Not OP but I've avoided Brave from the beginning because of its reliance on an ad-fueled crypto scam to generate revenue. If you're trying to avoid Mozilla's new ad-based revenue scheme, moving to a browser that is wholly funded by tracking your browsing and showing you ads while pretending to "pay" you with cryptocurrency that they never actually pay out, seems like a step backwards.
I'm not finding the section you linked to very damning at all.
Of the four issues, all were resolved quickly and according to community wishes.
1. Unverified Brave Creators UI - Two days after the complaint, Brave issued an update to "clearly indicate which publishers and creators have not yet joined Brave Rewards so users can better control how they donate and tip.
Tom Scott, the original complainant, tweeted in response: "These are good changes, and they fix the complaints I had!".
2. Affiliate Links to Crypto Exchanges - Two days later, Brave released a new version which they said disabled the auto-completion to partner links, followed by a blog post explaining the issue and apologizing. Def the most scummy of the list IMO.
3. DNS Leaks with built in TOR - An issue was discovered and fixed via their Bug Bounty program, where they have an average 6 days to bounty payout.
4. A company violated their terms of service.
I definitely have my biases, although I don't use Brave daily anymore. But I don't think the controversies section you linked is particularly egregious or indicative of bad faith.
Tracking how? You know how browsers can download malicious software blocklists as one large local list insteas of consulting an online service for every url which would allow the provider to know what you do?
Their ad setup works the same. The browser downloads an entire country-specific catalog in one go, and decides what to show you completely locally. Whether you trust their cryptographic setup that tells them you've seen an ad is another thing entirely and is its own brand of black magic.
But the basic setup is simple. They sell adspace and show you ads from that local catalog. Brave takes a cut, users get a cut. They have a tipping service to compensate creators.
There's definitely parts that might be suspect, like that proof of having seen an ad.
And even if it all works just as intended, there is the concern that ads that don't track are generally less valuable so even widespread adoption of Brave's system would cause a decrease in ad revenue and thus ability to keep sites up and running. We've already seen the fallout of Apple's recent anti-tracking changes, and Brave's system is definitely similar in effect.
Running on chromium is one thing, since I believe having a monopoly on what's essentially the new global operating system would not be healthy.
But Brave have just proven to be an unethical, borderline scammy project. And I'm saying this as someone who owns crypto and can see the value of advertisement in some cases.
Just wonder the reason? Is it because it support the monopoly of google rendering engine? Or other reasons?