# What the patches do

Every change Bare makes to Chromium, in the order the series applies. The patches
themselves are in [`patches/`](../patches); this is the summary of what each one is for.

| # | Patch | Effect |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0001 | Fix two Desktop Android crashes | Extension popup keyboard events and the sign-in Add Account action both crashed the browser |
| 0002 | Harden extensions menu | The menu action crashed when no toolbar coordinator existed |
| 0003 | Extensions toolbar on phone layouts | Extension icons, popups, and pinning were tablet-only; now available at phone widths |
| 0004 | Remove variations and network-time callbacks | Two periodic requests to Google, sent regardless of activity |
| 0005 | Keep web navigations in the browser | `http(s)` links no longer get handed to whichever app claims the domain |
| 0006 | Stop Autofill crowdsourcing uploads | Form structure was uploaded to Google to train its field-classification heuristics |
| 0007 | Remove the GCM push channel | Google Cloud Messaging services, the c2dm permission and the Firebase receiver |
| 0008 | Guard omnibox vector icon calls | Unblocks disabling the Google XR SDKs, which previously broke the build |
| 0009 | Hide Google Password Manager and sign-in promo | Both were permanently non-functional and advertised as broken |
| 0010 | Remove the "You and Google" settings section | Sign-in and Google services entries, neither of which can work here |
| 0011 | Ignore page requests to lock screen orientation | Fullscreen video forced landscape, overriding the system rotation lock |
| 0012 | Draw fullscreen content into the display cutout | Fullscreen video was letterboxed off the camera edge, leaving it off-centre |
| 0013 | Size fullscreen video to its picture | The seekbar sat at the bottom of the screen instead of on the video |
| 0014 | DuckDuckGo as the default search provider | Google was the shipped default, selected by engine ID rather than list order |
| 0015 | Remove the sign-in first-run screen | Promoted a sign-in this build cannot do, and claimed data is sent to Google |
| 0016 | Stop showing the NTP sign-in card | "Get better content": sign in to personalise a feed this build cannot use |
| 0017 | Remove the Chrome tips module | A carousel of Google promos: history sync, sign-in, passwords, Safe Browsing |
| 0018 | Remove the web app restore promo | Restores apps from devices "connected to this account", impossible here |
| 0019 | Remove the Ask Gemini button | The bottom bar's extra slot resolved to Gemini, which demands account verification |
| 0020 | Remove the avatar sign-in button | "Signed out. Opens options to sign in." on every new tab page |
| 0021 | Stop offering Gemini as a toolbar shortcut | Otherwise the button removed in 0019 could be put back from Settings |
| 0022 | Offer downloads to an installed download manager | Hands a download to an app such as 1DM instead of fetching it in the browser |
| 0023 | Add a setting to choose the download manager | Settings → Downloads, off by default |
| 0024 | Browse the Chrome Web Store as a desktop site | The mobile store has no install button, so extensions could not be installed |
| 0025 | Turn off the AI Mode omnibox button | An AI entry point in the omnibox, on by default |
| 0026 | Hide the shortcuts row and NTP cards by default | Both already had toggles; only the starting state changed |
| 0027 | Lower the search box into thumb reach | Sits around 40% down the page rather than near the top |
| 0028 | Move the tab switcher toolbar to the bottom | Its buttons stayed at the top while the browsing toolbar sits at the bottom |
| 0029 | Pick which download manager receives downloads | Lists installed handlers, or ask every time |
| 0030 | Add an incognito toggle to the bottom bar | Fills the slot 0019 emptied; red while incognito is active |
| 0031 | Reword the toolbar shortcut window width note | "Only available for small windows" read as excluding phones |
| 0032 | Lower the search box to the middle of the screen | 40% was still higher than a thumb comfortably reaches |
| 0033 | Stop painting white while a page loads on a dark theme | Three surfaces defaulted to white; adds the darken-websites setting |
| 0034 | Default the toolbar shortcut to Share | It defaulted to "based on your usage", which moves the button as habits change |
| 0035 | Let the user add their own search engine | Chromium's add-engine screen existed but was switched off on Android |
