I’m assuming you keep away from Aurora for Brave install/updates? Trying to understand from a perspective with greater knowledge than mine (you) why you avoid Aurora (if you do)? I understand that Iceraven’s APK must be installed direct from Github but Brave is a different story.
Oh no, I haven’t actually avoided getting Brave through Aurora/Play Store. I initially got it straight from github when I was curious about it. Didn’t even think to check the Store for it. I didn’t care for the browser at first due to all the bitcoin and ad-type cruft it has. Eventually warmed up to it.
I came across FFUpdater by chance and noticed it supported both Iceraven and Brave and decided to just use it for both.
Had I been using Aurora/Play Store I would’ve been bit by the Brave issues mentioned in this thread with the last offered version (1.24.86). Current release is 1.25.69 but not via Aurora.
In general, I never get apps from the Play Store if a version is also available via F-Droid or directly. As you may know, apps offered through the F-Droid repo are built by the F-Droid people (which sometimes explains the delay between a Store or even github version and theirs). They make sure that Google and other privacy-disrespecting blobs/libraries are removed.
Also there are times when a Play Store version of an app has some features missing compared to the “free” version. InviZible Pro, f.i., blocking of ads, adult sites, malicious sites, etc. is not available in the Play Store version.
So, even if I had used Aurora/Play Store for Brave, the latest debacle would’ve made me leave the Store to get the app updated via other means.
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Thanks for this information. Im with you on the cryptocurrency feature in Brave (all though a genius way to monetize in a supposed non-“Google” way). I also was put off by Google being the default search (changed to DDGo). I have not enabled the Cryptocurrency option in Brave but there is a setting to hide its icon to the right of the URL type form. What are your thoughts regarding their encrypted sync? Supposedly nothing is stored in the cloud and the decryption keys are clientside/info is all stored on the devices. I like this feature as I use the browser on a couple different platforms (Linux desktop, AOSP mobile, etc.). Do you see any security or privacy concerns given your knowledge?
Edit: maybe a dumb question on my end since you use Brave 
Edit: Bad info I read. Looks like Brave set up own servers for v2 sync with encryption client side. While encryption is client side Brave generates the key, does this give them away to know what the key is?
I’m kind of new to Brave so I don’t know much about those items. Cryptocurrency in general makes my head spin. 
The two main items that had me using Brave were…
- Sync. Getting bookmarks in/out of Android browsers has always been a downside or pain. Especially if you have more than one device or ROM (I multi boot on a few devices). That caused me to install Brave on my Linux desktop so I could import all of my bookmarks and sync them to the mobile devices.
When my once-favorite Chromium-based browser, Bromite, added import/export of standard HTML I was good (/e/'s Browser, being based on it, can do the same). Since I decided to stop using Bromite, Brave was a good replacement.
I’ll have to read up on their sync tech. Don’t know how secure or private it is. Thanks for the link.
- Bottom toolbar. Yeah I know it’s a personal thing but it’s a “gotta have” for me. As phones get bigger it becomes more important. The constant shifting of grip/thumb to the top toolbar grows tiresome.
Bromite follows upstream Chromium closely. The Chromium people have completely removed that feature and the flags to enable it. Bromite, of course, followed suit. Reason I stopped using it though a few ROMs still use older versions. A couple of other browsers like Adblock Browser (used for years when it was Mozilla-based, now Chromium-based) also lost the bottom toolbar recently.
So I’m pleased that Brave has managed to still include that feature.
Weird how things flip flop. Chromium had bottom bar while Firefox/Mozilla did not, now it’s the opposite.
Outside of those two camps a lot of the WebView-based browsers offer a bottom option. Latest version of Privacy Browser just did which is cool.
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Hmm, I’ve just uninstalled Brave again, after clearing data. Then reinstalled and it’s working fine.
Curious.
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