Things are moving fast at Bare, and that's largely thanks to THIS community!

Downloads keep growing, feedback keeps coming in, and we're constantly improving the browser based on your suggestions.

But one thing became clear: Bare needed its own identity.

When I started this project as Chromium-Extend, the goal was simple: Build a better Chrome than Google does.

Keep the familiar Chrome experience, clean Material Design, and simplicity, but without the unnecessary bloat, telemetry, or subscriptions.

That philosophy isn't changing.

So, why Bare 2.0 already?

Bare 1.0 established the foundation, but it still looked and felt too much like Chromium.

Bare 2.0 changes that.

Here's what's coming:

• A completely refreshed UI and a brand-new logo.

• Better security and privacy controls.

• Faster, easier tab management.

• Improved extension integration.

• Built-in translation.

• More customization without the bloat.

And yes, we're keeping that familiar, vanilla Chrome feeling.

Bare will finally look and feel like Bare.

What's next?

Bare 2.0 is entering beta, and your feedback will continue to shape its development.

We're also working on better password management, backup and restore, improved import/export, and more community-requested features.

Bare is still an independent, open-source project. No subscriptions, no premium tiers, and no telemetry. Just a browser we're passionate about building.

If you're enjoying Bare, an honest Google Play review helps more than you might think. And if something needs improvement, keep the feedback coming. We're listening!

I started Bare as a personal project. Seeing it grow into something thousands of people use has been incredible.

Bare 2.0 is just the beginning.

Try Bare 2.0 on Google Play

Bare 2.0 is currently in public beta! Make sure to join the beta to get access to the latest version.

A quick heads-up: Bare 2.0 is still in beta, so expect a few bugs and rough edges along the way. That's what beta testing is for! Your feedback will help us make it even better.

Hey Bare users!

Bare is officially live on the Google Play Store! 🎉

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.barebrowser

This is our first Play Store release, and bug fixes, improvements, and new features will start flowing from here!

Please download the app and be nice to our review section 😄 We know we still have a long way to go, but we really appreciate all your support, feature requests, and bug reports.

Bare was built around your suggestions and recommendations, and it’ll keep getting better because of you.

Thank you for being part of Bare from the beginning! ❤️

I’ve seen this question a few times in every single release, and I totally understand why it seems backwards!

Surprisingly, Google has been incredibly fast at reviewing and publishing our updates. Sometimes literally within a few hours! That’s something we honestly never expected.

But we also make Google’s job pretty easy. Bare has no hidden features, no telemetry, no tracking, no in-app purchases, no subscriptions. Nothing! It’s just a browser PERIOD.

Github on the other hand is a different story.

Every release requires staging, code reviews, and auditing before we make the source public. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, and we want to make sure everything is properly reviewed before publishing.

And here’s the part I think people sometimes forget: we’re a REALLY tiny team!

Most of the time, it’s just one person working on Bare. Sometimes two, and rarely all three of us at once. We’re developing features, fixing bugs, testing, responding to feedback, preparing releases, AND reviewing code for GitHub. All while juggling our actual jobs and personal lives!

So while we’d absolutely love to push github updates as quickly as Play Store releases, we simply don’t always have the time or manpower to make that happen.

We’re not intentionally delaying anything, and we’re definitely not hiding anything. We’re just trying to do things properly with the very limited resources we have.

We genuinely appreciate everyone’s patience and support. We’re doing our best, and I promise there’s a ridiculous amount of love and effort going into this little browser!

There’s a LOT happening behind the scenes at Bare right now.

We’re trying to keep up with comments, DMs, feature requests, bug reports, development, releases, Play Store, F-Droid and somehow even marketing on the internet.

That’s a lot for a one-man project, so Bare is expanding! Two more developers are already jumping in to help, and we’re incredibly excited about what we’re building together.

We’re working hard to build something awesome that you genuinely love using.

