I've had the same experience with me basically tossing in the towel with DDG because my need for efficiency outweighed my need for privacy. It seems like Google is systemically showing more crap in advertisements, making it harder to distinguish between ads and genuine search results, and their advantage is dwindling. That and it's just annoying to be sending information to Google as a default from a privacy point of view.

Maybe I should give Bing another go?