Brave Browser 1.63 launches with vertical tabs on right support and more AI
Brave Software released a new version of its Brave Browser to the public. Brave Browser 1.63 includes several new features and improvements of existing features.
Highlights include that vertical tabs may now be placed on the right side of the interface, new Brave Leo AI capabilities, and the option to sync tab groups
The browser update is pushed to devices automatically, thanks to the integrated updating functionality. Brave users who do not want to wait for the update to reach their device may speed up the process. Select Menu > Help > About Brave to run a manual check for updates.
Brave should detect the new version at this point. The update is then downloaded and installed automatically. A restart is required to complete the installation.
Brave Browser 1.63: new features
Brave Browser has supported vertical tabs for a long time. This feature moves tabs from the horizontal tab bar at the top to the side of the browser. Vertical tabs was limited to the left side of the browser up until now.
The update to Brave 1.63 changes this. Users may now display vertical tabs on the right side of the interface as well.
Go to Menu > Settings > Appearance > Tabs to configure the functionality. Toggle Vertical Tabs to enable or disable the feature.
The new "show on the right" option is only displayed when vertical tabs are enabled.
Another new feature improves Brave's synchronization functionality. It supports the syncing of created tab groups now. Tab Groups are a killer feature in my opinion. Users who use sync may now sync these groups across their devices, which is certainly helpful.
Brave users who display bookmarks in the side panel of the browser find a new custom sort option there. This option displays bookmarks exactly the way they are set in other parts of the browser, e.g., the bookmarks manager.
Brave Leo
Brave introduced its AI Leo in Brave Browser 1.60 back in November 2023. Based on Meta's Llame2 13b model and with the option to pay to gain access to advanced models, Leo promises to assist users when using the browser.
I reviewed the page summary feature of Brave Leo back then. What I liked was the "suggested questions feature" and the ability to summarize foreign language content. Leo's capabilities, like those of any other AI available at the time, are limited though.
Brave 1.63 introduces several meaningful improvements. First, the ability to interact with PDF content and Google Docs content. This gives Leo access to PDF documents and Google Docs content loaded in the browser. In other words, it can summarize these and answer questions about them that you may have.
Second, an option to hide Leo AI Assistant suggestions in the address bar. If you don't use the AI in Brave, you may disable its suggestions in the Brave address bar.
Closing Words
Brave 1.63 introduces several interesting features and improvements. Vertical tabs users get the option to show the tabs on the right side of the browser, giving them more choice.
Brave Leo users may now use the AI with PDF and Google Docs content, something that they could not do before.
Brave updates include Web3 improvements as well. These are found in the official release notes.
Now You: do you use any of the listed features?
I’m still waiting for the Brave Vertical Tabs (Brave+VT) feature to support KEYBOARD navigation.
On a ThinkPad with a [beloved] TrackPoint, typical scrolling of things vertically is just fine using the “virtual mouse wheel” by holding down the middle mouse button and mushing the TrackPoint up or down, i.e., it’s fine in applications OTHER THAN Brave+VT. But it is a *terrible* experience to scroll my Brave+VT browser’s hundred-plus open tabs. Terrible :(
Please, please, add support for a keyboard-based method to scroll the list up/down, or at least to jump to the top/home and bottom/end positions… as a “version 1” of this support.
I’ll make a large donation when I see this feature!
Brave is a crypto scam. When will you sheeple wake up?
What I really want to see in Brave is a setting to enable cache to ram instead of disk. This would not only increase privacy but also help with less wear on solid state drives.
You don’t have to worry about SSDs wearing out:
https://www.howtogeek.com/891272/ssd-myths-and-misconceptions-people-still-believe/#ssds-wear-out-quickly
This can be done in chromium-based browsers by adding to the shortcut properties e.g.:
–disk-cache-dir=/dev/shm/brave-cache/ –disk-cache-size=1073741824
This is an example for Linux with a cache size of 1GB; for Windows, use the path to your RAM-disk; there are program to create one)
Cache size must be written in bytes.
I’ve always preferred tabs on the bottom. One of the reasons I still use FF56 with Tab Options add-on wherever possible (more and websites now refuse access when using older version, what hubris!). Why won’t Brave or other Chrome cloners implement tabs on the bottom?
