It seems like a technical solution might work here: instead of opening the ads within the browser, open a separate, containerized browser and copy the ad link over there and open it, in the background, so any malware is unable to affect your data.

It's possible, and that's why I wouldn't broadly recommend it. It's been a while since I heard anyone use browser 0days through ads, but it's still rather annoying to have to keep in mind.

I ran AdNauseam for a while but in combination with a PiHole the result wasn't interesting. Every clicked link ended up blocked by PiHole anyway. Perhaps it's for the best.

I wonder if one could set up an isolated VM that can click these links for you in a Firecracker style 5 second VM isolated from anything important. It could probably run in the cloud, all you'd need to do is forward the GET/POST request the Google Ads redirect causes and let a virtual browser do its thing.