I end up using Chrome mostly out of habit, and because I've been using it for ten years, though I've slapped an adblocker, DisconnectMe, and Privacy Badger on top of it, and also Do Not Track and Do Not Save My Login and Make My Computer Look Like A Different Device Every Day to Every Website. Because if you don't have a privacy-conscious web browser, just slap a bunch of privacy software on top of it and that will solve all of your problems.
On the Linux machine I have hardened Firefox and Brave Browser installed, but I mostly still use Firefox over there, again, out of habit. While I appreciate the opportunity to earn BAT that Brave offers, when I'm using a browser I really want the least friction possible because I'm working and I want to work as fast as I can.
At this point my privacy is lost (regardless of the browser) by using youtube, gmail, amazon and etc. Either everything is linked to me through a credit card or phone number and with the coming of AI it will be easier than ever to access and coalesce our individual/unique data. The age of internet anonymity died when the social media websites instead of fading into obscurity like was normal; somehow hung on and turned the internet from the wild west into a giant pool of data attached to real-world identities.
The answer to this problem is crypto, I think. Blockchain transactions are final and wallet addresses are largely anonymous, just like cash transactions in real life. Part of the reason for this huge data pool is the need to secure fiat online transactions and keep them away from hackers, thus requiring more and more layers of personal data to secure the transaction and to ensure that I made it instead of a malicious actor.
Unfortunately crypto has been slow to catch on because it has security problems of its own kind, but at least those problems don't compromise the identities of the transactors, just lose value for the victims.
