Can't say I am particular fond of Google either. Brave uses chromium sources but they do not send any data to Google without washing it through their servers first with a default installation. So even if they actually use tech from Google, as a company they are a much better alternative and is much more in line with something I want to support.

Probably I will just save the money for now, but perhaps in the near future I will increase donations to some open source contributors via Open Collective (where I know it will fund the developers directly).