The portable version of Brave only, all backed up/ported extensions are lost, but this is not the case if Brave is installed

[Rusenche]

The gist of all the quotes is that @Iron Heart confirmed that with the portable version of Brave only, all backed up/ported extensions are lost, but this is not the case if Brave is installed.

Please look through all the quotes, research, test what is causing the problem when backing up/porting data on the "User Data" folder to lose all extensions on the portable version only.

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549242

I want to use Brave, but its developer categorically refuses to make a portable version!

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549249

Thanks for the site, but I’ve known it since last year. When transferring the profile from Chromium browser – the bookmarks appeared, but none of the extensions have it! There is not a single extension. And in the folder “data\Default\Extensions” there were all the extensions and while looking at them – I could see how one by one they started to decrease and the folders themselves were deleted…

In general with Brave and manually transferring a profile – it doesn’t work! What conclusions I have since last year!

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549257

@sLak

Do you have the same problem with Ungoogled Chromium? Every Chromium browser runs uBlock Origin.

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549262

I definitely don’t have this problem because my browser is Ungoogled Chromium v.105.0.5195.127 and the settings were taken from it by backing up the “User Data” folder. And on unzipping that folder with my personal settings into the appropriate Brave folder – only the bookmarks were functional, not a single extension. Only Brave does this, I’ve tested Iron, Centbrowser with their new beta version, I’ve also tested Thorium, I’ve also tested CatsXP. The problem with extensions not being there is only with Brave. A couple of times months ago I was able to get the extensions to show up and be there, but not a few times Brave wouldn’t accept them as being….I don’t remember what, but….And Brave wouldn’t allow either to add extension via “crx”…

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549292

May I ask, what motivates you to use Brave? I mean, I myself use Brave and I like it, but I believe that you can get almost there with Ungoogled Chromium. Ungoogled Chromium with uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere and ClearURLs should already do the trick for you… Yes, there are some things that Brave does in addition to that, like fingerprinting protections, but are they enough of a reason for you to deal with that trouble you describe? A large number of fingerprinting scripts can be blocked from running with the EasyPrivacy list in uBlock Origin, you know. It’s not perfect but could be a workable portable setup.

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549295

The motivation is to observe the development of most popular browsers and whether they are acceptable to use when needed! We all know we won’t be using just one browser forever. But Brave initially repels with the reluctance of the developer to release an official portable version, otherwise he left them 8 types for download, but adamantly insists on releasing a portable version. He doesn’t say why he doesn’t want to. There is nothing more user-friendly than a portable version. But Brave also goes with the negatives in principle.

For myself, I can say that I am very satisfied with Ungoogle chromium.

@Iron Heart, I used both ClearURLs and LocalCDN until last year. All in all, with or without them, it’s still the same experience. Realistically speaking – we go without these two extensions, everyone will realize that they can do without them.

@Iron Heart, are you confirming that “crx” isn’t working this year in Brave either?!

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549324

@sLak

I think there just isn’t enough demand for a portable version of Brave (disclaimer: This is not my personal opinion, I believe portable software does have its uses), so an official version is unlikely. The portable version of Brave I linked to is unofficial, so there might be unexpected issues that are not present in the “official” versions of Brave.

CRX files (.crx) are just Chromium extensions, the stuff you typically download from the Chrome Web Store for example. This file type does work in all non-portable versions of Brave (only tried the Chrome Web Store), not sure why extensions cause problems in the portable build as I don’t use it myself. Anyway, one last ditch attempt at a fix would be describing you issue here: https://github.com/portapps/brave-portable/issues

@crazy-max is the developer you want to talk to.

Another thing you could try is to create a clean installation of Brave Portable WITHOUT transferring your prior profile and just downloading extensions from the Chrome Web Store into that new profile. For your bookmarks, you can export them under brave://bookmarks/ (three dot menu at the top right) and import them into the new profile, also under brave://bookmarks/ (three dot menu at the top right). Sorry that I can’t provide you with any further assistance. :/

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/09/15/avast-acquires-i-dont-care-about-cookies-browser-extension/#comment-4549371

@Iron Heart, But the problems are more complex than we have to imagine. For example – the extensions to be installed are not one or two. Second – Not every extension has the ability to export its settings, and it’s terribly cumbersome for every such extension to set up. Third – the chrome://flags/ settings made in Ungoogled chromium, whether anyone remembers what their personal settings are, but every person on the planet has at least once set something, but not everyone can remember what they set for themselves si, and even these chrome://flags/ settings are not exportable…. This is very burdensome… I had tried last year, but the strong resistance was hiding… first from the developer, who is an official one, but he adamantly doesn’t want to make portable versions, nevermind that he posts 6-7 types. Second – from here (https://github.com/portapps/brave-portable) the updates to the ….let’s call them final versions are not that fast. Yes, I know about this site from before. Third, and most aggravatingly, even if we get around to installing each extension one by one and setting it up one by one, we get to the point where the “crx” files in the portable versions are unusable. Yeah, I didn’t know they worked on a Brave install… I mean I didn’t know this problem was only on the portable version. Therefore, it is imperative that the developer provides a portable version. You ask which extension “crx” files I want so badly I can’t swallow it… eg “Select like a Boss 2015.4.24”, “Select text inside a link like Opera 6.0”. I probably have others, but these are the ones I can think of. And I don’t think when someone migrated to Brave regardless of portable or installed version and had to use their own Brave backups, if I made such backups to save the settings when needed and Brave gave them a message, that the settings are incompatible or nothing from the archive will work as extensions at all. And so…

[Rusenche]

@crazy-max (portapps), I waited patiently for a month. Won't you finally take a stand on the subject and speak out?!

[crazy-max]

This was working previously thanks to https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/795 (see https://github.com/portapps/brave-portable/issues/4) but looks like there is a regression: https://github.com/portapps/brave-portable/issues/33#issuecomment-545520016 that needs to be fixed in brave-core repo.