I use the term "Reddit" when I search for things a lot so I can get human responses to my questions but Reddit blocks VPN connections. Old reddit works though. All you need to do is change www. to old. I know extensions exist for it but I don't really want to install one for this and I no longer have an account on Reddit to set it in my preferences.

Edit: I think @chagall@lemmy.world gave me what I was looking for with REDIRECTOR. It's open source and has a privacy policy of not using analytics. It's an extension but it seems pretty reputable with a decent community.