I like Brave 1.63.161 so much I have already made it my default browser over the latest Chrome stable browser I’ve used for many years.
Why do these companies think everyone wants AI? Please stop it with AI already.
AMEN – Been in tech for over 40 years yeah I know I am old but certain aspects of AI take it to fare . As I used to tell support staff when an application would roll out too 10-20k users Remember that app is no smarter than you it takes a brain to tell the app what to do !… Not so much today and moving forward simply a great thought conditioner of those who control its configurations !
Completely agree. Browsers are bloated already, we shouldn’t make them heavier.
Indeed, AI really sucks and is polluting everything with made-up junk. According to AI just now, apparently I can update a non-Microsoft third-party piece of software I have through Windows Update…
Brave appears to address a niche crowd of privacy focused users, possibly those that used to use Firefox but want a better performing Chromium based browser. Nice to see it starting to add some features too.
It’s kinda hilarious that Brave’s users completely ignore that Brave routes all their traffic through Google’s servers. That’s how Chromium is built, there’s nothing Brave’s developers can do to stop it. That means zero anonymity for Brave users, no matter what their developers say.
You’d think that was an easy point to understand, even for non-technical users. But somehow it doesn’t sink in.
It’s amazing and funny to watch Firefox users wearing their tinfoil hats ignore the fact that Google is sustaining Firefox and without it, Mozilla will go bankrupt and seize to exist within a year, Google just wants to keep the inferior and insignificant Firefox around for “competition”.
Firefox already lost everything it had going for itself – being free, customizable, futuristic, now it’s just an outdated Chrome clone with limited functionality and performance. They even lie about their privacy and sell all their users’ data for money, but the Firefox tinfoil masterminds ignore this, because it hurts them the most. It’s like accepting the reality that Firefox lost the browser wars and now has nothing positive over any other browser out there.
Mozilla becoming a woke company focusing on toxic agenda like inclusivity and diversity, changes the Firefox UI every year with something more ugly, more oversized, more useless, more pink/purple vomit-colored (the favorite woke colors of wokesters) while deep underneath the UI updates, Firefox is still the same old, outdated, archaic piece of software that still displays history upon pressing CTRL+H into a sidebar and downloads, upon pressing CTRL+J into a standalone window. Like we’re back in 2002, except only the bad parts of the past.
Firefox is an outdated, insecure trash. Chromium is better with all of its caveats, there is no third competitor, but when Firefox is not even a competition, there is no point in talking about it. Firefox keeps losing users every day, soon it will be so low on Browser User Market Share statistics, that it will get delisted as a standalone entry and merged with the Others and rightfully where it belongs, since it has been garbage since 2011 and version 4.0. I thought over time Firefox will stop getting worse, but it seems their clueless developers/CEOs and their mindless sheeple of yes men users keep supporting whatever garbage they can just to justify the pathetic browser’s existence.
@Allwynd
Are you ok?
@Allwynd
You seemed more upset with politics than with the browser itself. Does the politics of Brave’s CEO also upset you, or it is ok because it’s politics you agree with?
It’s funny you think the browser that uses Google’s engine, extension store and Google Play has no connection to Google.
@Allwynd
You lost all credibility when you started to rant about “woke”.
@Anonymous,
You lost all credibility when you started defending woke garabage, you wokester, you disgust me.
@Allwynd
You’re just digging yourself in deeper.
@Wanda Hopscotch
What a nonsense. Brave is removing superfluous connections to Google on a constant basis from its Chromium base, and where those connections are necessary (like for extension updates, certificate updates) the traffic is routed through Brave’s own proxy before it hits the Google servers, meaning Google can’t track individual Brave users based on traffic generated by the browser by default. It is documented here:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)
Interesting. I just switched vertical tabs to the right. It fits sooooo much better there, since I use the mouse with the right hand.
Leo is pretty good, but I prefer it in Brave Search rather than the browser.
Firefox definitely needs to step up. They are just now implementing tab hover cards….
IMHO there are a lot of configuration options, even more that the Edge browser has.
“…Brave users who display bookmarks in the side panel of the browser find a new custom sort option there.”
However, the changes they made to bookmarks still suck. The sidebar still doesn’t remember the bookmarks folder the user was last in when the sidebar is closed and reopened.
