This is purely a theory, but it’s what I’ve found from searching:
Pretty much every GPlay page I go to for Android browser has people very recently (within the month), talking about banner ads bypassing all adblocks (descriptions of these ads are all the same), images and videos being broken, and some webpages not loading properly.
I found that this is very likely due to an update to chromium itself, a beta build that these browsers may be using as a basis. It’s a feature called Mixed Content Blocking, and it’s now default in chromium. Mixed Content refers to http: url content being displayed on https: pages (and vice versa, technically). Chromium now blocks images and videos, etc with http: urls on https: pages. If your browser allows it, you may be able to force your url to http: to get those images/videos to load properly, but most GPlay browsers disallow that by auto-refreshing the page to its https: version.
As for the banner ads, this is because many in-browser and third party adblocks use some form of rerouting that goes through http: and https: - I’m not entirely clear on how it works, but basically Mixed Content Blocking is causing this method to fail, which is why ads are now being shown that previously weren’t. It’s very likely that chromium did not put these banner ads in, and I guarantee that the individual browsers themselves didn’t force them onto you. What’s happening is that these banner ads have been targeting mobile users for a while, and are appearing now because MCB has messed up the adblock method that would normally keep those banner ads away from you.
Again, I’m no expert, but this is what I’ve managed to find through searching: recently, chromium itself has forced MCB to be default, and the only way for this to be fixed is if the browser makers themselves counter it. Otherwise, all adblocks using the method above, all http: images/videos on https: pages, and anything else affected by MCB will remain broken.
I’ve tried to send this issue to multiple browser companies so they can fix it, with no replies. Brave support is way better and faster though, so hopefully they can fix it fast and other browsers will follow suit.
So again: Don’t spam negative feedback on GPlay against browser companies; they’re all having this same issue, they don’t know why (which is why I’m trying to spread the word), and they did not force these ads or content breaking onto you, chromium did. …from what I’ve found through frantic web searches.