Thank you for mentioning that! I had dismissed it due to alleged shortcomings of its security features. While the allegations are (still) there, I've never heard any rebuttal or anything else of that matter. Would you happen to know anything in this regard?

What does Brave give you what the other Chromium based browser doesn’t have?

Brave is known to take privacy (and security) more seriously than its contenders. It's therefore unsurprising to find it recommended by Privacy Guides. Some of its unique features related to privacy can be found here.

Maybe you can install add-ons instead?

Excellent extensions like uBlock Origin heavily rely on Manifest v2 in order to do their bidding. Unfortunately, Chromium intends to stop supporting it. Which will inevitably lead to many Chromium-based browsers to follow the lead and stop supporting it as well. At least Brave has confirmed multiple times to support Manifest v2 longer. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any extension that does an equally excellent job at spoofing your fingerprint randomly. Though, I'd love to be corrected on that.

I would love to consume Brave as a nixpkgs, unfortunately it's mostly not up to date; which I simply can't accept.

most packages in traditional package managers are not packaged officially, yet we use them all the time.

While there's definitely truth in this, aren't we already trusting the repos of traditional package manager by choosing to use the associated distro? So, by e.g. choosing to use Debian , you've already (somehow) accepted their packages to be 'thrustworthy'. We already trust the developers of the apps/binaries we use. Therefore, we have two sets of parties we trust by default. I would rather not increase the amount of people I have to trust for software, but I can understand why others might differ on this.

Thanks for the insights! Do you know if these issues continue to persist?

Why and when did it start deciding to upgrade every package I have installed when I try to install a new package?

Is this perhaps related to how for most non-LTS distros (but especially on something like Arch) one is recommended to update all packages before installing a new package in hopes of preventing issues related to dependency hell? I don't know if Homebrew's model of packaging is similar enough to Linux' to make sensible comparisons between the two, but this was just something that came up to me as a thought.

Thank you for your input, it's heart-breaking to hear that it's not able to provide GUI applications (and thus browsers by extension). But I'm glad to hear that it has provided you a decent experience so far!

Based on what I saw on macOS I wouldn’t touch Homebrew with a 10 feet pole. We have proper packaging systems in the Linux world.

Could you please elaborate on how the packaging in the Linux world is better? I can imagine why, but I'd rather have a better-informed idea on the matter. Thanks for your input!

The Chromium snap is supported by Canonical so that’s a great candidate for anything that comes with snap or can use snap. If I couldn’t use snap, I’d use the Chromium flatpak from Flathub.

I use Chromium from my repo already, but as stated in the OP; I would switch in an instance to Brave if I could.

I am tagged, but did you address me as well? If so, my reasons can be found in the OP.

Homebrew did some weird permissions things

I should look into this. Thank you!

Are you sure that any of the flatpak-based browsers actually run in Wayland. For the longest time they had to be explicitly enabled to work with Wayland and not X11. Even very recently both Brave and Edge required flags to run Wayland (and maybe still do); though Chromium-based even require specific flags to enable the two-finger swiping for navigation; --ozone-platform-hint=auto --enable-features=TouchpadOverscrollHistoryNavigation , as can be found on the ArchWiki. As for the ones based on Firefox, they should work right out of the gate. If they don't, then first check if it's running on Wayland; perhaps running the flatpak override --env=MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 command in terminal already solves that issue, however this should have been enabled by default. If it continues to not work, then -after ensuring that you are in fact running Wayland- you should make a bug report as this isn't intended behavior.

Honestly, just test out a bunch of different distros over the course of a couple of weeks (or months even). As for which distros are worth considering for 'playtesting', that's entirely reliant on your personal 'Linux Journey' and whatever you find interesting. Though, if I'd be forced to make a list, then it would consist of the following:

1. Start off with Arch, Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE Tumbleweed and Ubuntu. (Debian is absent from this list because you're already using it.) You might even combine this with using different desktop environments on each; as this might have more influence on the experience than the distro itself.
2. After indulging with the 'veteran-distros', there are some different directions you could go from there. Perhaps you could try a distro that
   • doesn't use systemd; the likes of Alpine, Artix, Devuan, Gentoo, Guix and Void come to mind.
   • is 'immutable'; the likes of blendOS, EndlessOS, Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite/Sericea, Guix System, Nitrux, NixOS, openSUSE Aeon/Kalpa, Vanilla OS and Ubuntu Core Desktop come to mind.
   • takes security and/or privacy very seriously; the likes of Kicksecure, (openBSD, QubesOS (even though neither are Linux distros),) Tails and Whonix come to mind.
   • holds a conservative stance in regards to software and doesn't like to enforce change to its users. This enables you to learn the intricacies of its system once without ever having to forego that knowledge as times passes; Slackware.
   • is unrivaled in terms of freedom it allows its users; Gentoo.
   • unshackles itself from GNU; Chimera Linux and (to a lesser extent) Alpine comes to mind.

While it doesn't satisfy the "under $400"-condition, I couldn't withhold myself from mentioning the likes of NovaCustom and Tuxedo. For the fact that both have been absent from the conversation while they otherwise satisfy the requirement of coreboot on a modern device. With the former, NovaCustom, being arguably the best vendor to buy 'privacy&security'-first devices with modern hardware from. Not for their entire line -mind you- but specifically their NV41 Series; which is -to my knowledge- the only Qubes-certified computer with modern specs and Heads. However (with Qubes and Heads pre-installed) it starts at $1224, which makes it considerably more expensive that your stated target (read: under $400).