A lot of us are still using older devices on Android 9, 8, and even 7 — not because we want to stay outdated, but because our hardware still works perfectly fine. Dropping support for these versions cuts off a huge number of users who rely on Brave for its privacy and performance.
Brave has always stood for accessibility and user choice. Bringing back support (at least down to Android 7) would help keep that vision alive and ensure that people aren’t forced to switch browsers just because of OS limitations.
Please consider maintaining a lightweight or legacy version for older Android users. We still want a secure, fast, and private browsing experience — and we trust Brave to deliver it.
Anyone else affected by this?
Description of the issue:
How can this issue be reproduced?
Take a device running Android 9 (or lower, e.g., Android 8/7).
Open Google Play Store and search for Brave Browser.
Attempt to install or update the app.
Expected result: “This app isn’t compatible with your device anymore. Contact the developers for more info.”
Brave Version( check About Brave): 1.65.122
Mobile Device details: older android smartphone with atleast Android 9
“Chrome 139 (tentatively scheduled for release on August 5th, 2025) is the first version of Chrome that requires Android 10.0 or later. You’ll need to ensure your device is running Android 10.0 or later to continue receiving future Chrome releases.”
" Older versions of Chrome will continue to work, but there will be no further updates released for users on these operating systems. If you are currently on Android 8.0 or Android 9.0, we encourage you to move to a supported Android 10.0 version (or newer) to ensure you continue to receive the latest security updates and Chrome features."
Yeah, that actually makes sense. Since chromium itself is dropping support for older Android versions, it’s understandable that browsers like brave can’t realistically maintain legacy support without huge effort and potential security risks.
Still unfortunate for users on older devices, but I get why this decision is being made now. @289wk
As API’s change, apps can only support so far back.
There are options however you might want to consider, but they are completely at your own risk, and by risk, you risk killing your phone.
For example, I have a OnePlus N200 5G, a cheap budget 5G phone from 4ish years ago. It’s last support was Android 12. But I put it on LineageOS and it’s now on Android 16 and running honestly quicker than the OEM system software. However this isn’t easy, it takes time and patience, you will lose your data so you need to backup before hand, and custom ROM’s can have issues (sometimes things just don’t work), but if your phone is well maintained by the custom ROM community, you could be in luck.
@MasterLink Yeah, I get that, and I actually do use things like GSIs with.
But I’m on an Oppo A31 which is now 6 year old , and with devices from BBK electronics (basically the parent of vivo and oppo), unlocking the bootloader is honestly a nightmare or sometimes not even officially supported.
So while custom ROMs are a great option in theory, they’re not really accessible for everyone especially on brands that restrict that level of control.
That’s why losing app support hits harder for users like us.
Right, but unlike computers, these “smart” devices are far harder to support past their intended lifespan. I get it, it truly is wrong and they should be forced to support them for a far more reasonable amount of time. (And force them to understand what “reasonable” is, as most devices technically can handle 10 years if it’s at least ARMv8 with at minimum 4GB of RAM, since Android 16 actually does work on such devices rather smoothly when it’s AOSP).
But financially it’s not viable either. It’s not on the app developers either, Google does mandate minimum API’s, just like Apple does. Eventually all hands are tied other than external APK downloads from GitHub (since it’s the Play Store that enforces those minimum rules), but look at how Google/Android has been treating external APK’s lately, new phones won’t have sideloading anymore.
