Brave 'portable' - 64-bit only - now includes manual updater from Fred...

[fredx181]

Other way to handle downloads that I find convenient is to have the Brave-portable64 directory in /mnt/home , and in the settings change the downloads directory to /mnt/home/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot

2023-11-30_10-38-35.png (11.52 KiB) Viewed 1096 times

Since /mnt/home/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot is already owned by spot there is no permissions problem and the downloaded files are "portable" too (i.e. inside the /mnt/home/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot dir, rather than inside the system (/home/spot/Downloads).
But it depends on what's preferred of course.

[bigphil]

Thanks for all the help chaps.
Now sorted - downloads to /home/spot/downloads

Regards

Phil

[fredx181]

Although I'm not very experienced with the use of ad blockers for various browsers, I think Brave does a great job.
Blocking ads already for e.g. Youtube is nice of course, but recently I discovered that it blocks also ads for DRM protected stuff (audio ads included) e.g. from Spotify web player https://open.spotify.com/ when having Spotify free account, so... in fact no need to pay for Spotify Premium for just listening to music without the terrible ads.

[mmmrr]

hi mike walsh
about 6 weeks ago i was able to download one of yr fine portables from mega. yesterday i went for
brave. mega told me my browser was out of date, offered me a list
of browsers they recommended.
4 different browsers on 4 different machines got the same response. any suggestions are welcome. cheers. mm

[mikewalsh]

@mmmrr :-

Yeah, MEGA.nz is getting very "picky" in regard to what browsers it'll condescend to work with.

I've uploaded Brave-portable to my MediaFire a/c, so see how you get on with this:-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/7r6l49 ... e-portable

I've already updated this to the latest version, but when you want to check for new versions, just go into the portable-Brave directory, open a terminal & run Fred's updater script:-

Code: Select all

./UpdateBrave

It only runs in the terminal, so you have to do it this way. Let us know if that works for you, please.

Mike.

[mmmrr]

thanks mikewalsh
i've got to do errands
right now but when i'm
home i look forward to
acting on yr advice.
cheers, mm

[mmmrr]

hi mikewalsh

mediafire much clearer to than mega was.
downloaded to usb stick formatted to ext2.
checksum matched. brave leapt into action
from 'launch'.
i used it for a couple of hours,
impressed by speed, power, features but more
and more unhappy with it:
i need larger font &
dark back ground/light type..i look at larger
display with diminished eyesight from 8 feet,

many pokings through settings i could not find
a way to make those changes. i will go back to
palemoon64 so simple, so straighforward.
the only
reason i tried another browser was one site: a
webcomic i've followed for years, 'dumbing of age'.

palemoon now freezes when i try to navigate on site,
then the whole operating system, bionic64, freezes.

my last act with brave is to follow yr instructions re
updating:

root# ./updateBrave
bash: ./updateBrave: No such file or directory
root#

i'm happy to be of use finding a solution.
no further interest in brave, for myself.

cheers, mm

[Dingo]

a question for experienced brave users:

the size of directory located in

Code: Select all

Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/spot/Brave-Browser/Default/Service Worker/CacheStorage

keeps growing over time. It is safe delete the content of this directory? Atcually it has reached 800 MB

[mikeslr]

It should be safe to delete the browser cache file manually. But there are easier options. Under Settings>Privacy and Security there's a Clear Browsing Data option which can be set to clear on Exit and/or manually executed from the Basic and Advanced Tabs.

Other than 'on Exit' this is inconvenient: I may want to Clear without exiting. There are other, similar extensions you can install from the Chrome Webstore. But, currently I like this one, https://chromewebstore.google.com/detai ... bcokjlbehk, for all the choices it provides. [Expand the picture on the foregoing web-page].

[mikewalsh]

@Dingo :-

Aye, to echo t'other Mike it's perfectly safe to clear the cache. The only downside being that, in the short term, webpages will be a wee bit slower to load.......at least until those pages are cached again.

An easier way to control this is to add this snippet of code to the end of the 'LAUNCH' script. It's modified from one that Marv cooked up for Ungoogled Chromium, which has no control over its cache size, this being one of those Google APIs that's missing from that browser. I've modified this to work with Brave-Portable:-

Code: Select all

yad --undecorated --center --text="                        Do you wish to clear the Brave cache? " \
--button="YES PLEASE - clear cache":2 \
--button="NO THANKS - don't clear cache":1 \
#
foo=$?
#
[[ $foo -eq 1 ]] && exit 0
#
if [[ $foo -eq 2 ]]; then
rm -rf $HERE/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser/Default/Cache/*
/usr/lib/gtkdialog/box_splash -placement top -bg "#07FE18" -fg black -timeout 5 -text "   ~~~ CACHE CLEARED! ~~~" && exit 0
fi

Copy it; open the 'LAUNCH' script with Geany, and scroll down to the bottom. Leave a blank line, then paste the snippet in. Don't forget to 'save'!