| 0036 | Remove the built-in Gemini and AI Mode shortcuts | @gemini and @aimode shipped as search shortcuts pointing at Google |
| 0037 | Round the search engine icon in the omnibox | The rounding provider was built and updated but never attached to the view |
| 0038 | Rename the browser to Bare | Launcher, widgets, About page and the menu description |
| 0039 | Use the Bare icon | Legacy, adaptive and monochrome variants in every density |
| 0040 | Stop badging settings rows as new | "New" appeared beside Address bar and Appearance on every fresh profile |
| 0041 | Skip the first run experience | It opened a second Activity that only showed a spinner |
| 0042 | Add the Bare welcome screen | One-time welcome layered over the browser, not its own Activity |
| 0043 | Let supported sites keep playing media in the background | Opt-in, off by default; the page is told it is still visible so it does not pause itself |
| 0044 | Rename the browser in the remaining Android strings | 337 strings still said Chrome; Google's own products keep their names |
| 0045 | Remove the Autofill AI and personal context settings | "Smarter form understanding" shared page URLs and content with Google |
| 0046 | Use the installed password manager by default | And relabel the built-in option, which claimed to use your Google Account |
| 0047 | Animate a new tab from the button that opened it | From the tab switcher it grew from the top corner, ignoring the bottom bar |
| 0048 | Keep the search engine icon round in thumbnails | Outline clipping is skipped when a view is drawn into a software canvas |
| 0049 | Add a Video autostart site setting | Chromium stored an autoplay setting nothing ever read |
| 0050 | Keep sites told the page is visible in the background | Sites paused their own video on `visibilitychange`, defeating background playback |
| 0051 | Keep background playback permission when hidden | The permission was withdrawn the moment the page stopped being visible |
| 0052 | Add DuckDuckGo No AI as a prepopulated engine | Selectable from the engine list rather than added by hand |
| 0053 | Show the NOAI wordmark on the new tab page | The engine had no logo, so the page showed nothing |
| 0054 | Fix a crash when Video autostart is switched back on | Introduced by 0049 |
| 0055 | Use the Bare mark in the media notification | The lock screen still showed Chromium's |
| 0056 | Find the media under a click-blocking overlay | Sites cover media with a transparent layer, which defeated the long press |
| 0057 | Keep Manifest V2 extensions working | Chromium 153 disables MV2 outright; full uBlock Origin needs it |
| 0058 | Ship the MV2 action schemas in this build | Their absence killed the renderer for any extension using them |
| 0059 | Ship uBlock Origin with the browser | Pre-installed, unpinned, removable like anything else |
| 0060 | Use the Bare mark for the launcher icon | Adaptive, themed and legacy variants |
| 0061 | Offer the main settings on the welcome screen | Search engine, ad blocker, address bar, downloads, chosen before anything loads |
| 0062 | Finish renaming the browser in the remaining strings | The strings the first rename pass missed |
| 0063 | Remove Ask Gemini from the app menu | It appeared once on first launch, then never again |
| 0064 | Offer a download for audio elements | A long press on an `<audio>` element produced an empty menu |
| 0065 | Offer a download for video the page only streams | Media Source video has no downloadable src, so upstream offers nothing |
| 0066 | Follow range requests back to the whole file | A range-fetched URL names a slice, not the file, and audio is a separate track |
| 0067 | Stop asking the user to sign in to a Google account | Six surfaces built the same promo; all six ask one method first |
| 0068 | Let extension context menu items run their own command | The menu overwrote the listener extensions arrive with, so tapping one did nothing |
| 0069 | Add a Dark AMOLED theme | A third theme taking flat surfaces to true black; raised surfaces keep a small lift so menus stay separable |
| 0070 | Turn off Glic, the Gemini integration | Every Glic surface asks one class first, so closing that gate removes all of them at once |
| 0071 | Cover the activity relaunch when the theme changes | Switching theme recreates the activity, which flashed the outgoing colours on the way through |
