Around three months ago I made the switch from Firefox to Brave for my default browser. Brave seemed to offer more rigorous ad and tracker-blocking functionality, and it told me how many trackers it had blocked, how much hadn’t been downloaded, and how much time had been saved by not downloading ads and trackers.
One of the ‘features’ of brave is the ability to view ads and earn points (‘Brave rewards’) for the privilege. Other features are to ability to display sponsored ads and cryptocurrency tools on the new page tab. I have no interest in these features so turned off all options to display rewards, cryptocurrency ads and ‘sponsored images’. Interestingly it wasn’t obvious just how to switch all of these off.
But despite opting to not display sponsored ads, cryptocurrency exchange rates and other ads, Brave would occasionally reset my choices (choices Brave gave me and choices I exercised) and redisplay sponsored ads, reward opportunities and cryptocurrency options.
As a result I am no longer using Brave as my default browser on my Linux machine, Windows machine or LineageOS phone, but have changed my defaults back to Firefox.
This strikes me as similar to behaviour that I’ve experienced from some suppliers who I’ve purchased from online. When you make a purchase you are added to their email advertising list. Even if you unsubscribe you will receive emails for a week or two. And you seem to reappear on the list after a year-or-so and have to unsubscribe again.
I am the new currency - or at least my data, browsing and purchasing history is.