Brave vs Firefox 2021

Brave UX #

• Tabs look familiar
• Compact layout
• Newtab stats & information
• Newtab background images
• Clean menus

Firefox UX #

• Tabs look like buttons from Google Bootstrap
• Dropdowns are rounded
• Huge spacing in menus
• Pocket Recommended Adverts

Pocket recommendations appear even with pocket disabled & on profiles with no pocket account.

Brave Features #

Builtin features Brave offers over Firefox

• TOR Support
• IPFS Support
• Cryptocurrency Options
• Basic Attention Token
• Brave Rewards
• Tab Search (Ctrl+Shift+A)
• Extensive AdBlock Engine

Brave AdBlock supports adblock plus syntax & allows users to create their own filters as well as block elements on web sites from the context menu.

Conclusion #

It seems the team behind Brave are actively adding tech features which are relevant to users & the future of the web.

The design of Brave fits with power users as it is much more minimal.
Core aspects of the UI design don't stray away from what is considered normal making it more familiar to users.

Mozilla seem to be trying to reinvent the wheel with UI changes, even going as far as making the browser look like a web app.
They also seem to be forcing things like DoH.

More info on Firefox negative changes can be found in a previous blog post.