Restore "Enable Incognito brand consistency in desktop" flag removed from Chromium

[Dean-Corso]

Description

I did update Brave today and my custom installed theme is gone from incognito mode and now I want use my installed theme in incognito mode again (like before too) but I can't find the flag "Enable Incognito brand consistency in desktop" anymore in the brave://flags to disable.Why is it gone or renamed maybe etc?

Actual result:

Incognito mode is purple colored and menus having black backgrounds.I hate that look and I can not avoid it because the flag entry is no more present (maybe it is and was re-named).

Expected result:

I do expect a simple option in the main settings to enable/disable that dark mode context menu and purple color in incognito mode.Normaly the used theme should also be used in incognito mode too by default without to play around in flags to find any entry to make it work.At all I just want to use my choosen theme what I have installed from Chrome store ALSO in incognito mode.Is that so hard to understand for you guys?Or just put another slider in the Appearance right under the Theme entry and call this "Allow theme in incognito mode" and thats it.So simple you should do it to give the user the choice to enable / disable it.Just think about it so nobody wants to play around with flags for this option specially if the flag gets changed or removed etc.

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave		1.37.109 Chromium: 100.0.4896.60 (Official Build) (64-bit) 
Revision	6a5d10861ce8de5fce22564658033b43cb7de047-refs/branch-heads/4896@{#875}
OS		Windows 10 Version 21H1 (Build 19043.1586)

[FelixBer]

I have the same issue, very annoying ...

[bsclifton]

cc: @simonhong @rebron

@Dean-Corso sorry that we missed this issue in our triaging. I added appropriate labels and CC'ed two folks who can help analyze. I also deleted the expletive from your post - I appreciate the passion, just want to keep things civil here

[Dean-Corso]

Helle @bsclifton,

I'm surprised that anyone did answer me now! Very good and thank you for that step. I also can understand that you wanted and have removed my quote message at the end so this should show you guys that I'am really furious because nothing happens till today what makes people pretty angry of course so I hope you do understand it.

So the big question which is still open is why does Chrome / Brave change things which are good? I'm a normal browser user like many others too and also many of use want to determine how the browser has to look because of that there are much members who creating custom themes (see Chrome Store) we can use but since a longer time its no more possible to use themes in incognito mode what is absolutely incomprehensible. There is no logical reason to do this. The Chrome dev did make it harder and harder over a longer while using themes in I-Mode by changing flags & removing them later and thats just pur chicane and I don't want to accept that. We all respectively the most "Brave-Browser" users want to get back the possibility to decide how the browser should look by installed themes "also in incognito mode" and not just in normal mode. Thats the whole point. So if Chrome itself dosen't want to allow it anymore that their users decide by themself about the themes in I-Mode then its your task to talk with the Chrome dev team to allow it again or otherwise just change the source or create a patch or whatever to make it work. Thats all. "My Browser - My Style"! Only exception is Chrome / Brave since over four months. Please change this back. Thank you.

[spylogsster]

Hi @Dean-Corso
That was experimental feature flags and they have been removed from Chromium since 24 Jan 2022
Commit https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/c99db70f146b2778c05ea3c672068f0def22500d

Checked in Google Chrome 104 and it doesnt work for me too. Incognito windows stay with incognito theme

[Dean-Corso]

Hi @spylogsster,

so the flag was still there short beore april this year and I know it because after the update of brave browser I had always to disable that flag new "Enable Incognito brand consistency in desktop" and re-install my theme and right at april 1 the flag was gone. I'am not sure anymore about the exact Brave version...

Release v1.37.110 (Chromium 100.0.4896.60) <-- Flag gone
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.37.110
or
Release v1.37.109 (Chromium 100.0.4896.60) <--- or here Flag gone
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.37.109

...just have a look so maybe you can see any info about it I don't see etc. Otherwise just test it to see in which one the flag isn't there anymore. When its there then you can disable it and install a theme. So everything what I want is to get my themes back in incognito mode which I use as default mode to work with the browser "brave.exe" --incognito". I also found few topics on internet about that problem...
https://community.brave.com/t/incognito-brand-consistency-flag-deprecated-damn-purple-theme-is-back/364381
https://superuser.com/questions/1697688/google-chrome-custom-theme-not-working-in-incognito-mode
...I also didn't seen any infos or statement from Chrome devs about that etc. Otherwise it must be possible for you Brave devs to create a workaround to allow themes in I-Mode again or?

[spylogsster]

cc @rebron to check if we want to restore and support that experimental feature

[7heMech]

I'm unhappy a basic feature request such as this is neglected as well.
It's fine if the company does really focus more on the crypto part (and other features which a lot of people don't use), and it makes sense since it's what makes them money, but they shouldn't be completely neglecting features which their users want either.

[bsclifton]

@7heMech this issue has been triaged relative to the other 7200+ open issues. Please understand we have limited dev resources and we're always trying to ID/fix the big ones. There is a lot of dev happening on Brave that has nothing to do with Crypto.

As it's labeled now, P5 priority means that we will not be working on this. We should have explained that after labeling.

If someone reading this issue wanted to volunteer and look into a good way to restore the functionality that Google/Chromium deleted in https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/c99db70f146b2778c05ea3c672068f0def22500d we can consider the pull request when it's submit. The person would need to look at how to introduce those patches into Brave with an easy to maintain way (doesn't break our Chromium upgrading). See our patching guidelines for more information.

It sounds like (from above) Ungoogled Chromium has kept this. Maybe someone can point us at the patches

[bsclifton]

There's enough abuse already in this issue - I'm going to do some cleanup of the comments. We are real human beings and trying our best to triage and work on the most important issues with the limited resources we have.