I used the Brave Browser for about a year and I really wanted to keep using it because it was great at blocking ads, offered very secure browsing, and it was fast. But, there was one problem that kept creeping up that ultimately made me switch to Firefox.
The problem is sync. I use multiple devices and Brave just was not consistent at syncing bookmarks. There is no account to set up with Brave so there was no intermediary to help facilitate bookmark sync. There was a little rigamarole in setting up sync in Brave where you had to edit the shortcut link and add some instructions. Not the end of the world but still not elegant.
When syncing multiple devices you add each device to a sync chain. The chain is dependent on when you add a device. I had one case early on when I removed one device from the chain because I was reinstalling the Browser. Then after installation I added it back to the chain thinking it would just sync my bookmarks. What ended up happening is that all my bookmarks were removed from all my synced browsers because the one I just reinstalled was the newest. Each browser in the chain used the newest information and wiped it all out.
But, that wasn’t the final straw. I’m able to deal with the problem of prioritization sync. I can remember that I have to import bookmarks whenever I reinstall. The final straw was that when I made changes to one browser the changes didn’t consistently sync across all my devices. That I can’t deal with because then I don’t know which changes are sticky and which changes are not. I would shut down the browser on each device hoping that when relaunching it would check with the browser where I made the change and then sync but it just didn’t work. Some bookmarks would change and others would not. That kind of guesswork makes using the browser untenable.
So I switched to Firefox and made that my default. It is also based on Chromium, like Brave and now Microsoft’s new Edge Browser, so it works just like Chrome without feeding everything into the Google beast. They get enough of my information through the use of Gmail.
When Microsoft puts the finishing touches on the Edge Browser I may look into that because maybe it will work well with some of the Microsoft services I use. I think it’s good to spread your eggs around all the baskets.