There's only one chance to make a lasting impression as an aspiring Google competitor and there isn't a single one that even made it into my bookmarks. I understand there's enough love for DDG on HN but life is too short for mediocre horizontal search results.
DDG is now even with Google imo. Used to be different for sure. But nowadays, it's a back and forth.
For a lot of people DDG is strictly better: You live anywhere that is not the US and therefore have to deal with a thing called "locality". Sometimes you want search results in language X, sometimes for your location, sometimes you need the "normal" results for Americans.
Google decides all that for you. Badly. There is no setting except - your know, logging into some Google account and finding some setting somewhere for it.
My results are the same or better than Google in DDG as far as I can tell. I haven't missed Google a bit since I switched. So, either the difference for the average user is minimal or there isn't a difference.
It’s a frequent complaint. I wonder if some people just use search differently and the lack of tracking makes it work worse for them on DDG? I’m in the same boat as you (except for their horrible decision to just ignore what you search and show you almost random results when they don’t get enough/any hits) and rarely ever use !g.
Have you considered that maybe you're just used to Google? There is a learning curve to using a new search engine. The way they answer your queries depends on how you ask.
But at the end, it's about what you care about. Is life too short to have principles?
