> DuckDuckGo isn't that good

Myself and others who use it daily would disagree.

> it's no different than others

By definition of how it works it's different.

With a decent content blocker in safari none of the social media buttons can "track" you.

Annoyingly, Apple recently removed the means to block such tracking from apps as well:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-cracking-down-on-...

I went back to Android so I can continue to do that, as well as using Firefox plugins. This is a bit of a nuisance as the Apple Watch was rather good.

>Annoyingly, Apple recently removed the means to block such tracking from apps as well:

IMO, it's right decision. Blocking via VPN is a privacy nightmare. They can intercept all traffic.

Such applications are not necessarily a problem - take a look at this Android one, for example:

https://github.com/julian-klode/dns66

In any case it should be up to the owner of the device if they wish to do this sort of thing rather than Apple.

DDG is obviously not as good as Google, but I've given it a serious try and it works well enough. There are still times when I instinctively add !g to my query and times when I know that I need to use Google instead (some work related stuff just doesn't come up on DDG)

I can't speak for any social networks since I don't know how to use them which means I get no value from them. I mainly use IRC and lately Discord to speak with my friends.

Then, privacy isn't as important for me, as search quality.

Which is valid opinion. I just view it like if you are going to spend the money on iPhone and still use Google's services you are "losing money". You could have just gotten Android which has better Google integration for cheaper price.