Try using "!s", which sends you to Startpage, a search engine with Google search results but which promises privacy.

(I don't know much more about Startpage, and in many discussions about DDG I ask if anyone knows more, but no luck so far.)

My only encounter with Startpage was when it mysteriously showed up on my parents' computer as a self-resetting default and I had to clean it off for them. If Startpage is legit, they need to maintain much better control of their affiliate campaign to prevent the use of malware to drive affiliate revenue.

!gm <address> will push you back to google maps if you need it!

!maps also works for google maps, !osm will use OpenStreetMap instead.

just !m works actually (same with !i for google images and !n for google news)

I use DuckDuckGo as my default. The only time I ever have to revert to Google search is when I'm searching for things indexed within the past year. This is a pretty crucial feature when searching for technical items (ensures a good number of search results while also being relatively current). For some reason, DDG only lets you search up to the last month. If they added the ability to search within the past year, I probably wouldn't need to use Google search at all.

I've found that Google is better when you're doing research and your net is wide (e.g., rectal cancer incidence in Hispanics). Searching for specific and/or popular things works great on DuckDuckGo.

Definitely. When you search for technical stuff or specific things that you are not sure what you are looking, Google results is better. but as a day to day quick searches DDG does a good job. I hope as they increase revenue they get better.