Brave browser on Xenial Pup 64

[RickGT351]

I saw an article singing the praises of Brave browser so thought I would install it using the instructions here however the instructions were for Ubuntu not Puppy.
Various little problems arose like this

Code: Select all

root# sudo apt install brave-browser
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 brave-browser : PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.14.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: ca-certificates but it is not installable
                 Depends: fonts-liberation but it is not installable
                 Depends: libappindicator3-1 but it is not installable
                 Depends: libasound2 (>= 1.0.16) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libatk-bridge2.0-0 (>= 2.5.3) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 2.2.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libatspi2.0-0 (>= 2.9.90) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.18) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libcups2 (>= 1.4.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.5.12) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libexpat1 (>= 2.0.1) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libgcc1 (>= 1:4.2) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.31.8) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.9.10) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libnspr4 (>= 2:4.9-2~) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libnss3 (>= 2:3.22) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libx11-6 (>= 2:1.4.99.1) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libx11-xcb1 but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxcb1 (>= 1.6) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.3-1) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxcursor1 (> 1.1.2) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxext6 but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxfixes3 (>= 1:5.0) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3) but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxrender1 but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxss1 but it is not installable
                 Depends: libxtst6 but it is not installable
                 Depends: wget but it is not installable
                 Depends: xdg-utils (>= 1.0.2) but it is not installable
                 Depends: brave-keyring but it is not going to be installed
                 Recommends: libu2f-udev but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Is there a way to install this or should I just give up in disgust?

[mikeslr]

I'm not certain that Bravebrowser can accomplish anything which a 'fleshed out' firefox can't. But IIRC, Bravebrower is a rebuilt firefox: some things added, others left out. If that's the case, you may be able to use firefox --or better still fredx181's firefox portable as Puppies have problems with pulseaudio-- and construct a portable bravebrowser:

Download firefox portable installer and run it creating a portable-firefox folder. Download bravebrowser and unpack it. Copy all the brave-browser files into a folder. Most, if not all the missing/uninstallable dependencies reported in your post will be in the portable-firefox or in Puppy's own /usr/lib folder. Note, as I recall Bravebrowser only comes as a 64-bit Application. Depending on your 64-bit Puppy, where your 64-bit libraries are located will differ between 'Slackos' and 'debian/ubuntus'. Copy the libraries from firerox-portable/Puppy into the brave-browser folder and create a wrapper like firefox's ff file. That 'wrapper' tells firefox to look in its own folder for libraries.

Note -- not sure what to do about " Depends: brave-keyring but it is not going to be installed"

So, having finished my first cup of coffee for the day, I think this is a project more easily undertaken using sc0ttman's pkg-cli, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 531#985531

[OscarTalks]

Posting this from Brave 1.3.80 (beta) in XenialPup64
Grabbed the .deb from github, extracted it and manually installed the main directory in /opt
Made a very simple launcher script as /usr/bin/brave
Edited my /root/.spot-status adding brave=false
Used Login and Security Manager to tick brave to run as spot
Launched brave from terminal. Works!
Add .desktop file with icon path for menu entry as usual.

[RickGT351]

Great to hear OscarTalks. For today's trick question, does it have sound?

[OscarTalks]

Yes, it does have sound.

[mikeslr]

Hi RickGT351,

Sorry about the misinformation. My recollection was that BraveBrowser was originally based on firefox. It changed in 2015. They didn't notify me.

@ OscarTalks,

I was able to create a working SFS following your instructions. However, regarding "Edited my /root/.spot-status adding brave=false" then "Used Login and Security Manager to tick brave to run as spot" whether spot-status was initially set as true or false and with 'run as spot' ticked it refused to run, claiming it was still being attempted as 'root'. Restarting-x didn't help. Eventually I was forced to add the "no-sandbox" argument.

Was a Save & Reboot necessary? Not sure what I could be doing wrong.

I'm still not sure it has any advantage over firefox. Turn on Puppy's Advert-blocker. With them turned on my impression was that firefox opened a graphic right webpage "google dogs images" as fast or faster. Under firefox you can Add any of several VPN and/or Tor extensions or both. On the other hand, having sound without the hassle of apulse is nice.

[bigpup]

This web site tells you all about Brave browser
https://brave.com/
Scroll down that first page for all kinds of info about what it is suppose to be.

This seemed eye opening from the Company->about web page.

Meet the Team
Brave is built by a team of privacy focused, performance oriented pioneers of the web, including the inventor of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla.

From Brave features FAQ

Brave blocks invasive ads by default. If you turn on Brave Rewards, you can earn tokens for viewing Brave Ads. These ads aren’t like the ones you see on the web. They’re completely private: none of your personal info, browsing history or anything else ever leaves your device. That’s because Brave downloads the whole ad catalogue and selects the right ads for you locally on your device. And when you see an ad Brave picks for you, you earn 70% of what the advertiser paid, guaranteed. Brave Ads look like system notifications. They’re not distracting or intrusive, and they’re not mixed in with the pages you read online. And you get to pick how many, and how often to see them. ​Learn more.

When you use Brave Rewards, you earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) for each privacy-respecting ad Brave shows you. A typical, engaged person who uses Brave as their everyday browser can expect to earn ​about $5 of BAT a month.​ This figure will vary over time and by region, depending on a variety of factors

.

