one really important aspect of DDG is that I use it to route my google searches. To search for german google I have to go to google.de (type the whole url). With the bang syntax I can just type !gde and it takes me there. Same for Amazon, !a takes you to .com !ade takes you to Amazon.de. I have used DDG for a while now and by now I've got a feeling of what DDG will find and where I should go to Google so I rarely do duplicate queries.