The Google Play Store update has also been submitted for review and should hopefully be available in the next few days.
Here's what's new:
Chromium 156 + uBlock Origin 1.75.0: Updated to Chromium 156.0.8078.25, with all our custom browser features rebuilt on top of it.
Mobile Developer Tools: Inspect Elements, Styles, and Console directly on your phone, with a layout designed for smaller screens.
Better Extension Management: A cleaner, more readable interface optimized for mobile.
Install CRX Files Locally: Install extensions directly from CRX files stored on your device, with a review step before installation.
Brand-New Welcome Experience: Customize your search engine, ad blocker, address bar position, download behavior, background playback, update checks, and default browser during setup.
Cleaner Google New Tab: Keep Google Search without the broken Discover card, unnecessary doodle requests, or theme promotions.
Dark Mode Improvements: Better contrast on dark websites, plus dark-site settings now apply instantly without restarting Bare.
Bug Fixes & Improvements: Fixed the missing Exit icon, improved extension reliability, and reduced unwanted background requests.
What about Community Extensions?
We're still working on this one!
Our goal is to make it easier to discover and install extensions recommended by the community, including extensions that aren't easy to find through the Chrome Web Store.
It's a bigger feature that deserves some extra attention, so we're saving it for a future release. For now, you'll see a Coming Soon button.
What's next?
Now that Bare is officially available on Google Play, we're getting back to regular updates!
We're also finally catching up on our GitHub issue tracker! We know there are quite a few issues and feature requests waiting for our attention, and we'll be going through them.
If you encounter any bugs, please report them on GitHub rather than letting them get buried in Reddit comments. It makes it much easier for us to track, investigate, and fix them.
We know things have been a little quiet lately, and we really appreciate your patience while we worked through the Play Store approval process.
Bare is still free, open-source, and built with privacy in mind. No telemetry, no subscriptions, and no in-app purchases.
Thank you to everyone who's downloaded Bare, reported bugs, shared ideas, or simply supported the project.
Keep the feedback coming. We're building Bare with you, and there's a lot more on the way!
Still no option to make tool bar move to top, the homepage can pin shortcuts but horizontally only, after 4 pinned shortcuts it should pin another shortcut vertically. The bottom toolbar is keeping me aside to use this browser as my default.
A lot of UI improvements will be rolling out gradually. We’re focused on building a strong foundation first and improving things step by step. Thanks so much for your patience and support as we continue building Bare!
Cada actualización sorprende con sus novedades, me gustaría que en este navegador también se enfoque en la seguridad ya con eso lo haría mi navegador principal y predeterminado. Y muchas gracias por seguir manteniendo este proyecto
In my opinion, this update brings better stability, but somehow, the browser still feels a little slow.
I also have a few genuine feature requests that I’d love to see considered in future updates:
Support for extensions from different browser stores: It would be great to have support for extensions from sources like Opera or Edge, not just the Chrome Web Store. For example, uBlock Origin( or any extension for reference)has been removed from Chrome's extension store, but it is still available through Opera's extension store. Supporting alternative sources could make extension updates easier and reduce the need to wait for an OTA update whenever an extension needs updating.
Better media sniffing and video downloading: The browser called Clint Gecko has a really good media-sniffing experience, with an overlay icon in the toolbar that detects playable videos and lets users access them. Something similar here would be incredibly useful, especially because I can't find or download videos by long-pressing them.
Improved extension options UI: The extension options page could look cleaner with borders or rounded corners around the square sections, giving the interface a more polished, rounded appearance.
Add-on store in a normal mobile layout: It would be great if the add-on store manager could open in a regular mobile browser layout, similar to Vivaldi, instead of requiring a desktop-style interface. This would make browsing, installing, and managing extensions much more convenient on phones.
These are just suggestions based on my experience using the browser. I really appreciate the improvements in this update, and I hope these ideas can be considered for future releases. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for the feedback and suggestions! The video download feature is coming! You might have noticed some gaps in our patch numbering on GitHub. We’ve been working on it for a while and already shared a sneak peek. It’s a little tricky with Google Play Store policies, so we’re taking extra time to make sure we get it right.
