That's the thing - I am willing to try new things, like new browsers, but I get spooked when I encounter things like this.

I, too, was using Brave's browser and search engine on my phone when I heard about their shady actions. So I stopped using them and now am pretty much just using Firefox with DDG as the default search engine and have uBlock Origin and another adblock add on. I don't even know if having two ad blockers is redundant.

I'm willing to trade some privacy for a useful free service or convenience but I don't even know how much is too much on the privacy spectrum.