| 0072 | Rename the browser in eleven more strings | The strings the earlier renaming passes missed |
| 0073 | Make Google sign-in and sync unreachable | Five ways in: the settings rows, two deep-link routes and the settings-search entries |
| 0074 | Look for Bare's own updates on GitHub | One plain request to the public release feed, no identifier and nothing scheduled; automatic or manual |
| 0075 | Stop the launch splash flashing white on a dark theme | Android resolves the splash against the system's night mode, before any of the browser runs |
| 0076 | Let the current page row reach the omnibox on phones | The desktop Android target hid share, copy and edit for the page you are on |
| 0077 | Read night mode from the browser, not from a Context | The renderer filled white because the Context reachable from a WebContents answered for the system |
| 0078 | Keep the verbatim match the current page row needs | The row is built from a match the desktop target declined to produce |
| 0079 | Name the filter list that strips tracking from links | uBlock Origin ships the list that does it switched off, and nothing surfaced that |
| 0080 | Stop advertising Safe Browsing | No public Chromium Android build has the handler the lookups need, so the settings, the Safety Hub module and the promo card all described nothing |
| 0081 | Stop the caBLE messaging token | An InstanceID token was fetched at every cold start for a phone-as-security-key feature that needs Chrome Sync |
| 0082 | Stop the omnibox asking who is signed in | Typing reached GAIA ListAccounts at accounts.google.com, only to decide whether to personalise suggestions |
| 0083 | Remove Send to your devices | Upstream shows it to signed-out users on purpose, to recruit a Google sign-in that cannot complete here |
| 0084 | Fix the welcome screen on Android 12 | The reveal was driven only by the splash exit; when that never fired the rows stayed invisible and the circle silently banked defaults |
| 0085 | Register twelve fewer components | Each registration announces the install to update.googleapis.com; the security-carrying ones are kept and listed |
| 0086 | Stop the cloud-policy Firebase tokens | A fresh profile fetched two FCM tokens as durable identifiers, for enterprise invalidations this build can never receive |
| 0087 | Fix two crashes from patch 0080 | Removing a preference row leaves the Java that looks it up holding null; Privacy and security and Safety check both crashed |
| 0088 | Stop the update dot reappearing | Opening the row cleared it, but the next daily check saw the same release was still newer and put it straight back |
| 0089 | Send the update row to the release it found | It announced a version and then did nothing when tapped; the page for the found tag now opens in a tab, with no download |
| 0090 | Stop settings search crashing | Patch 0080 removed the Safe Browsing row but left the search index rewriting its summary, which threw on Edit homepage and on Search settings |
| 0091 | Stop the bottom bar reacting to a long press | A label repeated what the icon meant, and once that was cleared the gesture fell through and opened a tab or switched to incognito |
| 0092 | Make a second welcome a review, not a reset | The search engine, autofill provider and background media rows live in the profile, which is not up when the welcome is built, so a repeat showing drew defaults over settings the user had chosen and wrote them back on Start |
| 0093 | Stop the startup ListAccounts to accounts.google.com | Two metrics-only services read the cookie jar while the profile was still being built, and reading it fetched from Google whenever the cached answer was stale, on every cold start |
| 0094 | Drop the Safety Hub password check that can never run | The row reported that it could not check passwords in a Google Account and offered a Sign in to Chrome button, in a build with no browser sign-in, and its permanent failure held the whole page at a warning |
| 0095 | Stop shipping the XR module when XR is switched off | chrome_module_descs never consulted the XR buildflags, so about 20 MB of AndroidX XR and ARCore native code was packaged in a build where enable_vr, enable_arcore, enable_openxr and enable_cardboard are all off |
| 0096 | Keep the Start circle off the welcome footer | The column needed more height than a Pixel 3 has, so the spacer collapsed and the circle ran past the padding reserved for the footer, which was pinned to the frame and took no part in the layout |

