Long time DDG user here. I highly encourage people to try and make the switch. I often find DDG gives me the needed information without having to actually having to visit the site. I still find myself going to Google sometimes if DDG doesn't give me what I want, but it's smart enough to get me the most relevant information faster most of the time. Often enough that I don't feel the need to switch back.

In making the switch, I highly advise you to spend a little bit of time learning the keyboard shortcuts, especially the !Bang feature (https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html). You'll love the HN search options. =) There are so many, you won't be able to learn them all.

You can also still use Google if you want, or even Bing (or other engines). Basically, the !Bang syntax would mean even if you aren't using DDG, it enables you to quickly use whatever engine you really want.

I'm just a fan of DDG. Hope you find it as useful as I do. =)

I'm glad I have been using DDG for over 6 months now. For the new user, here are some advices.

DDG is my default search engine. Basically, all of my searches are completed in DDG, only very few times I have to go to google to find what I am looking for. My suggestion is that you spend 5 minutes learning the bang! syntax, as it speeds up your search by alot, then set DDG as your default search engine for a couple weeks. You will see that the bang! syntax and the 0-click-info really makes the difference on search speed, and their results are pretty damn good.

Also a long time DDG user. I have it set as my default search provider in chrome, and it has sped up my browsing considerably. Shortcuts like "!w some article" or "!a some product" (takes you directly to Wikipedia or Amazon, respectively) are very handy. The only times I've had to revert to Google are for very specific forum trawling.