This will display a wee GUI when you close the browser, giving you the choice to clear the cache, or not.

============================

Because Brave runs as spot, you'll need to add some fonts into /root/spot.......otherwise you'll have no text in the wee GUI, just a collection of little boxes. To fix that, install the wee .pet I've attached to this post; it'll install the DejaVuSans font to /root/spot/.local/share/fonts/default/TTF. I've tested this in my own Xenialpup64 just a few minutes ago; it works fine.

So; add the code snippet to 'LAUNCH', and install the .pet. That'll give you control over whether to clear the cache or not....

Let us know what happens, please.

Mike.

[Marv]

Just a heads up. I see both issues below as being on the Brave end of things and they should resolve eventually.

A couple of issues seen here updating Brave in the past few days. A few days ago, I updated 1.61.109 to 1.62.152 using the updater in the portable. The update went ok, but solid color backgrounds for the 'dashboard' ceased to work. Gradients and imported images were still ok. Very repeatable error. Otherwise it worked normally. Just now I tried the update again to see if the issue had been addressed and the curl in the updater script downloaded a small broken zip file. I manually downloaded a zip of the latest nightly release and a manual update using that worked but the color issue persists.

[fredx181]

A couple of issues seen here updating Brave in the past few days. A few days ago, I updated 1.61.109 to 1.62.152 using the updater in the portable. The update went ok, but solid color backgrounds for the 'dashboard' ceased to work.

If I understand well what you mean, the newest Brave has option "same as linux" (as default) added to the choices dark and light, so you need to go in settings/appearance to change to e.g. dark.

[Marv]

I run as 'light', haven't tried dark, but it is in 'light' that the dashboard background selector will sucessfully select their images, my added images, gradients, but not solid colors. Not a deal breaker but an irk. It's been like that is some past versions of Brave so my guess is that they will fix it. I haven't tried the updater or curl in a couple of days so don't know if the zip downloads ok now. I will try when I get one of my long term users laptop updated. Pull hair, pull hair

[Marv]

@fredx181 , Back on the road again! Updater runs correctly now, result is v1.62.156 (Jan 31, 2024), and among other fixes, the solid color issue is resolved. From the release notes: Fixed solid color for the New Tab Page background not being respected. (#35596).

[fredx181]

Let's continue here (where it belongs IMO) the discussion at: viewtopic.php?t=11353 (that thread is now locked).
@Governor If desired of course... no need to bother you if you're fine with the way it works for you.
EDIT: Best IMO is to start 'fresh' by downloading the tar.xz from Mega link in Mike's first post, extract in a Linux formatted partition , run LAUNCH and see how it goes then with the updating.

[Governor]

I downloaded a fresh version of Brave from mega.nz directly to my ext4 partition. Installed it. It updated with no error message.

Also gone is the annoying tab which has this in the address field:

Code: Select all

http://browser/Brave-portable64/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser

And the text on that page is:

Code: Select all

This site can’t be reachedbrowser’s DNS address could not be found. Diagnosing the problem.
DNS_PROBE_POSSIBLE

I don't see how the directory where I install Brave could make any difference since it is a portable app.
What I suspect caused this problem is I had installed Brave on a FAT32 drive to begin with, and subsequently moved it to an ext4 drive.
I thought all problems were solved after the move, but the two issues remained. Since these issues did not return when I did a fresh download and install (on an ext4 drive), I can only surmise that it something to do with the FAT32.

How do I transfer my profile and settings to the new Brave installation? Which files do I copy over?
Thanks!

Let's continue here (where it belongs IMO) the discussion at: viewtopic.php?t=11353 (that thread is now locked).
@Governor If desired of course... no need to bother you if you're fine with the way it works for you.
EDIT: Best IMO is to start 'fresh' by downloading the tar.xz from Mega link in Mike's first post, extract in a Linux formatted partition , run LAUNCH and see how it goes then with the updating.

[Governor]

I downloaded a fresh version of Brave from mega.nz directly to my ext4 partition. Installed it. It updated with no error message.

Also gone is the annoying tab which has this in the address field:

Code: Select all

http://browser/Brave-portable64/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser

And the text on that page is:

Code: Select all

This site can’t be reachedbrowser’s DNS address could not be found. Diagnosing the problem.
DNS_PROBE_POSSIBLE

I don't see how the directory where I install Brave could make any difference since it is a portable app.
What I suspect caused this problem is I had installed Brave on a FAT32 drive to begin with, and Brave had several issues. I subsequently moved it to an ext4 drive. I thought all problems were solved after the move, but the two issues remained. Since these issues did not return when I did a fresh download and install (on an ext4 drive), I can only surmise that it something to do with the FAT32.

