Touchpad exasperating as to right-click behavior

My single-surface touchpad is exasperating and I would never buy this model if I knew... Much of the time, a right-click behaves simply as a left click. For instance, a multiple hits Google search page disappears and becomes simply the one selection I'd intended to "open in new tab" from the customary drop-open submenu, which fails to appear upon right-clicking a hit.

Also, right-clicking a highlighted block of text often simply removes the highlighting instead of providing a drop-open submenu for "copy" or "cut" or the like. 

I'm trying to get in the habit of substituting two-finger taps for right clicks, but that choice is unreliable and fails rather often.

Dell ought to be all over this, but improved drivers haven't been offered.  Short of resigning myself to using an external mouse on a table top (not exactly why we wanted a laptop with touchpad in the first place), is there anything I can do to improve this temperamental touchpad's performance?  I've done my best with settings; nothing corrects the performance problem described here.