It’s a big ask. HeliBoard and FUTO are actively in development so improvements will come. They’re also the best we have as far as privacy or open source alternatives go. They’ll either grow to fill the need for a perfect alternative or another project will, but not yet.

I’ve had a consistently unbiased experience with Tangle: https://www.readtangle.com/about/

Is it possible that your phone is killing the VPN client to free up memory? Does it reconnect immediately upon reopening OpenVPN?

I’ve been using their GrayJay desktop app, and I’ve enjoyed it so far.

I haven’t checked out FreeTube but maybe this is the push I need.

I’ve had a good experience with GrayJay. It’s a bit young and missing features but it’s never broken for me.