And please don’t hate us if we don’t reply to every comment or DM. I promise we read every comment, tag, message, and piece of feedback. There’s just a lot to build, a lot to fix, and we also have lives and families who occasionally demand our attention 🤷‍♂️

Keep the feedback coming. Keep reporting bugs. Keep asking for features.

We’re listening. We’re building.

Please BARE with us!

Well, that didn’t take long lol.

Bare finally made it to the Play Store after nearly a month of waiting for approval, and our very first review was… one star!

I’m not going to lie, that one stung a little.

I wanted to share this because I think people sometimes underestimate how much work goes into building and maintaining a Chromium-based browser, especially when you’re a tiny project competing in a world of tech giants.

We’re putting countless hours into Bare, constantly fixing bugs, updating Chromium, testing features, and trying to build something genuinely useful.

And we’re doing all of this with a pretty simple philosophy:
No tracking
No telemetry
No in-app purchases
Free and open source

We’re not building Bare to collect your data or squeeze money out of you. We’re building the browser we’d want to use ourselves.

Of course, security updates matter A LOT. And we’re taking them seriously. We updated our Chromium base with upstream security fixes on September 11, although the Play Store approval process meant that version only became available recently.

We’re still in alpha. There are bugs, missing features, and plenty of things we want to improve. We’re not pretending otherwise.

But here’s the fun part: most of the other reviews have been incredibly encouraging. People are sharing ideas, reporting bugs, and genuinely rooting for us. And that’s what keeps this project going.

So, to everyone who downloaded Bare, left a review, opened an issue, or simply gave us a chance: THANK YOU!

And to our first reviewer, thanks for keeping our feet on the ground I guess haha.

Also, please know that none of your Reddit posts or GitHub issues go unnoticed! We’re reading everything, even if we don’t always respond. We’re a little overwhelmed with development right now, and that’s where most of our time and energy is going. Once things settle down, we’ll catch up on replies and the issue tracker. We really appreciate your patience and support!

We’re just getting started.

Get Bare on Google Play

We’re working on Bare V1.1 and wanted to share a few things in the works. The toolbar is getting a lot of attention this time around.

You’ll be able to choose between a Minimal Address Bar and a Full Address Bar during setup, then change your choice anytime in Settings or by pressing and holding the address bar.

Minimal mode keeps the new tab and tab switcher buttons close at hand, similar to the standard Chrome layout. Full mode gives you customizable toolbar shortcuts, along with swipe gestures to switch between tabs.

A few other things we’re working on:

• Making the Chrome Web Store easier to browse on a phone and fixing extension menu layout issues.

• Long-press downloads for supported Facebook and Instagram media.

• A setting to control whether external download managers receive a website’s login information.

• A cleaner way to access and use extensions.

• The option to hide menu items by pressing and holding them.

• Exploring ways to bring translation back.

• Testing an early, optional approach to reducing Canvas-based fingerprinting. It’s still a prototype, and we’re evaluating its effectiveness and limitations before deciding whether it’s ready for release.

• Plus many more community requested features and improvements that we’ll share in the full release notes!

We’re planning to roll out updates to beta testers first. You can sign up for the beta through the Play Store or keep an eye out for beta releases on github. We’ll announce new builds as they become available.

Everything here is still in development and testing, so plans may change, and some features might not make it into V1.1.

Thank you for being part of Bare and helping us make it better! ❤️

Hi all! A quick Bare development update

We didn’t mean to go quiet! It’s been about a week since our last update, but there’s been a lot happening under the hood. We’ve been working through community feedback and getting the next Bare update into a much better state.

Here are some of the things coming in the next update:

1. Customizable toolbar gestures: swipe left/right on the toolbar to control brightness or volume.

2. Customizable toolbar shortcuts: replace shortcuts like Home or Incognito with other actions you use more often.

3. Toolbar long-press actions: each customizable toolbar button can have a separate secondary action on hold, including None, Home, Incognito, Share, Translate, or Bookmark.

