First of all that article is pretty stupid, it first attacks the CEO for his own political views and then goes on to dump on BAT which is an optional service.
Again the VPN is an optional service and is not really recommend by anyone online either.
Then there is the affiliate scandal which is something that happened in the past and has definitely scarred their reputation but is now completely out of the picture. I personally have been using the browser since 2021 and haven't faced any such issues or noticed anything particularly shady. Also again the article which is saying not to use Brave is promoting Vivaldi which is highly ironic as Vivaldi has also been caught out for doing the same affiliate link bs but actually going through your bookmarks to do so.
Also I am not a fan of the crypto stuff either but that is pretty minor and mostly unnoticeable when you think about the sort of customization and privacy the browser provides you, you can individual toggle and block different thing on different websites and save those setting for each website.
Brave has gotten a pretty bad name for it's past but that is it, it is the past and currently if you haven't used Brave in the last year or two I would still seriously recommend trying it out for yourself instead of reading something off the internet and making up your mind about it.
Brave caught a lot of flak when it was new because of its false marketing and considering the low market share, it seems no one bothers posting as much about it as in the past.
However, it is near impossible to trust a company that sells itself on privacy and has been caught:
1. Implementing their own fork of uBlock Origin with their own whitelist so they can display the ads that they have received payment for
2. Installing VPN service even when not selected, and which has been caught leaking DNS multiple times
3. Tor implementation that simply leaked data to the point that Tor Project specifically mentioned to not use it on Brave
4. The affiliate scandal that you mentioned
5. Entire crypto implementation and the donation thing
6. Not respecting browser flags
7. Brave search selling search data for AI training without informing the users
8. All the bloatware that you can opt in or out of, when people were freaking about a Firefox integration
Maybe they have turned over a new leaf but considering the CEO and investor are the same, I doubt it. It is possibly a good suggestion for those stuck with Chrome and Edge, but definitely not a privacy and security first suggestion to those conscious about it.
Someone tried to create a fork with all the bloatware removed and even though they tout themselves as open-source, they came down heavily on that developer and forced him to close the project. It is a matter of trust that will not change until things change immensely.
