I wasn't sure if you were referring to either or both interpretations for Mullvad, so I responded to both versions of what you could mean by that. Based in your last comment I have a feeling I didn't hear something recent about them, as far as I know everyone still likes them.

I reread the narcissist thing and I'm really not sure what you mean then. Are you calling the Brave CEO a narcissist?

I do see a pattern, which is why I said I don't fully trust them and why I noted they were controversial in my original comment. The way I see it is basically this: if you are a dyed in the wool tinfoil hat wearing privacy advocate, and actively part of the privacy community, you are probably a little bit crazy. Privacy should be default, but unfortunately we are in the wild west of information exploitation, that's why you and I have to go out of our way to find private options. For a privacy focused dev, its them vs the world, and in a capitalist economy, you have to find a way to make your product make money, or it has to be a small enough project to not need much. GrapheneOS's lead dev, for example, is a bit nuts. Do I trust he is competent and trying to do the thing he says he is trying to do, and do I trust putting his OS on my phone over Google? Definitely. Would I be friends with him? No. Brave I trust a little less, but I see them in a similar way: often trying to find a crackpot method to make money off their product so they can stick around.

I can't say I'm a fan of their CEO. Then again, I can't say I particularly like any CEO of any company, so I try to support open source projects with the Unix/Linux philosophy of doing one thing good, so I can support small projects that don't need a CEO. Unfortunately maintaining a browser is not one of the things that can be done the Unix way. It is basically its own OS in some ways, a lot of work, even more so if it is your own engine like Firefox. For companies that I'm forced to choose between, their personal viewpoints are a concern, just not my biggest one, unless they're like Satan themselves like Larry Ellison or Elon Musk. I'm forced to pay Microsoft for licenses and support at work, and that bothers my conscience more than using a free browser by a guy who didn't support gay marriage in 2014 before it went through federally, like just about everyone I grew up with, most of whom have since gotten over themselves. Not saying it's OK or right, just noting that was at least half of Americans back then.

I agree with your assessment that Firefox used to be the default good option and get steadily worse every day. They got have too big of a team so they're trying to expand, but that goes against their core audience because we just don't want extra "features". They aren't doubling down on what got them here: being a privacy focused browser. They're trying to be Google, but can't be because 1. Google exists, And Chromium is still is the best browser engine functionally, which most people care about most, and 2. It will alienate core audience even more. So their strategy is to go slow enough that hopefully we don't notice or they don't go bankrupt because they make most of their money from. Google being the default search engine.

Does this make Firefox a stupid option that I'd criticize people for using? No. It is still one of the best options we have, in a world where most of them are bad because a browser project has to have a certain amount of devs and money behind it to keep up with security and maintenance. And I recommended 2 Firefox forks to OP in my original comment. Firefox vs Brave is really just a predictable trending down of "Stop Firefox we don't like this minor bad change!" "I'm gonna do it anyway" VS "Hey guys what about this?" "WTAF were you thinking Brave?" "Oh, sorry..."