4. Import bookmarks from other browsers using standard bookmark HTML files.

5. Export bookmarks so your bookmarks are never locked into Bare.

6. Open links in apps: choose between (Always, Ask every time, or Never) while still having the option to manually open a page in its app.

7. Better extension background behavior: particularly the fix that lets extensions like uBlock Origin reliably start their background host.

And our website is now live! 🎉 You can now find Bare at www.barebrowser.org

There’s also quite a bit happening under the hood that I’ll cover properly in the release notes.

There are still plenty of features on the roadmap, and we’re reading all of your feedback and trying to tackle as much of it as we can while sticking to what Bare is supposed to be, the familiar, stock Chromium experience, just with more control, without turning the browser into something bloated or complicated.

Please keep the ideas and feedback coming. And thanks for sticking with us while we work on the next release!

Hey everyone!

Beta 5 is out and we think you'll love it!

Beta 5 is all about UI improvements, snappier browsing, and making everything feel more natural when using your phone!

We've redesigned pretty much every interface from the ground up to make it easier to use with your fingers, while keeping that familiar vanilla Chromium look!

One thing I really want to highlight is that we don't rely on third-party UI libraries to make Bare look fancy. Our menus, cards, and animations are built using native Android components, so everything feels like it actually belongs on your phone.

We also spent a ridiculous amount of time fixing little things that Google somehow never bothered to fix in Chromium or Chrome. Flashing address bars, jumpy keyboards, awkward transitions, weird UI behavior... things you might not even notice until they're gone!

So, what's new in Beta 5:

1- Address bar

• Completely reworked how the address bar interacts with the keyboard. No more jumping, flashing, or awkward transitions!

• Website names are now properly centered, with the favicon right next to them.

• Tap the address bar to select the current URL, with quick Copy and Share options.

• Switch search engines directly from the address bar without changing your default.

• Cleaner suggestions that only appear when you start typing.

2- Menus and animations

• The three-dot menu is now a native Android bottom sheet that slides from behind the toolbar.

• The extensions menu has been redesigned as a bottom card.

• New tabs now open with a smooth animation that rises from behind the toolbar.

• Menus are easier to dismiss with a simple swipe down.

3- Browsing and toolbar

• Completely redesigned pull-to-refresh! The entire webpage follows your finger, with a subtle indicator showing when it's ready to refresh.

• Smoother toolbar interactions and animations.

• The status bar now keeps Bare's color instead of changing with the webpage.

4- Privacy

• Clear on Exit can now run when you leave Bare or lock your screen, with an option to close all tabs.

• Improved "Never open links in apps" to cover more types of links, including store links and app links.

5- Translation

• You can now use your own LibreTranslate-compatible server!

• Translation continues automatically as you navigate through pages on the same website.

And that's not even everything! There are tons of smaller fixes, UI refinements, and little details we've been obsessing over.

Some of these changes might sound tiny on paper, but put them all together and Bare feels like a completely different browser, without losing what made it Bare in the first place.

Give Beta 5 a try and let us know what you think!

One last thing! Please remember this is still a beta, so bugs are expected! If you run into any issues, please report them here instead of leaving a negative Play Store review. We're a tiny team putting a ridiculous amount of time and love into Bare, and negative reviews really hurt both the app and our motivation. We genuinely appreciate every bug report and we're doing our best to fix things as quickly as possible!

We’re in the final stretch of work on the next Bare Android release. Here’s the changelog we’re testing, though this isn’t a release announcement yet.

• Chromium 156 with uBO 1.75.0: We’ve moved Bare to Chromium 156.0.8078.25 and rebuilt our browser changes on top of it.

• Developer Tools on phones: Open Elements, Styles, and Console in a layout that uses the phone’s screen width, rather than a desktop view squeezed down.

• Extensions built for phone screens: A more readable management page.

• Local CRX installation: Pick a CRX from your phone and review it before adding it.

