[BRAlNlAC]

Yup, that's when I started to switch to DDG. I remember Google saying that you needed to add '+' +before +words that must be included instead of "putting them in quotes"–how annoying. But even using their new operators, I couldn't get answers like I used to be able to. I already didn't like their data gathering practices by then, so gimping search for me made the transition a breeze. Interestingly even up to even 9-12 months ago I remember people consistently saying that DDG was so much worse than Google, which I always figured was a result of user error, or a result of not caring about tracking and leveraging the Google profile. I'd been off the Google grid for a while so I couldn't really argue, but I knew that I got significantly better information from DuckDuckGo, having grown accustomed to the level of detail needed. These days I probably only use Google a handful of times a month. The concept that they are purposefully soiling search results to add value to ads and sponsored results sounds about right, honestly. Advertisements used to be much less relevant than the results I'd get if I inputted a string of 5+ words, but anymore I have to be careful not to accidentally click on an ad, as the results tend to be terrible, and I'd rather enter a url into a browser than click on an ad I'm actually interested in. .