Google's bias is now noticeable to the normies. (Dr. Juric is at the University of Washington, for reference.) Best quote of the tweet:
for anyone with a shred of awareness of human history it should be clear how unbelievably irresponsible it is to build a system that aims to become an authoritative compendium of human knowledge (remember Google's mission statement?), but which actually prioritizes ideology over facts. History is littered with many who have tried this sort of moral flexibility "for the greater good"; rather than helping, they typically resulted in decades of setbacks (and tens of millions of victims).
It looks like the good Doctor may have had a bit too much to think...
I've still got a truckload of salt from the day that Opera switched over from it's in-house browsing engine to yet another bad copy of chrome.
I've yet to find a good replacement, as you said. I tend to use an unholy amalgamation of Vivaldi, Brave, and other whackass alternatives, but if anyone knows of browsers that don't use Chrome as a base, feel free to share.
You're going to have to break down and use Lynx.