Additionally to the other two replies, Brave also injected referral IDs to an URI when you directly typed it in. Allegedly it was a mistake and they put it behind a toggle:

• Article: https://www.technewsworld.com/story/brave-browser-caught-redirecting-urls-for-cash-86701.html
• Their blog: https://brave.com/blog/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/

Also, per default the new tab page shows advertisements in the background. Firefox does also show ads on the new tab page in the link grid, so it's a bad thing both do and you can disable it on both. But with an almost-full-window sized ad Brave managed to make that worse still.