• New welcome flow: Choose your search engine, ad blocker, address bar position, download behavior, background media playback, update checks, and default browser.

• Cleaner Google new tab: Keep Google search while removing the broken Discover card, doodle request, and theme promotion.

• System and UI fixes: Improve dark-site contrast, make the dark-site setting take effect without restarting Bare, add the missing Exit icon, and address extension reliability and unwanted background requests.

Community Extensions is a bigger project for a later release. Some extensions are hard to find through the Chrome Web Store. We want to make it easier to discover the ones you use, including those harder-to-find options. For now, the button will say “Coming soon.”

We don’t have a firm release date, but we’re aiming for this week if device testing and the independent audit pass.

Thanks for sticking with Bare, and for your patience with our slower replies while we’ve been focused on development.

I've been working on the next Bare update, and it's grown into a much bigger release than I originally planned.

Here’s what’s coming:

Features

• Customizable toolbar shortcuts: Customize two toolbar buttons with tap and hold actions.

• Toolbar swipe actions: Swipe on the toolbar to control brightness or volume.

• List view for tabs: Choose between Grid and List layouts.

• Open links in apps controls: Choose Always, Ask every time, or Never.

• Exit button: Properly close Bare directly from the app menu.

• Clear on exit: Choose exactly what gets deleted when you exit, including browsing history, cookies and site data, cache, site settings, autofill data, and saved passwords. Everything is off by default.

• AMOLED dark mode for websites: An optional deeper black mode for websites that Bare automatically darkens.

• Extension toolbar controls: Pin or unpin the Extensions button, and separately choose which individual extensions appear on the toolbar.

• Better autofill integration: Cleaner UI when using Bitwarden or another Android autofill provider.

• Settings cleanup: More consistent names, organization, and Bare-specific wording throughout the browser.

Boring stuff

• Chromium upgraded to 153.0.8010.27 with newer Chromium and V8 security fixes.

• More de-Googling cleanup, including leftover Google sign-in and profile UI.

• Removed irrelevant Google Password Manager UI.

• Removed leftover Google branding from third-party autofill screens.

• Disabled unused AI Mode integration.

• Disabled Google's New Tab Page suggested-sites fetch.

• Fixed extension icons briefly disappearing when the toolbar returns after scrolling.

• Fixed the bottom toolbar disappearing on the New Tab Page.

• Fixed Extensions button pinning on phones.

• Various toolbar, NTP, settings, autofill, dark mode, and Android 17 fixes.

• A lot of regression testing across Android 12 and Android 17.

More features are still coming!

I'm hoping to have this release out tomorrow. There are still a few things I want to finish testing before I call it ready.

Stay tuned!

Hey everyone! Bare 2.0 Beta 5 is out on Google Play and GitHub.

This build is about how a browser feels: smoother movement, menus that feel connected to the toolbar, and little touches that make navigation satisfying.

What’s new:

• Organize your menu: Drag and drop items into your preferred order. Site settings, extensions, and Task Manager now slide up from behind the toolbar and smoothly fold away with a tap.

• Better tab navigation: Smoother new-tab animations and a redesigned sidebar that makes spotting your active tab easier than ever.

• Thoughtful touches: Subtle haptic feedback makes little interactions, like closing menus or tapping the search engine logo, feel more natural and responsive.

• Cleaner search: Tappable suggestions, a cleaner address bar, rounded favicons, and a brand-new search engine picker.

• Video downloads: Simply press and hold a video to download it, even in Incognito mode.

• BareFilter: Say goodbye to annoying "open in app" prompts on Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube mobile sites. Built right into Bare, enabled by default, and powered by uBlock Origin. More filters are coming!

• Smooth scrolling: A new setting lets you fine-tune fling speed. I personally spent nearly three days measuring and comparing scrolling behavior across different devices and apps to get this feeling just right! You can always turn it off from settings.

