That used to be true for me & DDG, but it's happening less & less. In fact, a couple of days ago, I found a situation where Google's search results were pretty much useless, while DDG got me what I wanted. I was looking for lyrics to a song. There was some site claiming to be a lyrics search engine that appeared to have SEO'd their way to the top of Google, so a Google search for lyrics got me to ... another search engine. But DDG got me the lyrics.

Also, we should note that DDG's "!g" syntax means you never have to deal with Google's search box.

Sure, there must be some situations where DDG wins.

But look at what you have said; in the last couple of days you have only one example of google failing you. Presumably for the rest of that time google was perfectly fine or better. Only once in that time did you have a better result from DDG.

Some would call that damning with faint praise. With that ratio, the only sane conclusion is to use google.

Currently DDG is my default search. But most of the time I do the DDG search, give up and repeat with google. As I say, Im trying but its not productive for me.

I was in the same boat. I spent a good portion of last year trying to use DDG as my default. It never panned out. Google was just more relevant. 99% of what I use Google for is programming related (solving problems, bringing up reference material etc) and DDGs results never seemed as good.

I've been using DDG for some time as my default search engine - everywhere and for everything. Currently on those rare times that I need s Googly response, I'll append with !sp. I'll take a minor inconvenience of three addional characters (or two, if you're happier with !g) and a space to support a company that is looking out for its user's backs over one that is becoming less user centric each year.