How do I transfer my profile and settings to the new Brave installation? Which files do I copy over?
Thanks!

Let's continue here (where it belongs IMO) the discussion at: viewtopic.php?t=11353 (that thread is now locked).
@Governor If desired of course... no need to bother you if you're fine with the way it works for you.
EDIT: Best IMO is to start 'fresh' by downloading the tar.xz from Mega link in Mike's first post, extract in a Linux formatted partition , run LAUNCH and see how it goes then with the updating.

[fredx181]

What I suspect caused this problem is I had installed Brave on a FAT32 drive to begin with, and Brave had several issues. I subsequently moved it to an ext4 drive. I thought all problems were solved after the move, but the two issues remained. Since these issues did not return when I did a fresh download and install (on an ext4 drive), I can only surmise that it something to do with the FAT32.

Yes, don't know for sure, but it could be that the "sort of damage" caused by extracting on FAT32 will be duplicated if you copy to ext4. When you extract directly on ext4 that cannot happen.
EDIT:

How do I transfer my profile and settings to the new Brave installation? Which files do I copy over?

The files in PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser . (hopefully you won't get similar problems as earlier by copying those files over (not that I expect though, but can't be sure))

[Governor]

What I suspect caused this problem is I had installed Brave on a FAT32 drive to begin with, and Brave had several issues. I subsequently moved it to an ext4 drive. I thought all problems were solved after the move, but the two issues remained. Since these issues did not return when I did a fresh download and install (on an ext4 drive), I can only surmise that it something to do with the FAT32.

Yes, don't know for sure, but it could be that the "sort of damage" caused by extracting on FAT32 will be duplicated if you copy to ext4. When you extract directly on ext4 that cannot happen.
EDIT:

How do I transfer my profile and settings to the new Brave installation? Which files do I copy over?

The files in PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser . (hopefully you won't get similar problems as earlier by copying those files over (not that I expect though, but can't be sure))

The "PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser" folder exists, but is is empty. No hidden files either.
I am running fossapup in RAM-only mode. Is that relevant for the Profile settings location?

[geo_c]

Yes, don't know for sure, but it could be that the "sort of damage" caused by extracting on FAT32 will be duplicated if you copy to ext4. When you extract directly on ext4 that cannot happen.

Because a portable using a launch script symlinks the profile folder from the portable location to the root file system, and if the profile folder is on fat32 and it's understood that fat32 doesn't support linux symlinks, that raises the question:

Can a folder stored on fat32 be symlinked into a linux system running in RAM and then be written to through the symlink?

My first impression would be yes, but maybe not?

At any rate, it appears that nothing was written to the profile folder or it was not copied in the process of copying to ext4.

[fredx181]

Yes, don't know for sure, but it could be that the "sort of damage" caused by extracting on FAT32 will be duplicated if you copy to ext4. When you extract directly on ext4 that cannot happen.

Because a portable using a launch script symlinks the profile folder from the portable location to the root file system ... ...

Not in this case of Brave-portable64, the PROFILE folder is located in the main folder, no symlinking to the root file system.
edit: among others, the trouble when launching from FAT32 (running as spot) is mainly because of a permission problem (setting owner of the profile folder to user spot not supported on FAT32)

@Governor If I were you, I'd just work with what (I think) you have now ("fresh" extracted on ext4 drive) to avoid further complications or misunderstandings.
The "Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser" folder (on your ext4 drive) should contain the profile files (after running LAUNCH first time) if nothing exists there, there's still a problem.
And if you run Puppy in RAM or not makes no difference (that's the advantage of "portable" on a separate drive, outside the Puppy system itself).

[Governor]

@Governor If I were you, I'd just work with what (I think) you have now ("fresh" extracted on ext4 drive) to avoid further complications or misunderstandings.
The "Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser" folder (on your ext4 drive) should contain the profile files (after running LAUNCH first time) if nothing exists there, there's still a problem.
And if you run Puppy in RAM or not makes no difference (that's the advantage of "portable" on a separate drive, outside the Puppy system itself).

Glad you clarified things. I still think it is odd that my Brave settings and bookmarks are intact (on the Brave that was copied from FAT32 to ext4), even though the PROFILE folder is empty. I will setup the new pure ext4 installation of Brave and use that.

I would recommend including a verbose notice or warning, if the intended installation drive for the Brave browser is not a suitable partition type. Funny that every instruction I have seen for installing Linux to a thumb drive recommends FAT32. How is it possible to recommend a partition type that causes problems? I don't get it.