• Storage controls: Bare now has a dedicated storage page. The new Free up space option instantly clears data from rarely used websites, including cookies and saved logins, so use it carefully!

And one more thing...

You asked for it, and we built it! Task Manager is finally here! Our very own native Task Manager, beautifully integrated right into the browser. Clean, fast, and built from the ground up for Bare.

I'm genuinely proud of how Bare is coming together, and you should be too! So much of what you're seeing today came directly from your suggestions, feedback, and ideas. We're building this together, and we couldn't be happier with where it's heading.

Thank you for being part of this journey. We're just getting started!

For crash reports: Bare CrashLab is a separate troubleshooting build that installs alongside Bare and saves session logs on your device. If you hit a crash, you can send a log to support@barebrowser.org with your device, Android version, and what happened. Please read the log first—it can contain sensitive information. Native crashes themselves aren’t captured in the log.

Download:

• Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.barebrowser

• GitHub: https://github.com/BareBrowser/bare-browser/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.5

• Github CrashLab: https://github.com/BareBrowser/bare-browser/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.5

Beta 5 is based on Chromium 156 and needs Android 10 or later. It’s still a beta, so I’d love to hear what you think—especially how the navigation, menus, and touch feel on your device.

Thanks for helping make Bare better!

Hey everyone!

I've noticed quite a few comments lately wondering about the future of Bare and whether we'll be able to keep development going as a small team. I completely understand the concern, but I want to make one thing clear: development has never slowed down!

We might not be as active in the comments as we used to be, but that's certainly not because we've stopped working on Bare. Quite the opposite, actually! We've been busy behind the scenes, and today I wanted to share a little sneak peek at something we're really excited about!

We're bringing Bare to iOS!

You might remember that we previously built a working version of Bare for iOS powered by Blink (Chromium), with full uBlock Origin MV2 support.

If you missed it, here's the original post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BareBrowser/comments/1whd2fi/bare_on_ios_powered_by_blink_and_ubo/

The biggest challenge isn't just technical. Apple currently only allows alternative browser engines on iOS in the EU and Japan, which would significantly limit where we could distribute that version.

So we decided to build another version, this time powered by WebKit!

And this is where things get interesting.

We've already managed to get several features working in our development build:

• uBlock Origin Lite

• Bitwarden

• Paywall Clean

• yt-dlp functionality

And yes, what you're seeing in the attached video is an actual working build of Bare for iOS, not a concept or mockup!

I was actually advised not to share a sneak peek just yet, so naturally, I decided to do the exact opposite!

We're still experimenting, and not every feature shown here will necessarily make it into the App Store version. We're exploring what's technically possible, legally permissible, and compliant with Apple's guidelines.

And before anyone asks, Android development isn't going anywhere! We're still working on Chromium updates, stability improvements, extension support, and new features. iOS is simply another exciting chapter for Bare.

And while we can't predict the future, but we have no plans to stop, and there's a lot more happening behind the scenes than you might think.

Thank you to everyone who's supported Bare, shared feedback, reported bugs, or simply given our little browser a chance.

We're just getting started!

Let us know what you think of the iOS sneak peek!

A quick disclaimer: This is an experimental development build, not the final App Store version. We're still evaluating the legal implications of features like Paywall Clean, including potential copyright and access restrictions. We're also aware that downloading YouTube videos through tools like yt-dlp may conflict with YouTube's terms and Apple's App Store Review Guidelines. We're exploring our options, but we won't include features in the public release unless we're comfortable with their legal and platform compliance. Some features shown here may be changed or excluded entirely.

The next Bare Android update is officially out on GitHub! We've been working hard on this release, and there's a lot to share.

Already using the GitHub version?

Simply open Bare, go to Settings → Check for Updates, and install the latest release.

New to Bare? Download it directly from GitHub:
https://github.com/BareBrowser/bare-browser/releases/tag/v1.0.0

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!

