This doesn’t bode well for Brave’s self professed mission [0].

Maintaining a Chrome fork is already difficult enough on its own, especially with the number of directions where Brave wants to diverge.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36893654

If it doesn't, whats the best suggestion for another browser that is based on Webkit and which takes privacy seriously?

Cromite: https://github.com/uazo/cromite