If I want to keep a chrome-based browser, what is a decent (in terms of privacy intrusion and adblocking) one to use?
Is Vivaldi a reasonable choice as a replacement of Brave?
If you're fine with missing some QoL features, ungoogled-chromium is the only Chromium browser that I recommend for privacy. It's very barebones as the name suggests.
Which ever one you chose don't forget you need to do a good job at vetting all the top people involved just to ensure their personal morals and social opinions align with the current trends of social media.