and Brave always felt dodgy
You mean like DDG, which had multiple privacy whoopsies like allowing Microsoft to track you? Or (in contrast to Brave) is not even OSS?
I think the owners previous company may have sold users data.
You mean like the founder and CEO of DDG who build, ran and sold a social network?
Not saying "don't use DDG" or "Brave is the coolest!!!11", but be aware that you can use your arguements against Brave against DDG as well.
And if you're looking for a better alternative, I would say Ecosia is probably among the cleanest players out there. They only benefit Microsoft, because their service is built on Bing (as is DDG in part btw.).