So far I am absolutely loving Blockstack and its environment! One small annoyance I have found is that through using the downloadable app for it, it almost always requires me to login again. This could just be an issue centered around Brave, my primary browser, or just a feature of the current system. However, regardless of this, I was wondering if it’d be possible to integrate the abilities of Blockstack into an all-in-one plugin for Brave, much like Metamask currently offers. It’d be an almost seamless, 1 step process for the user, and most likely easier than the current 2-step system. I bet that if the Brave people were approached about this, they would gladly help get a Blockstack extension integrated with Brave!
Since Brave is Chromium based, I believe @MichaelFedora’s Chrome extension could work in Brave. However, you’d have to run a local development instance of Brave and custom install the extension. Think that’d work, Michael?
Here’s how you custom install Chrome extensions into a development instance of Brave: https://brave.com/loading-chrome-extensions-in-brave/
Obviously, it’d be much nicer to have a native extension, but considering Michael’s extension is still alpha or beta, this is probably a good short-term solution.
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Ah! I didn’t realize that there was a Chrome extension for Blockstack! Then yes, that’d be reasonably easy to add into Brave. It’ll be even easier soon enough, as the Brave Developer Beta (which can be downloaded now as well!) offers extension installing support by default.
Is his extension available in the Chrome store yet? I ask cause that’s what the Dev version of Brave uses to download extensions. If not, I’m sure there’s a way to sideload extensions in Brave as well, if his extension isn’t available yet. Might be worth checking out! 
I can’t speak for sure, but I don’t think that the Chrome extension has 100% feature parity with the Blockstack Browser yet.
I’ve read that Brave is hoping to launch a full new Browser sometime this year (I think?) with full support for easily installing Chrome extensions. That’s the only thing holding me back from Brave, because I use a lot of Chrome extensions for development.
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Same here. I ran Brave in a local development instance with custom-installed extensions and it was so horribly slow I had to bail. Can’t wait for full extension support.
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Thanks for the tag @jehunter5811, yes I am developing an extension, and yes it works on chrome(ium based browsers)!
Here is the forum thread, and here is the link to the chrome extension. Due note that the current released version is unstable and needs the fixes that are still in source to be considered safe for primary accounts. There are warnings on the main thread about that =)
Also, no @hank it does not have feature parity with the Blockstack browser, and won’t be for a while (at least for secondary things like name registration and social verifications).
@southernwolf.id.bloc, that was the goal actually, to implement something akin to Metamask for Blockstack. Currently, authentication works pretty seamlessly, but due to Blockstack being implemented differently I intercept web requests (to (browser.)blockstack.org) and send things back from my extension instead of injecting a JS API into the webpage – though that is something I’m considering as a feature. Otherwise, if you don’t enjoy using the dedicated Blockstack app then use browser.blockstack.org instead, it works pretty well for me.
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@hank Yeah, that’s the developer beta I was talking about. You can download it here: Brave Dev and try it out! Some of the features they have implemented are really awesome and I can’t wait for them to make it to the stable release!
Edit: Apparently there is now also a Beta release channel that might also have some of those extension features added to it. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, though.
@jehunter5811 Yeah, I tried to do that at one point and it wasn’t pleasant… You can try the dev version I linked above and see if it works better for ya.
@MichaelFedora Very cool! I hope the extension development goes well! 
I do like the Blockstack app overall, though I do wonder if an all-one-one solution could be made at some point for it. (I saw some discussion about using Electron, or even a form of a Chromium browser, to make an all-in-one solution, hence why I bring that up). The issue with using browser.blockstack.org is that not all features work right with it. For example, I can’t log onto these forums from the web interface; I have to use the dedicated app to access via Blockstack login. Overall though, the Blockstack system is working quite well though! It’s definitely one of the more seamless experiences I’ve had with a blockchain system so far!
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Crazy timing - they released their new Browser with Chrome extension support as their stable version just yesterday!
https://brave.com/new-brave-browser-release-available-for-general-download/
If you’re using the previous stable version, you need to download the new version from the homepage on brave.com.
It works extremely well. I downloaded the new version and imported all my saved passwords, bookmarks, and cookies from Chrome. I’ve been using Brave all day today and it works like nothing ever changed! You can browse the Chrome web store to download all the same extensions you used to use.
I’m really excited about this. If you’re used to Chrome, it feels very similar, because the settings pages look the exact same. I also take advantage of having multiple “Profiles” in the browser that don’t share cookies, and Brave supports the same thing. Firefox and Safari don’t really support that (as easily), which held me off from using them.
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For example, I can’t log onto these forums from the web interface; I have to use the dedicated app to access via Blockstack login.
That’s actually just an issue with this forum using an older version of blockstack.js. We just need to update that, and then the browser-hosted version will work.
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Speak of the devil! I just got it and it looks as beautiful as ever! And now we have plugins! 
(Now I can finally download and use Stylus again!!!)
Also, the new payment system looks SO much better now! I can’t wait to start earning BAT for seeing ads! And the profiles thing is super awesome, especially knowing they won’t share stuff between them!
Considering how much I use Brave, this is a vast improvement! (And that’s just my iMac! My MacBook Pro is probably 2-3 times as large of numbers!)
One thing I did notice, and I’m sure they’re aware of it, but Tor is apparently not included, or broken, in the Chrome version for now. (Not that I consider that a deal breaker by any means, but is oddly absent despite being mentioned in the incognito window). Figured I’d put that out there in case anyone tries to find it and can’t.
Edit: Apparently I was partially mistaken! Tor is available in the new release, but it’s rather confusing to access it… You have to open the hamburger menu on the right hand side of the menu bar to open a private Tor window. While the “File” menu on Mac, which is where it was located before, only shows an Incognito tab option…
That’s actually just an issue with this forum using an older version of
blockstack.js. We just need to update that, and then the browser-hosted version will work.
Ah ok! Very cool!