The back going back an extra page feels like a bug that has to get fixed. I usually control+click links to open in a new tab (maybe not exactly what you want, but hopefully helps)

The three major cloud providers all have marketplaces where people can “spin up” VMs that others host images of - here is an example of mastodon on Azure from bitnami - …microsoft.com/…/bitnami.mastodon?tab=Overview

get one with an air dryer included!