Using bang syntax in the address bar is awesome. I still use Google fairly often, but via DDG. It shaves about 30 seconds off of the time it takes me to get a result.

Most search tasks I do are "hand me that spanner" tasks. I don't want you to give me a big spiel about how great your business is or to show me how thoroughly you can erase all semblance of privacy via data mining - I just want the damn spanner so I can get back to work.

I switched to Google in the first place because they did the best job of getting the right spanner with the least amount of fuss. They're getting much worse at choosing the right spanner vs. feeding me a bunch of spam and ad content, and they're simultaneously taking longer to do it.