NO.

1. it is US-based
2. the CEO is the former founder of the “Names Database”

for the love of god, use anything but DDG. Qwant is EU-based and has decent results, SearX is another one which lets you choose between instances (or host your own).

please stop taking US “privacy” services seriously. i was hoping people would know better on here, compared to reddit

Honestly yeah. There’s been some controversies in the past, but for someone who’s looking for a zero-effort way to browse privately and support the privacy scene (DDG donates a lot of money) it’s a great choice. Wouldn’t recommend their browser/extensions though