Just because you like Brave the search engine doesn’t mean you have to use Brave the browser. The two have no inherent connection.

Edit: While we’re on the subject of money, I’d be more worried about that Peter Thiel money Brave took. That man openly claims freedom and democracy to be incompatible and supports efforts to create independent libertarian societies on international waters and in space.

something Mozilla doesn’t even dare, as that’s where they get all their Google money from

Or because they’re aware that it’d be a huge waste of time and money? It’d be a lot of work to build a search engine anywhere near as good as the existing alternatives, so it’d give worse user experience and waste time.

Or there’s Safari or Orion, neither of which are what you listed. Also, Firefox is not “paid for by google” they get funding through their nonprofit as well.