You’re vpn is probably using its own dns servers, does your vpn allow you to change the dns settings?

Awesome, I actually use this docker container that implements it https://github.com/bbernhard/signal-cli-rest-api

If you’re ok using Signal I use https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli for sending myself texts through command line

I disagree, the vast majority just need a browser, your use case may be quite common, but definitely not the majority.