alt Hacker NewsI switched to DDG a long time ago (maybe close to a decade now?). There's plenty of reasons to dislike Google, but my main reason for switching was better quality results and a faster, simpler UI.
The UI has gotten a bit clunkier over the years, but it's still good, still more focused than Google's.
As I write this, I give Google Search a quick try and notice that the first thing you see is a full-screen cookie banner!? On my laptop, I even have to scroll to reach the Reject/Accept buttons, and keyboard controls don't work at all. I can't believe people still use this crap.
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Sad, because Google's homepage was once a paragon of bloat-free design. While their competitors enshittified, Google kept just giving good results fast without a lot of junk. They became the 90+% market share leader, and enshittified thereafter.
Also a long-time DDG user here, the lack of AI chat by default at the top of searches is great, if i wanted to use AI I wouldn't be opening a search engine.