FINALLY!!!
Got a clearnet browser (Firefox) to work on 8kun with https:// encryption and over a VPN. If this posts, I'll share the one simple little tweak that made it happen after a little detective work. I can't believe I've been suffering with Tor for almost a year over this and when Tor became read-only something had to give. I can't believe how simple it was and the clues were right in front of me (us).