addresses and the device model, so read it before you send it to anyone. A native crash can't be written to the log: the file stops before the crash and the next log says how the last session ended.
Beta limits
This is a beta and has not been tested across a wide range of phones. Tell me if something behaves strangely.
Verifying the download
SHA256SUMS.txt has the SHA-256 of each APK. They are signed with Bare's release key, the same one as beta.4. apksigner verify --print-certs should show the certificate SHA-256 ae2a0e7fb7a132ec517d26a8e7c83d275e83747b0a777d4a42225b1d343271a0.
Contact
Problems and questions: support@barebrowser.org. Please include your device, Android version and what you were doing.