OK, I've solved the problem, thanks.
Well, when I say solved the VPN issue is still there, the page rendering is still to shit - as is the page display format - but happily it's all made me realise my complaints with Firefox were relatively trivial. So I went back to a browser that I can actually browse the net with, even if it is a CPU-intensive.
Maybe I'll come back in a year and see what that iteration of Opera is offering - maybe it will actually be a workable, functioning browser.