It’s pretty clear which parts of the browser are coded by Google and which parts are coded by Brave, as the Brave additions are clunky, not very well though out and have gone through zero real-world usability testing.
The sidebar is still a really really clunky solution for bookmarks compared to the Favourites toolbar button in Microsoft Edge. And snaking your way through Brave menu > Bookmarks like it’s 1995 sucks too.
Even if Brave don’t have any usability testers on the payroll, it doesn’t take much to look how Microsoft Edge does it. It seems pretty obvious that Microsoft don’t give their developers carte blanc and that they carry out usability testing with real-world non-geek people. I mean, the rest of Edge sucks since it was utterly ruined by their Bing/MSN/Microsoft Advertising departments, but they do at least know how bookmarks should work.
@ECJ
Apparently you don’t know what you are talking about. The bookmarks sidebar was implemented by Chromium, reason why Brave had to add a ‘custom order’ because Chromium didn’t. When Chromium does, Brave will just use the Chromium implementation and not theirs.
Next time you could try to research more without typing 3 hours comment, like if you knew anything about Brave, you didn’t even try to open github Brave and find that information, which is pretty simple, especially when the release notes include the issue number about it, which will link to any PR for more information….
Hopefully Firefox implements this feature as soon as possible. They are falling behind in the bloat wars.
Firefox already has enough bloat. Let’s hope reduce, not add more. But I doubt it knowing how they keep chasing other browsers.
I find myself using article summary quite often on these AI things, however.
To all those who think he AI stuff is superfluous:
chrome://flags/#brave-ai-chat
chrome://flags/#brave-ai-chat-history
Set both flags to “Disabled”, and restart the browser. Done.
Thank you sir.
So unlike Firefox, in Brave you have to disable Brave bloatware via flags rather than main settings. Thanks for the info.
damage control
@Anonymous
No damage control. Just a recommendation for people who don’t want the AI features.
All browsers will include this – Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Firefox has made an announcement too. There is nowhere to go.
Hypocrisy is alive and well around here, when FF introduces features some people don’t want, the FF users can freely post workarounds, but when Brave does it, it’s suddenly “damage control”. Don’t complain when I do the same then, in the future.
cope
Thanks for the info, @Iron Heart, I just turned off the AI flags (although the history one was actually disabled by default on my setup). I agree with your comment, except that you often complain about similar features in Firefox that are active by default. This goes both ways.
I personally don’t much care about what any of these browsers in their default configuration as long as things I don’t want can be easily turned off. People who don’t know or care enough to learn to take steps to at least improve the privacy of their personal data are simply going to be bombarded with intrusive ads and have their personal data exposed and/or shopped around. It’s unfortunate, but that isn’t going to change (particularly if you live in the USA, as I do).
@IronHeart – “All browsers will include this – Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Firefox has made an announcement too. There is nowhere to go.”
@Me – opens Pale Moon browser – no AI. Weird.
Looks at browser roadmap – no AI in the roadmap. Double weird.
No AI in the developer discussions. What?
No branch AI projects being tinkered with in the git source. What the …?
But with a full implementation of jpegxl unlike the browsers IronHeart mentioned. Triple weird.
Uses XUL extensions which are more powerful than the webextensions used on Brave and Firefox and Chrome. What’s this?
Renders nearly all websites accurately. What? Impossible!
Pale Moon probably has like 200 users in the US compared to the millions Chrome, Edge and Firefox EACH have.
Use any banking website, any streaming service, any modern website and you’ll quickly run into issues – people do use such things even if you don’t. You’re an internet minority.
Ive used palemoon years ago, and i stopped because of the impossible you mentioned – pages did not work. And regarding jpegxl, isnt it that image format you can see only on test pages? And how is it going with DRM protected media, does palemoon play them? I realise DRM stuff is not entirely great, but… Its there, people use these services for fun.
I check PM like twice a year. Every time there is sth that makes me uninstall it the same day and go back to plain FF.
@m3city – >”Ive used palemoon years ago, and i stopped because of the impossible you mentioned – pages did not work.”
There’s been a lot of development the last few months, especially on getting webcomponents right, which was the biggest recent problem with page rendering. It’s an extremely good browser now for general use. Next time you try it you’ll see the difference.
>”And how is it going with DRM protected media, does palemoon play them?”
I don’t know, I haven’t used DRM protected anything probably ever. Not my thing.