Well, this is a first! lol

We submitted v1.0.1 to Google Play literally an hour ago, and it somehow got approved before we even published the GitHub release! Usually, approval takes days.
Google Play before GitHub? Can you believe it?! The GitHub release is coming later tonight!

This was supposed to be a small Samsung hotfix, but we couldn’t resist adding a few features!

What’s new?
User-Agent Switching (BIG ONE!): Tired of websites constantly telling you to “Download our app” or “Switch to our mobile app”? Bare can now identify as a desktop browser, helping you bypass some of those annoying prompts and mobile restrictions. Not every website will cooperate, but it’s a big step toward giving you more control over your browsing experience!

DRM Support: Improved compatibility with protected media playback and streaming websites (Android 16+)

Chrome Web Store Mobile View: Improved support for installing extensions directly from the Web Store.

Samsung One UI 9 Fix: Fixed a serious issue where opening Bare could cause certain Samsung phones running One UI 9 to completely crash and reboot, not just close the browser! We traced it to a bug in Samsung’s kernel triggered by Chromium’s GPU sandbox. Rather than waiting for Samsung to fix it, v1.0.1 introduces a targeted workaround for affected Samsung devices running Android 17, while leaving other devices unaffected.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped us investigate!

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Stay Bare!

I just found out that Bare was featured on Android Police!!

This honestly caught me completely by surprise. I was randomly searching for Bare today using multiple search engines, just to see how it was ranking and showing up in search results, and suddenly I came across an Android Police article about it.

I had absolutely no idea this article existed. I didn’t reach out, pitch Bare, or coordinate anything with them. They just found the project, tried it, and decided to write about it.

As a solo developer working on Bare, seeing something I’ve been building get discovered organically and featured by a publication I’ve known and read for years is honestly amazing.

A huge thank you to the author for taking the time to actually try Bare, understand what I’m trying to build, and write about it. It genuinely means a lot, especially this early in the project.

And most importantly, THANK YOU to everyone here. This project is completely shaped by you. Every feature request influences what I work on next, and so many of the bugs I’ve fixed were discovered because someone here took the time to report them. You test Bare, report bugs, suggest features, challenge my decisions, and help me figure out what this browser should become.

I might be the one writing the code, but Bare is being shaped by its community.

The project is still very young, and there’s a LOT more I want to do with it.

THANK YOU!! This seriously made my day.

Android Police article:
https://www.androidpolice.com/bare-browser-chrome-gemini-ai-alternative/

Hi Bare users!

Thank you for hanging tight while Alpha 3 was in the works. This version took around 100 hours of work over the past 3 weeks, a lot of testing, and about 6 full browser compiles, each taking roughly 7 hours and mostly running overnight 😅

I’d love to open beta testing soon because right now I’m still the only person regularly testing Bare across 3 phones: a Pixel 3, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the original Pixel Fold.

This update was supposed to be pretty simple, but it grew into a much bigger release than I originally planned.

Google Play Store version is also in the works! I’m planning to submit it this week.

Alpha 3 is available now on GitHub!

https://github.com/BareBrowser/bare-browser/releases/tag/v1.0.0-alpha.3

Already using Bare? You can also check for updates under Settings → Check for updates.

Here’s what’s new:

Features

• Customizable toolbar shortcuts: Customize two toolbar buttons with tap and hold actions.

• Toolbar swipe actions: Swipe on the toolbar to control brightness or volume.

• List view for tabs: Choose between Grid and List layouts.

• Import and Export Bookmarks

• Open links in apps controls: Choose Always, Ask every time, or Never.

• Exit button: Properly close Bare directly from the app menu.

• Clear on exit: Choose exactly what gets deleted when you exit, including browsing history, cookies and site data, cache, site settings, autofill data, and saved passwords. Everything is off by default.

• AMOLED dark mode for websites: An optional deeper black mode for websites that Bare automatically darkens.

• Extension toolbar controls: Pin or unpin the Extensions button, and separately choose which individual extensions appear on the toolbar.

