Hey
Any ideas where your VPN exit point is set to be? Same continent? You're always going to get slower performance with a VPN.
I bet Chrome has been set to use a proxy at the VPN providers hosting site so that a)they ensure there's no "split tunneling" i.e. web traffic passing outside of the established VPN connection, b) they can market the information they glean from your web habits (the service is "free", right? /jaded mode off)
I further propose that ccleaner is reverting Chrome to a fresh installed state with the default being no proxy and then the seed4.me client sets it again.
TBH, I dont even have Chrome installed so I cant describe where the Settings to check are but something like this may help
https://www.atechtown.com/chrome-proxy-settings/I dunno, just trying to make the clues work
May be way off but give it a shot - first thing I'd check.