I've been using DuckDuckGo for a few months now and to be honest I'm kind of disappointed. I really appreciate the privacy concerns and the lack of tracking software. It got really annoying how Google would "recommend" things that it thought I was interested in when I wasn't interested in them, that kind of thing. But on the other hand, I've been starting to get really frustrated at just how hard it is to search for anything. You have to be really specific, especially if it's something niche or if you don't fully know the right terms to ask for. At least with Google, if you weren't completely correct about a topic, it could at least parse what hobby or activity you were trying to ask about and bring up things related to that. But with DDG, I've found it doesn't even really try in that regard. Plus it's frankly really dumb how it uses Apple Maps as opposed to, I dunno? OSM? I honestly prefer Google Maps despite my dislike of the search engine so the usage of Apple Maps is really offputting.
Now, before you say anything, going in I knew it wouldn't be as easy to search for things as on Google, but I'm pretty experienced with the internet and I didn't think it would be a problem. But even being hyper-specific yields surprisingly little results if it's something niche. Even wording it like you would on a University library search engine doesn't seem to work as good as I might expect.
I'm open to considering more mainstream options too like Bing if it's better than I remember it being.
edit: I should've mentioned, I'm not necessarily saying I want to make a full switch just yet to any daily driver situation, I'd just like some recommendations for when DDG is being DDG and not giving me any relevant results.
DDG isn't perfect by a long shot, but it's still leagues better than google. I think SEO overall has taken a nosedive in recent years, especially with AI written content muddying the waters. Unfortunately I do not know of an alternative that's better than either.
As a trucking dispatcher I have relied more on Bing Maps because they are more updated than Google maps sometimes. Google maps is almost impossible to search for a specific thing when you're in a pinch, because there will be an ad for a competitor at the top of the list and you can easily be misled if you are in a rush. Happened to my bf a few weeks ago when he was searching for the closest UPS (near closing time) and inadvertently drove to a FedEx because it was the ad at the top of the search results. By the time he realized his mistake the UPS was closed. Fuck Google.
It's not that seo has taken a nosedive ( I guess, it does depend on whose perspective ) More like, it's become such an hyper-focus on it that we have a bunch of seo-driven drivel destroying the quality of the results.
People mostly figured out how google wants things to rank them high. So they do only that. And a lot of it. Anything that doesn't gets relegated to further down results, or, gasp, the second page. Which means a loss in revenu, so you kinda --have-- to do it, business wise.
I'm a part time delivery person and bing maps is honestly really good, it's just a shame there's no mobile app because I'd probably switch to it in a heartbeat. As you said, google maps is really good but it fudges specifics a lot and gives you incorrect directions for certain addresses.