DuckDuckGo made a deal with the devil. Due to a confidential search agreement, the DuckDuckGo browser does not block all Microsoft trackers. What’s worse, DuckDuckGo only acknowledged this “privacy hole” after it was discovered by a security researcher."
https://www.reviewgeek.com/118915/duckduckgo-isnt-as-private-as-you-thought/
Wonderful, isn't it? After the last Bing incident, then the censoring fiasco, then this.
They never had any credibility in my estimation.
I watched a Hillsdale College lecture given by an Internet privacy expert who researched Google algorithm manipulations during the run up to the 2020 election, and he recommended https://swisscows.com.
I tried it out and it reminded me of 2012 era Google. I made the switch and have used it ever since.
It doesn't work for searches that contain profanity, so for "Fuck Joe Biden" and related searches I use either https://qwant.com or https://yandex.com
I also use https://yandex.com for translation work.
And I access all of these from behind a VPN.
I found SC results a little weak. I mainly use Brave search. Qwant as a backup.