I switched from Google search in 2017 to DuckDuckGo and haven’t looked back. I started switching family away to DDG during the pandemic and they haven’t noticed.
Google has a legacy moat but they aren’t the best by a noticeable amount anymore.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, looks like we both had a similar path around the same time. I tried DDG very early on maybe 2012/13 and the results were awful but I tried it again in 2017 and found it works fine.
I have since moved to Ecosia a year or two ago as I found the results were very similar and have no issue with it.
Google has a legacy moat but they aren’t the best by a noticeable amount anymore.