[fredx181]

@Governor If I were you, I'd just work with what (I think) you have now ("fresh" extracted on ext4 drive) to avoid further complications or misunderstandings.
The "Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser" folder (on your ext4 drive) should contain the profile files (after running LAUNCH first time) if nothing exists there, there's still a problem.
And if you run Puppy in RAM or not makes no difference (that's the advantage of "portable" on a separate drive, outside the Puppy system itself).

... Funny that every instruction I have seen for installing Linux to a thumb drive recommends FAT32. How is it possible to recommend a partition type that causes problems? I don't get it.

A frugal Puppy install is something else, it contains .sfs modules that are mounted read-only (a full install won't work on FAT32, BTW, i.e. you cannot make a full install of e.g. Ubuntu or Linux Mint on FAT32) .
Compare with savefolder vs savefile, on FAT32 a savefolder won't work for exactly the same reasons (FAT32 not supporting change of ownership (e.g. to spot) and not supporting symlinks, a savefile though is sort of a closed container with a ext filesystem inside.

[Governor]

@Governor If I were you, I'd just work with what (I think) you have now ("fresh" extracted on ext4 drive) to avoid further complications or misunderstandings.
The "Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser" folder (on your ext4 drive) should contain the profile files (after running LAUNCH first time) if nothing exists there, there's still a problem.
And if you run Puppy in RAM or not makes no difference (that's the advantage of "portable" on a separate drive, outside the Puppy system itself).

... Funny that every instruction I have seen for installing Linux to a thumb drive recommends FAT32. How is it possible to recommend a partition type that causes problems? I don't get it.

A frugal Puppy install is something else, it contains .sfs modules that are mounted read-only (a full install won't work on FAT32, BTW, i.e. you cannot make a full install of e.g. Ubuntu or Linux Mint on FAT32) .
Compare with savefolder vs savefile, on FAT32 a savefolder won't work for exactly the same reasons (FAT32 not supporting change of ownership (e.g. to spot) and not supporting symlinks, a savefile though is sort of a closed container with a ext filesystem inside.

Many have recommended using a save folder instead of a savefile, but they did not mention that a savefolder won't work on FAT32. That is need to know information. Thanks for sharing it!

[fredx181]

... Funny that every instruction I have seen for installing Linux to a thumb drive recommends FAT32. How is it possible to recommend a partition type that causes problems? I don't get it.

A frugal Puppy install is something else, it contains .sfs modules that are mounted read-only (a full install won't work on FAT32, BTW, i.e. you cannot make a full install of e.g. Ubuntu or Linux Mint on FAT32) .
Compare with savefolder vs savefile, on FAT32 a savefolder won't work for exactly the same reasons (FAT32 not supporting change of ownership (e.g. to spot) and not supporting symlinks, a savefile though is sort of a closed container with a ext filesystem inside.

Many have recommended using a save folder instead of a savefile, but they did not mention that a savefolder won't work on FAT32. That is need to know information. Thanks for sharing it!

Puppy does a check for that, initially it will not allow you to setup a savefolder on a FAT32 partition (or if you perhaps try to force it some way it will fail with a clear error message).

[geo_c]

Many have recommended using a save folder instead of a savefile, but they did not mention that a savefolder won't work on FAT32. That is need to know information. Thanks for sharing it!

27 Dec 2022
viewtopic.php?p=76637#p76637
viewtopic.php?p=76655#p76655
viewtopic.php?p=76732#p76732
viewtopic.php?p=76739#p76739
viewtopic.php?p=76741#p76741

[Governor]

Many have recommended using a save folder instead of a savefile, but they did not mention that a savefolder won't work on FAT32. That is need to know information. Thanks for sharing it!

27 Dec 2022
viewtopic.php?p=76637#p76637
viewtopic.php?p=76655#p76655
viewtopic.php?p=76732#p76732
viewtopic.php?p=76739#p76739
viewtopic.php?p=76741#p76741

Thanks for posting these links. Good information, I just can't remember EVERYTHING.

[Governor]

A frugal Puppy install is something else, it contains .sfs modules that are mounted read-only (a full install won't work on FAT32, BTW, i.e. you cannot make a full install of e.g. Ubuntu or Linux Mint on FAT32) .
Compare with savefolder vs savefile, on FAT32 a savefolder won't work for exactly the same reasons (FAT32 not supporting change of ownership (e.g. to spot) and not supporting symlinks, a savefile though is sort of a closed container with a ext filesystem inside.

Many have recommended using a save folder instead of a savefile, but they did not mention (that I can remember) that a savefolder won't work on FAT32. That is need to know information. Thanks for sharing it!

Puppy does a check for that, initially it will not allow you to setup a savefolder on a FAT32 partition (or if you perhaps try to force it some way it will fail with a clear error message).