I know it’s been getting worse over time, but I could still find what I needed after some digging.
Recently it’s been like 10 minutes of adjusting search terms, still getting completely useless or irrelevant results, and me just giving up afterwards. Other search engines seem just as bad.
A vpn is not a proxy and cannot do anything to protect you beyond changing your exit point. You are not anonymous using a vpn, especially not with any vpn that has servers in a five eyes country.