[OscarTalks]

@mikeslr

No, I didn't need to do any Save and Reboot or anything. I did run it with --no-sandbox (as root) first and it worked (with the warning notification as expected), but I don't think that is required before going on to set up the running as spot. When you do the editing, ticking and clicking of "OK" to set up the running as spot you should get a dialog notification telling you that brave will run as spot next time you start it.

As for advantages, I think it is more a question of personal preference, although the earning of money as BAT cryptocurrency may be something that is unique to brave, not sure.

[Mike Walsh]

Hmm. Interesting....

I remember looking at this some time ago, when it first appeared. Like Mike, I'm almost positive it was originally based on Quantum, rather than Chromium. However, what I'm about to announce has quite possibly fixed another issue for me..!

Following a suggestion, via, PM, from Mikeslr, I've been playing around this morning. I seem to be 'on a roll' with portable versions of the Chromium-based browsers ATM, soooo...

Here, for anybody that fancies trying it, is

'Brave-portable'

(I think I know where I went wrong day before yesterday when I was attempting to build a portable version of Chrome. Not only does the browser directory need spot permissions, the wrapper-script and 'launcher' both need to be 'run-as-spot'. When building this one, I was initially getting the identical issue to the Chrome variant; couldn't create a 'singleton-lock', and it didn't want to create or populate the profile directory, so... More experimentation in the works!)

The garbage that Chromium browsers spew out in the terminal does have its uses from time to time; instead of producing error logs, these browsers just produce a continuous, ongoing debugging/error-report session all the time they're running...and occasionally, it's actually helpful.

-------------------------------------------

Same as the others. Download the tarball; unzip it....and 'Brave-portable' is inside. Click to enter, then click on 'LAUNCH' to, well, launch it..! The Pepper updater is alongside the launcher; just click on the script, and it'll download & install the current version.....though hopefully, in 12 months time this will be a thing of the past. We shall see...

You can put the portable anywhere you want; like the various 'portable' Mozilla-based browsers that have been produced, it's self-contained.

The tarball is available from my Google Drive:-

Download - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CdhrsE ... sp=sharing
MD5 - db7bec57ec41b13148e8ca33ecd61692
SHA256 - d107e285139af20e0bd9cae07a74e21b547e2ae851655b360bd19aa05ce9b114

Posting from it now.

Enjoy.


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi Mike & All,

I had the urge to figure out why OscarTalks had success and I didn't while examining the code you used. The first time BraveBrowser is run the "no-sandbox" code in .../brave/brave-pup was necessary. After running it the first time, however, that code can be deleted and the OscarTalks instructions [http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 50#1046550] worked, enabling BraveBrowser to run as spot with sandbox enabled. Perhaps that was implied by OscarTalks instructions and I had misinterpreted it.

I'm having some qualms about BraveBrowser. It is fast, but It strikes me as kind of gimmicky: designed to encourage a user to blindly accept the adverts permitted and blocked and make contributions to websites the user frequents. Viewed another way, the user is being manipulated away from some sites and toward other sites which will be financially rewarded. So I have to wonder if the publisher has a financial interest --directly or indirectly-- in the "service" being provided.

Perhaps I did something wrong, but I was unable to change BraveBrowser's Home page. And changing the default Search Engine from Google to some others seemed to produce unexpected results and/or a lack of responsiveness. These heightened my sense of being manipulated.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Puppy has its own Adblocker. Or an interested user can research on this Forum and elsewhere, then implement "hostfiles" making his or her own choices about which adds and sites are to be avoided, achieving comparable or perhaps faster surfing responsiveness.

There being other Web-browsers --such as firefox, opera, iron-- in whose integrity I place greater trust, I don't intend to use BraveBrowser. However, as you've used the same codes in opera-portable and iron-portable, you might want to consider adding two small files to each: a "first-run-Launch" calling "first-run-wrapper with no-sandbox" to compliment the "regular" Launch and wrapper without the no-sandbox argument. Or some other technique to enable running as spot with sandbox.

Edit: I could not get the changes which worked under BraveBrowser --enabling it to run without the 'no-sandbox' argument-- to work under either Iron or Opera.

[Mike Walsh]

@ Mike:-

I got curious about this myself, and did some digging. Inside the 'Profile' directory, there's a file titled 'First run'.....but it's empty. Nada. Zip. Zilch. 0B. The cupboard is bare.....

I have no way of determining exactly where this is coming from. It's not present until the directory is created.....by which time, the first run has occurred, so where's the point in simply deleting the contents; why not delete the entire file and be done with it?

(I've never been able to figure out the profiles of the Chromium 'clones'. Unlike those from Mozilla, where every part of the profile is in plain text, the 'clones' betray their 'Big Brother' origins, by creating everything in 'locked' database files with a proprietary file extension.....)

As though they're doing their level best to hide from the user what the browser is in fact doing behind your back..!


T'other Mike.

[Gnimmelf]

I had the urge to figure out why OscarTalks had success and I didn't while examining the code you used. The first time BraveBrowser is run the "no-sandbox" code in .../brave/brave-pup was necessary. After running it the first time, however, that code can be deleted

how do i get rid of the "--no-sandbox" warning? or how do i get it to run with sandbox? (do i need this?) please eksplain in detail! Im a newbie

kindly Gnimm

[mikeslr]

After some delay, Gnimmelf's above question was answered here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 39#1056439