Patches 0001 and 0002 are bug fixes that happen to be prerequisites. 0003 is a usability fix.
0004 through 0010 are the de-Googling, as are 0014 through 0021. 0011 through 0013 fix
fullscreen video behaviour. 0022 and 0023 add the external download manager option. 0024
through 0028 are usability changes: the Web Store, the AI Mode button, what the new tab page
shows by default, and where the toolbars sit. 0029 through 0033 continue in that vein: choosing
the download manager, the incognito toggle, clearer wording in settings, where the search box
sits, the white flash on a dark theme, which shortcut the toolbar starts with, and adding your
own search engine. 0036 drops the built-in Google AI search shortcuts and 0037 fixes the shape
of the engine icon in the omnibox. 0038 through 0042 are the rebrand to Bare, and 0044 finishes
the naming the first pass missed. 0043 adds background media playback. 0045 and 0046 continue
the de-Googling in autofill: removing the AI sections, and defaulting to whichever password
manager the user already has. 0047 and 0048 are small visual fixes found by using the build:
where a new tab animation starts, and an icon that was clipped round rather than drawn round.

Sign-in has no single gate in Chromium. Patches 0009, 0010, 0015, 0016 and 0020 each remove a
different entry point: the settings row, the "You and Google" section, the first-run screen,
the New Tab Page card, and the toolbar avatar. Assume there are more rather than fewer.

0080 through 0087 are the release-hardening pass, driven by a runtime audit rather than by
reading code. 0080 and 0087 belong together: removing the Safe Browsing rows crashed two settings
screens, which only showed up by opening them on a device. 0081 and 0086 are two separate
consumers of the same Firebase machinery, which is why removing one did not cover the other.

0069 through 0079 came out of using the build on a Pixel Fold and a Pixel 10 Pro XL. 0069 and
0071 are the AMOLED theme and the relaunch it triggers. 0070 and 0073 close the last Gemini and
Google account surfaces, and 0072 the last of the naming. 0074 is the only thing in the browser
that contacts a server the user did not navigate to. 0075, 0077 and 0078 are all the same class
of bug: something asked a Context, or the build target, a question only the browser could answer,
and got the system's answer back.

## Removed by build flag

These go in `args.gn` rather than a patch:

```gn
use_mlkit_for_aicore = false          # ML Kit + AICore (on-device Gemini Nano bridge)
enable_glic_internal_resources = false # Gemini-in-Chrome surface
enable_reporting = false               # Reporting API / Network Error Logging
enable_service_discovery = false       # local device discovery
enable_mdns = false                    # mDNS

chrome_public_manifest_package = "org.barebrowser"  # application id
```

The application id is a build argument rather than a patch, because upstream already exposes
it as one. Note that changing it means the app installs alongside an earlier build rather
than upgrading it: Android identifies apps by package, so tabs, extensions and settings do
not carry over.

## What is deliberately kept

| Kept | Why |
| --- | --- |
| Extensions (`enable_extensions_core`) | The entire point of the Desktop Android target |
| Proprietary codecs (`ffmpeg_branding = "Chrome"`) | H.264/AAC video playback |
| Widevine | DRM. Removing it breaks paid streaming |
| Component updater | Delivers CRLSet certificate revocation data |
| HSTS preload list | Static security asset, no callback |

## Verified on device

Recorded when each of these landed, on a Pixel 10 Pro XL.

Extensions install and run (Bitwarden, uBlock Origin, Dark Reader), popups open and
pinning works. Both crash reproductions behind 0001 are gone, and the shipped
`AndroidManifest.xml` contains no reference to ML Kit or AICore.

**0005** against a real in-page link tap: following a Reddit result from a search page keeps you
in the browser, with Reddit's own "Open App" prompt left unused.

**0011 and 0012**: fullscreen video follows the phone's orientation instead of forcing landscape,
and sits centred in both portrait and landscape. **0013** by geometry read off the running page,
for both a 16:9 video and one taller than the viewport.

**0014 and 0015** on a wiped profile, which is the only honest test for either: the new tab page
shows DuckDuckGo and a query resolves to `duckduckgo.com`, and the browser opens straight to the
new tab page with no first-run screen, including after a force stop and relaunch. If the Terms
of Service acceptance did not persist, that screen would come back.