Side note--is there any way to access reddit now for people who refuse to log in or get the app? Old reddit asks tells me I have to use new reddit for "security" and new reddit says "Get the app to keep using Reddit".
On mobile ? Not really. Their website is mobile cancer, and their app is barely better. I'm impressed at how bad it is, and it's not even about "pushing more ads" but "controlling what people see". That's also why they've removed r/all.
r/popular already existed before, and this is different, it's the same idea as facebook, instagram, twitter ... It's a curated feed not in an order or same weight feed. In other words, it's used or can and will be used to push whatever.
Someone already linked RedLib below, I'm just gonna add that you can add "safe" before "reddit.com" (i.e. safereddit.com/r/whatever) and it's going to redirect you to a redlib instance.
There is Redlib[0], an open source alternative Reddit frontend, with many public instances[1], e.g. https://redlib.catsarch.com/
There is also LibRedirect[2] (or PrivacyRedirect, although I for one have no experience with that), a browser extension that automatically redirects reddit.com URLs to your Redlib instance of choice (it also does the same for other platforms, configurable).