http://www.verticalset.com/search
On Firefox, by clicking "Add to Browser" and checking "Start using Right Away", you can make it default.
On Chrome, if you click on same button there is no way to make it default. You have to find the list of search engines in settings and click "Make Default".
On IE, process is similar to Firefox.
It wouldn't be hard to make this similar to Firefox on Chrome, just add "Make it Default" check-box when adding new search engine, but that won't happen anytime soon.
If you really want to tell people how to add your site as their default, then detect Chrome users and tell them how to do it in Chrome. There is no need to blame Google for this - they aren't treating you differently than anyone else, aside from Bing and Yahoo (who are added to the default list).
While I appreciate that other sites are doing this by default without user interaction, this is just ripe for a phishing attack. So, I would assume this will go away soon.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-fo...
I don't know why no such addon exists for Chrome?
EDIT: Ugh I am woefully wrong, the Chrome extension only shows up when you visit the site from Chrome. Perhaps they mean choosing a default search engine in Chrome is not as straightforward as Firefox. You will have to open preferences -> Search -> Manage Search engines and then change the default engine.
Because someone has to be arsed to write it?
I suspect that part of it is a confluence of events: it's not exactly easy to change the search to DDG, most Chrome users don't bother to change it, and no one who is capable really wants to write an extension for Chrome to make it easier.
Which is, to my mind, a far simpler explanation than a conspiracy against DDG (in that one area).
In Firefox if I click the dropdown on the search field, then click 'Manage Search Engines' I get a dialog in which can be found a link to 'Get more search engines...'.
Clicking that opens an add-ons store tab with the 'Search Tools' filter applied, none of whose above-the-fold suggestions has anything to do with DDG. That's not one-click, it's a runaround.
In contrast, Chrome automatically adds search engines as you browse the web and lets you set any one of them as the default. It also has clearly labelled fields to let you create your own by copying the format of the ones listed. Getting to there takes 3 clicks and a scroll.
Two reasonable gripes: the existence of the free-edit fields is not immediately obvious upon clicking 'Manage search engines...' and neither is the fact that the domain name in the second column is an editable keyword.