[squarefoot]

"Say all you want about DDG and alternatives, but they still can't hold a candle to Google's search quality."

I use DDG as main search engine since a while. It usually works, but occasionally (less than 10% of searches however) I have to repeat the search using Google. The point being that even if I had to revert to Google for half of my searches, this would mean for Google 50% less information about my search habits, and exposure to their injected ads/information, which wouldn't be a trivial figure at all.

One doesn't use DDG because it's superior to Google (it's not and won't be for a long while) but rather to send a message to corporations making profits out of user information. I'm convinced Google doesn't give a rat's ass if ten thousands users like me don't use their search engine and services as we're already flagged in their database as users with adblockers, therefore immune to advertising (including ads that manage to defeat the blockers), but they would surely panic in terror should DDG use become somewhat trendy among Joe Users after some media coverage, social media campaign etc. The reason being that "normal", usually non technical, users are the ones providing Google mostly with real numbers because they allow webpages to analyze their habits and don't obfuscate their online behavior. Should a big number of those users make the transition to DDG or alternatives, we would likely hear of flying chairs at Google headquarters.

[smichel17]

I use DDG because it's superior to Google. Maybe not in results, but in UX. In particular, I use bangs ALL the time. Given that I can just add !g to quickly search Google in the <5% of the time (based on my history) that I need it, I prefer DDG. (I would still use it for privacy reasons even if it were worse -- it was and I did for several years).