Why can't I access the internet (mostly) in browsers, with VPN turned on

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1

I’m trying to get Norton Secure VPN to work on my (old) MacBook Pro (2012) because I don’t really like the full Norton 360 app.

When I switch the VPN, I can no longer access the internet in browsers. Some other apps seem fine though - Spotify for example is unaffected. There are some other interesting in-browser exceptions too:

- in some browsers, I can return search results from search engines, but when I click through to any website, it goes to an ‘unable to connect’ page
- in Mullvad browser, I can use the internet completely as normal.

Firefox, Chrome, Brave, none of them can get an internet connection beyond search results though.

What’s going on?!

2

On Safari, similar to other browsers, I get a “Safari can’t connect to the server” page. This is for both search results and any other Web page