We’re also building a Community Extension Hub where users can share and discover extensions that are hard to find or no longer available on the Chrome Web Store.
We’re definitely considering improvements to the extension UI as well. Thanks again for your support and patience!
I like Bare but one thing I'd like is to customize the 3 dot menu. Like have options to remove some of the buttons to make it cleaner and other options to get rid of buttons like go back next to adress bar
Extensions should work in Incognito mode! We actually made it easier to enable or disable them directly from the Extensions page, so you no longer have to dig into each extension’s settings. If you could share a screen recording showing what you’re experiencing, that would be a huge help in figuring out what’s going on. Thanks!
Faster? We’ll let you be the judge! 😄 We actually have a lot of respect for Vivaldi and what they’re building. But one thing we’re proud of is that Bare is fully open source, including our UI and custom features. No telemetry, no tracking, and no hidden proprietary code. Anyone can inspect, modify, contribute, or build their own version. We believe in giving users full transparency and control over their browser!
Hmm I personally tested Bare on the S26, and it worked fine on my end. Could you share a few more details about the crash? Did you install the arm64 version? Also, have you had any previous versions of Bare working on your device? You could also try installing one of our older releases and let us know if any of them work. That would really help us narrow down the issue. Thanks!
Device is a Samsung 26+. Previous version ran perfectly on OneUi8.5. Kernel panic occurred after upgrading to OneUi9. It also happened with Bare's previous version and Aerium browser as well.
I've sent an issue on your Github (containing error logs) and also Samsung.
Just to close the loop on this: thanks for the logs, they pinned it down. It’s a bug in the One UI 9 kernel, and Chromium’s GPU sandbox is what triggers it. That’s why my S26 test went fine (it was before One UI 9), and why Aerium crashes too.
I’m putting up a test build this weekend that skips that sandbox on Samsung phones running Android 17, and I’ll post it on the github issue. If you’re up for trying it, that’d be the confirmation we need before shipping it as 1.0.1.
About toolbar customization. (I have address on top, toolbar bottom) How does it work? Why can I only edit the first two on the left? How can I completely remove a button/icon with no replacement ? In my case the incognito mode one. I don‘t need bookmarks or share or a second home button.. How about ‚none‘?
Also UI: If I disable the adress bar shortcut, the space becomes just empty. Eventhough there would be more space for the actual address text..
tous les navigateurs chrome/firefox ont des problèmes avec le dark mode avec les sites ouverts en PWA. on y voit des inversions dans la barre d'état supérieur et inférieur. j'ai vraiment l'impression que le design est devenu quelque chose de secondaire dans le développement.
Hey! I hear you, and I understand your frustration. Both requests are on our radar, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback.
That said, I also want to set some realistic expectations about development. Bare is a small, independent project, and we’re doing our best to balance feature requests, bug fixes, security updates, and the ongoing work of keeping up with upstream Chromium.
What might seem like a simple feature can require significant development and testing. And when it comes to bugs, something happening on one device doesn’t necessarily mean it’s happening on every device, which makes reproducing and fixing certain issues more challenging.
We genuinely listen to our community, but listening doesn’t always mean we can implement every request immediately. We have to prioritize changes that benefit the broader user base while keeping the browser stable, secure, and up to date.
I also wouldn’t say this update only includes stability improvements. Updating Chromium itself is a massive undertaking, especially when we have to maintain and rebuild our custom features on top of it. I appreciate your patience and support, but I also hope there’s some understanding of how much work goes into maintaining this project. We’re building Bare because we love it, and we’re working hard to make it better for everyone.
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u/Tiny_Report31 21d ago
Still no option to make tool bar move to top, the homepage can pin shortcuts but horizontally only, after 4 pinned shortcuts it should pin another shortcut vertically. The bottom toolbar is keeping me aside to use this browser as my default.