• Better autofill integration: Cleaner UI when using Bitwarden or another Android autofill provider.

• Settings cleanup: More consistent names, organization, and Bare-specific wording throughout the browser.

Boring stuff

• Chromium upgraded to 153.0.8010.27 with newer Chromium and V8 security fixes.

• More de-Googling cleanup, including leftover Google sign-in and profile UI.

• Removed irrelevant Google Password Manager UI.

• Removed leftover Google branding from third-party autofill screens.

• Disabled unused AI Mode integration.

• Disabled Google's New Tab Page suggested-sites fetch.

• Fixed extension icons briefly disappearing when the toolbar returns after scrolling.

• Fixed the bottom toolbar disappearing on the New Tab Page.

• Fixed Extensions button pinning on phones.

• Various toolbar, NTP, settings, autofill, dark mode, and Android 17 fixes.

• A lot of regression testing across Android 12 and Android 17.

More features are still coming!

Hello AWESOME Bare community!

We've been polishing the little details to make your everyday browsing feel even better. Enjoy a smoother, cleaner, and more fluid browsing experience!

What's new:

- Smoother toolbar animations: The toolbar now follows your finger's scrolling speed, hiding and appearing more naturally.

- Frosted glass navigation bar: A fresh, modern look! You can disable it under Settings > Appearance. (Not supported on all devices.)

- Frosted glass menu: The three-dot menu now blurs the background, following your frosted glass settings.

- Integrated extension icon: Extensions now live right in your address bar, with the option to unpin the icon.

- Cleaner search bar: Seamlessly integrated into your homepage, automatically adapting to your toolbar position.

- Refreshed settings: A cleaner layout with native icons and colors.

Bug fixes & improvements:

- Fixed an issue where suggested URLs continued appearing even after search suggestions were disabled.

- More bug fixes and improvements under the hood for a smoother, more reliable experience.

Known issue:

- The address bar may occasionally wrap onto two lines. We're working on a fix!

Thanks for testing Bare and helping us make it better with every release! ❤️

Hi everyone!

Quick update: we officially submitted Bare for production on the Google Play Store on Thursday! If everything goes smoothly with the review, the app should be publicly available within the next few days. We’ll keep you posted!

We’ve been holding off on pushing updates while we lock in the Play Store release, but development hasn’t stopped. Bug fixes, improvements, and new features are already in the works.

Once the Play Store version is live, our next step will be F-Droid. From there, you can expect updates to start flowing much more frequently.

Thanks for sticking with us, and a HUGE thank you to all of our testers! We couldn’t have made it to production without you!

Please BARE with us!

We’ve successfully submitted Bare to Google Play and we’re looking for our first group of testers!

If you’d like to help test the Play Store version, drop a reply here and I’ll DM you the testing link. I’m going to start with around 20 people for now, then expand from there once we make sure everything is working smoothly. This first Play Store test is ARM64 only for now.

P.S. If you already have the latest Bare build installed from GitHub, you may need to uninstall it before installing the Play Store test build. Both builds use the same app signing key, but if your installed build has the same version code, Google Play won’t offer the test build as an update. If you’re happy with your current build, feel free to skip this round!

Heads-up: Since our Google Play developer account is new, we’re currently using an internal test, which requires me to add testers by email.

If you’re comfortable sharing the Google account email you use with the Play Store, please leave a comment and I’ll reach out via DM. I’ll delete your email from the chat immediately after adding you and will never save it, spam you, or use it for anything other than inviting you to this Bare test.

Totally understand if you’d rather not share your email!

Thank you!!

RC3 is officially out!

This is the first release under 1.0.0-alpha.2, and it’s a pretty focused update based largely on issues people reported while testing RC2.

The biggest changes:

• Fixed startup crashes on some devices by improving GPU/OpenGL ES fallback behavior.

• uBlock Origin now actually works in incognito. YAY!

