Brave-browser: [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

[thepcwiz101]

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.

[thepcwiz101]

@bbondy oh ok.

[szaimen]

Any update on this?

[hjyoung1]

Any updates on this?

[thepcwiz101]

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

[thepcwiz101]

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

[emanuelserpa]

non-essential? Yes

but I'll keep using Firefox in desktop and Android if brave doesn't implement this feature

PS: Is useless to report the lack of extensions in Chrome, they always made it clear that they'll never support extensions on Android version

[szaimen]

Also, the Kiwi Browser is a good chromium-based alternative to Brave on Android and has this feature already working.

[emanuelserpa]

I don't use Kiwi because sucks using a browser without a decent integration feature between desktop and mobile.

[thepcwiz101]

non-essential? Yes

but I'll keep using Firefox in desktop and Android if brave doesn't implement this feature

PS: Is useless to report the lack of extensions in Chrome, they always made it clear that they'll never support extensions on Android version

Companies change their minds. I seen the devs of days gone (a game) state that new game+ would not be implemented but they changed their mind after the community begged like crazy.

[szaimen]

@thepcwiz101:

Companies change their minds. I seen the devs of days gone (a game) state that new game+ would not be implemented but they changed their mind after the community begged like crazy

Maybe but not Google!
(E.g. do you remember Inbox by Gmail?)

[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

[thepcwiz101]

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.

[bsclifton]

@SergeyZhukovsky has looked at this and got it working- but the number of patches it takes is quite large. I believe it's something we'll have to tackle with multiple people (easy to get behind when Chromium upgrades happen). For now, I believe the effort is on hold

cc: @SergeyZhukovsky @bbondy for additional comments 😄 Maybe we can update the roadmap?

[srirambv]

+1 from @LifeIsStrange via #11577

[tathastu871]

Kiwi browwser android has extension support and is based on chrome and is open source. Code avaiilable from its git repo. see if its source code can be combined with brave code to get extension and translate support for brave browser

[bbondy]

@SergeyZhukovsky has applied the patches and rebased them to a recent Chromium version, but the problem is that on each rebase on top of Chromium there are hundreds of patch files to rebase again, which takes weeks extra. And on the last bump that we did, from 1 major version to another, it added another 50 patches.

I believe that Kiwi browser last I checked was very behind on Chromium. Staying on top of Chromium versions, and being able to update them as close to Chrome as possible is needed especially for reasons of security. That doesn't mean it'll be impossible to ever do this, but we have to weigh the opportunity cost vs other things and ensure that we don't put Chromium upgrades at risk.

[Bananaman]

Would Chromium accept upstreaming most/all of the Kiwi "extension support" patches, so that the per-project patchset for Brave and other browsers becomes either smaller or nonexistent? Could be hidden behind a compiler flag if they want it to be off by default.

[bbondy]

Would Chromium accept upstreaming most/all of the Kiwi "extension support" patches, so that the per-project patchset for Brave and other browsers becomes either smaller or nonexistent? Could be hidden behind a compiler flag if they want it to be off by default.

I tried and they said in general no, but that they would accept patches that fix certain compile time guards to be around extensions being enabled vs android. Unfortunately that wouldn't help very much with the number of patches.

[Bananaman]

@bbondy That's really unfortunate. I wonder why they are against optional mobile extension support.

This discussion seems to be related to merging the Android extension checks you talk about:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1074710