This looks like it’s just sponsor blocking in the videos. Does this block pre/post ads?

My setup is similar. My main “desktop” is a Slackware VM through VNC/guacamole.

Why are you running full VMs for something that can be put in a container? Sounds to me (without having any evidence or proof) that you’re running out of memory and you’re swapping and it’s taking forever. That’s what causes the VMs to slow/stop.

Why not just run your own WireGuard instance? I have a pivpn vm for it and it works great. You could also just put jellyfin behind a TLS terminating reverse proxy.

I’d suggest Alpine too. Works great for me so far.

Correct. SearxNG is very much still active. Check the GitHub page or matrix/IRC.