I never, _ever_ had that happen with Brave. In the context of Google deprecating MV2 - Brave's shields are hard coded into the Chromium chromebase and do not rely on MV2 or MV3 [1]. They will also be continuing support for MV2 extensions.
1. https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41158769
Note: There isn't really any discussion on that HN post, but perhaps this may spark some.
I'm against Chromium the engine's monopoly, not just Chrome. Monoculture is bad for the internet.
If it weren't for (mobile) Safari, we'd have a new IE situation on our hands.
I hear you on the concern about the browser engine monoculture. It's a concern of mine as well.
I guess what I should say is - _if_ you're going to use a chromium-based browser, you should probably use Brave.
I'm currently looking into Mull browser as it seems to be to Firefox what Brave is to Chrome.
Might actually give it a second chance now that Google is clearly hamstringing non-chromium browsers on Youtube. Both Firefox and Safari on macOS have weird loading issues - and I pay for Premium so it can't be adblock related.
So going by a letter of definition Chrome Brave is a fork, but by spirit of a definition it is not. Example - this topic right here. If it was a fork they would have forked the code and maintained Manifest V2 instead of V3, autonomously, like software forks do. But since it is not a real fork (in spirit of the word), they can't and don't want to do it, and simply accept every change the real code owner does, Google in this case.