I found myself researching VPNs and Secure DNS settings for my Ubuntu Desktop. This article from some guy on the internet ;) proved very helpful. Thank you.

I went with the DNS Stub resolver, as recommended, and I chose multiple DNS servers for resiliency.

cat /etc/systemd/resolved.conf

#  This file is part of systemd.
#
#  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
#  terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
#  Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option)
#  any later version.
#
# Entries in this file show the compile time defaults. Local configuration
# should be created by either modifying this file (or a copy of it placed in
# /etc/ if the original file is shipped in /usr/), or by creating "drop-ins" in
# the /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/ directory. The latter is generally
# recommended. Defaults can be restored by simply deleting the main
# configuration file and all drop-ins located in /etc/.
#
# Use 'systemd-analyze cat-config systemd/resolved.conf' to display the full config.
#
# See resolved.conf(5) for details.

[Resolve]

DNS=2a07:a8c0::0#dns.nextdns.io
DNS=208.67.222.222#dns.opendns.com
DNS=2606:4700:4700::1111#cloudflare-dns.com

FallbackDNS=8.8.8.8#dns.google 9.9.9.9#dns.quad9.net

DNSOverTLS=yes

DNSSEC=yes

Cache=yes

LLMNR=no

MulticastDNS=no

ReadEtcHosts=yes

DNSStubListener=yes

I have multiple DNS Servers including fallbacks.

I then decided to go with the Proton Suite of Apps and I followed these instructions to set up Proton VPN.

Overall a good combination of privacy and security.

IMPORTANT: With this configuration, go into Proton VPN settings and turn on custom DNS and add 127.0.0.53 as your custom DNS server (the stub resolver).