I would strongly recommend to play against real humans, not the computer. The computer with a handicap just plays in very weird ways, and that is not really helpful for learning. I also played the computer at first, and level 3 is the first level where it actually puts up a fight. But it plays very weird combinations of strong moves and then completely blunders at times. The problem is that it blunders in a very non-human way, so it doesn't help you that much to learn how to take advantage of the kind of errors a human tends to make.

The rating of the computer on Lichess is also kinda weird, you can't really rely on those. I'm a pretty weak player (I have only played a bit online recently), I did beat the level 3 computer on Lichess when I concentrated well enough on a game, but I'm certainly not 1400 against real humans.

That has also been exactly my experience. Beating level 3 is just about capitalizing on the obvious blunders it makes. It feels completely unrewarding.

Playing against humans, even significantly stronger ones, is so much more fun and rewarding. It's just way more exciting when both sides can capitalize on smaller mistakes, so the game becomes about building and maintaining an advantage. Or setting up a tactic that feels great to pull off.

The computers will usually not yield any incremental advances at all (and they won't fall for tactics) until they make a dumb move that invalidates all the advantage they built up. Whether you win or lose depends mainly on how often the latter happens, and learning how to make that happen is both opaque/unfun and useless for playing against humans.

Yup.

The computer will be able to find optimal plays that require looking ahead several turns ahead while blundering obvious moves (e.g. capturing a piece that's clearly hanging after you used that same piece to capture their piece). Or they'll constantly move the same piece over and over again.

I only very recently picked up chess and spend most of my time playing against the computer. lichess's computer plays really, really weird at low levels, not human-like at all. Chess.com's computer plays a bit more human-like, at least up to 1100, which is the computer level I'm currently playing against, but still not like a real human.

I would compare it as: lichess - best move, best move, best move, completely random move that does absolutely nothing chess.com - best move, good move, best move, blunder that seems patronizing given previous moves

I've only played a handful of games against real people online, but those games weren't anything like either lichess or chess.com's computer players.

Thank you. I do play against humans (I hope) but less than half the time.

I too have noticed the blunders. What is the first level where you estimate it plays consistently?

I never played it above level 3, and I would assume that any handicap will result in weird plays. And without handicap it is too strong for any human.

I would like to recommend Willy Hendriks - Move First, Think Later, if it is okay with you to recommend something. It was my first real chess book and it was a very fun read. I am often intimidated by too many diagrams and endless variations in books, and he has a great way to tell a story about the psychology at the board. You do need an interest in psychology in chess to be able to enjoy the book, if it is just about the moves for you it might not be that great (there are diagrams ofcourse).

Some subjects in the 20 or 25 chapters are: Time management, the more time you spend at a move, the less merit there is, while that time might be important in the endgame. There is a chapter about chess as a game of chance, like, you play a tournament and make 5 out of 9. Next year at the same tournament, you make 4 out of 9. Did you play worse? You might think so and rationalize that thought to become some truth to you, but really, it is just one game that might have been decided by one move. The same for winning or losing rating points, which can be a plus or a minus based on just 1 game difference, that doesn't make your last 3 months bad or good.

Late reply to say thank you for this recommendation. I'm already 2 chapters in, though if it gets harder I will slow my pace.

Book recommendations are always welcome. I'll usually check out anything that's 200 or so pages. My days of reading 1000 page books of small print on cheap paper however are over.