This is about my UI design concerns of the desktop application of the Brave browser. I think it’s taking too much unwanted space between tabs section and URL bar. I’m working on a 15inch laptop, so I value even little spaces like these that goes wasted when browsing.
This is a bit of an optical illusion. The reason it looks like Brave is taking up more space is likely due to the fact that the space is divided between the very top of the window and the top of the tab and the bottom of the tab and top of the browser toolbar, since the tabs in Brave are detached from the toolbar. If there is a difference, it’s <= 1px at most.
In Chrome, the bottom of tabs are connected to the browser toolbar so there’s obviously no space below it, but above the tab, there is roughly 7px between the top of the tab and the top of the window. In Brave, there is roughly a 4px gap between the top of the tab and the top of the window and roughly 3px gap between the bottom of the tab and the browser toolbar:
So they are ultimately taking up the same amount of space. MS Edge appears to be the same as Chrome.
If you compare them side by side, the difference is barely there.
Edge is actually using a bit more space than Brave in Tab area. Without bookmarks bar, the overall size difference is basically none, or you may even say Edge is using slightly more space if you try to pixel-peeping here.
With bookmarks bar though, Brave does use more space, but the difference is negligible. And from your screenshots, it does not seem like you are using them anyway.
Yea I’m gonna be honest, this is such a small thing I see it being more of a developers choice. Personally I prefer a cozy space, so a bit more space to click the buttons the better, but being how Chromium browsers are based, this isn’t an easy thing to fix unless there was a built in “Cozy, Compact, or Medium” mode sort of like how Firefox does? (Possible feature request?)
But I can say this, vertical tab mode, Brave does use less space entirely as compared to Edge, but I totally get it, that’s likely not a solution you want, even I can’t adapt to vertical tabs (and I refuse to).
Laptop screens always used to be in the 16:9 ratio, but 16:10 is becoming more common. I know getting a new laptop is not a solution, but when you next upgrade, I recommend getting a 16:10, which gives you slightly more height.
For now, if a few pixels are an issue, you can autohide your taskbar. I used to do that in Windows 10, and would press the Windows key when I needed to see the clock or the taskbar icons. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, and was worth it to have the whole screen available for apps.
History is repeating itself actually. Laptops used to be 16:10 then it sorta died off in 2008ish (though some 1440x900 machines did make it into 2011 I think like MacBook Pro 15”). It appears it’s been coming back for the past few years again.
