DDG is a more practical default than Google simply because I don't get a "We'd like to abuse your personal data" pop-up that gets in the way every time I open an Incognito window to search for something.
This switch by Debian to DDG is less of an issue for me than it would have been a few years ago. Google has recently been claiming it will only ever show 1000 results (10 pages of 100). But for many users, myself included, google will only ever show less than 400 results. This is apparently an intentional policy (at least according to the support forums).
For me this is terrible. I can scan through 100 search results pretty quick, going 4 pages deep is something I have always done often. Seeing the reported ~82 million results shrink suddenly to 4 pages and maybe 389 results with ommitted included is extremely disheartening. But at least google scholar still works properly.
Sadly I have found the DDG lacking, most times I have to go back to Google to find information that just doesn't show up on DDG. As an example, I don't have Twitter but I follow certain sport journalist with a huge following, all thanks to his Twitter. When I search for his name + twitter, DDG shows me articles about the journalist and even a Facebook page link, but not his twitter even if it is in the query and his handle is literally his name!
Twitter are so hostile to casual anonymous browsing via the web that I'm not surprised DDG aren't indexing them, and actually prefer that. It's like Twitter are actively choosing to not be part of the web.
But yes, I do use !g when needed to jump to Google. It's just the default that works better on DDG for me due to the Incognito window issue - so much so that I've been running DDG by default for quite a long time now, just for that reason.
Did you use the "Send Feedback" in the bottom left corner? I've heard (via a comment on HN) that they do read them. I also readily admit the bottom left corner is a suboptimal place to put a feedback link, but here we are
