Brave-browser: [Feature Request] Add extension support on android

[srirambv]

Issue reported by @thepcwiz101

Kiwi browser (a chromium based browser) has added extension support on android. It's hard to believe and i have tested it. It is exclusive to the xda-developers forums for the next 24 hours. kiwi browser has a github repository too. I have screenshots i will be uploading to the issue in a few minutes.

[thepcwiz101]

@srirambv There's bugs with some extensions such as ublock origin and other adblockers where ad elements aren't hidden like they are supposed to be. Just thought i'd put it out there.

[hjyoung1]

+1 really usefull feature. Yandex support extension from many years now kiwi added support too. I hope our brave developers notice this too :)

[sun-geo]

+1

Recently i installed the extension "exodify" (https://www.exodify.org/) it works fine for a brave desktop version. Hopping to get it also running for this brave andriod version, one day :-)

[hjyoung1]

Are there any new updates on this?

[thepcwiz101]

@hjyoung1 Look on the repository brave-browser for issue #4493 They are working on implementing extensions in the future. (Priority/P3)

[thepcwiz101]

Made report to google for support of extensions on android. (update: report is closed since it was a duplicate of another that is still open.)
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1000168#c3

[szaimen]

@thepcwiz101 This report is still open since 2012. So it most likely never become reality, because Google don't want to risk their revenues (through potential adblockers on mobile).

BTW: their latest plan to remove the "blocking webRequest"-API which is essential for adblocker-extensions shows exactly what we can really hope from Google regarding this report.

Although, after disabling adblocker-extensions, eventually they could add extensions-support to mobile, because now adblocker-extensions don't work anymore. => No risk of revenue-loss on mobile platforms.

[srirambv]

+1 from @DaniellMesquita via brave/browser-android-tabs#2415

[srirambv]

+1 from @DI555 via https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs/issues/1870

Since the kiwi extensions support patch is appeared, it would be great to fork it and investigate to goal of provide that patch be workable!!!

https://github.com/kiwibrowser/privacy_patches/blob/master/Add-support-for-extensions-on-Android.patch
And imo it should be developing more and polishing!
I grabed it here:
https://github.com/kiwibrowser/privacy_patches

---

+1 from @D0ve and @avently for adding support for Extenstions API on Android via https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs/issues/316

[thepcwiz101]

i don't anticipate any ETA for the foreseeable future tbh. COVID-19 is to blame for that along with other more important priorities that the devs have.

[srirambv]

Closing in favour of #4493