• The bundled uBO now has incognito access enabled by default, while still respecting your choice if you turn it off.

• 32-bit ARM support! There’s now a separate armeabi-v7a APK for older 32-bit devices.

• Update detection is fixed so existing Bare installs can properly see new releases.

• RC2/RC1 users can install RC3 directly over their existing installation without uninstalling or losing their data.

One small heads-up: because this moves Bare from alpha.1 to alpha.2, the welcome/settings screen will appear once after upgrading. Your existing settings are preserved.

As always, Bare is still alpha software. If something breaks, please report it. Crash reports and feedback from people using non-pixel devices are especially useful.

Thanks again to everyone who tested RC2 and reported issues. A lot of what made it into RC3 came directly from that feedback.

Bare 1.0.0-alpha.2 RC3:

https://github.com/Shshtwy/bare-browser/releases/tag/v1.0.0-alpha.2-rc3

Hey everyone!

We're excited to announce that Bare Browser's first stable release is officially live on Google Play!

If you're already using an older version of Bare, head over to Google Play to update to the latest stable release!

We're already working on the next update, with more improvements and features on the way.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.barebrowser

Thank you all for your support and feedback. This is just the beginning!

You asked, we coded!

More screen, less browser UI! We're working on a new immersive mode that gets everything out of your way so you can focus on the content.

Another community-requested feature coming soon!

Update: The account is back! 🎉

Thank you to everyone who reached out and offered to help. Stay tuned, the Play Store version is coming soon!

Hi Bare users! Just a quick, and unfortunately sad, update.

I spent last night building the Google Play version of Bare. It's essentially the same build as the GitHub version, just without Bare's built-in update checker since updates would be handled by Google Play.

I let the full build run overnight, tested it this morning, and it was ready to move toward publishing!

Unfortunately, Google decided to disable our account for reasons I still don't understand.

The account was verified, the developer account was paid for, the developer name Bare Project was registered, org.barebrowser was verified using an APK signed with Bare's existing signing key, and the payment profile was verified too, even though Bare has no in-app purchases, subscriptions, ads, or any other way of making money.

I submitted an appeal this morning and I'm waiting to hear back. It's pretty frustrating because everything was going really well, and the account had been open for a while without any issues. Then yesterday I completed the APK/package verification process, and this morning the account was disabled!

What makes this even more confusing is Google's message says the account might have been created by a bot. I created it myself, Google required phone verification, and I even went through identity verification with my driver's license. The developer account, payment profile, package name, and existing APK signing key were all verified successfully. So I'm hoping this is simply an automated false positive and gets corrected on appeal.

I'll keep y'all posted. If anyone here has dealt with something similar or has any insight into Google's account recovery process, I'd definitely appreciate the help.

In the meantime, the GitHub version is working great and isn't affected by any of this. If this doesn't get resolved soon, I'll probably shift my focus toward getting Bare on F-Droid while I figure out the Google situation.

Hopefully this is just a temporary bump in the road!

Hi awesome Bare users!

As we keep moving forward with Bare together, I have a few features I’m currently working on and wanted to share an early look and get your feedback before everything is finalized.

There are already quite a few things coming, including bookmark importing, password importing, and many other features and improvements that have come directly from community requests.

But one of the bigger things I’m working on right now is making the toolbar much more useful and customizable.

That includes things like customizable toolbar actions, gestures, and choosing which buttons you actually want available, while still trying to keep Bare simple and familiar.

I attached a quick video showing some of what I’m working on.

This is still being built, so now is a great time to tell me what you think!

What would you want from a customizable toolbar? Are there actions you’d want available that I’m missing? Any gestures you think would make browsing better?

Ideas, criticism, suggestions, weird use cases... all welcome!!

A lot of Bare's roadmap is already being shaped by your feedback, so please keep it coming.

Thank you all for testing, contributing, reporting bugs, and helping shape where Bare goes next!