Make DuckDuckGo your Chrome default search engine

I love DDG and I used it for 6 months but the problem I had is that when I was looking for things related to coding or Linux--it fell short. I would type in an error from Objective-c, Node.js, Java, JavaScript or Scala and nothing helpful would return. This forced me to return to Google which I ended up doing so often that I switched my default search engine back :(.

have you checked out some of the !bang options available? I just took a look and here is a sampling of what you have available.

Sysadmin: !apache !awesome !bsd !chef !codeweavers !cookbook !cve !datasheet !distro !distrowatch !eventid !everymac !exex !exploitdb !filext !fsf !fsfe !funtoo !gdiag !gnomebugs !gnu !howtoforge (!htf) !ip !irp !iso !linode !linuxfr !linuxhcl !linuxmint !lxr !mysql !nginxwiki !openbsd !openbsdmisc !opensuse !oracle !osvdb !parabola !peppermintos !playterm !postgresql !psql !puppet !qth !salix !salixforums !sectube !senderbase !spice !splunk !sqlite !susebug !susepkg !technetlib !timestamp !tldp !trisquel !use !vmkb !vol !wog !zahe

Sysadmin (debian): !debbug (!dbugs) !debian !debianforums !debianfr !debml !debmla !debwiki !dfiles !dman !dpackages (!dpkg !dpts) !dtag !fanch

Sysadmin (FreeBSD): !bsdman !fports !freebsd !freshports !fxr

Sysadmin (Gentoo): !gbugs !gentoo !gentoowiki !gpackages !gwiki

Sysadmin (RedHat): !rbugs

Sysadmin (Solaris): !sunpatch

Sysadmin (Ubuntu): !askubuntu !docubu !docubufr !omgubuntu (!omgu) !ppa !puc !ubottu !ubuntuforums (!ubuntuf) !ubuntuusers !uman !upackages !upkg !uu !uude

https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

Part of me thinks those are cool, but the rest of my shouts "why should I have to do that?!".

Because Google learns what your preferences are, DDG don't. This is why there is no "search bubble", unfortunately it comes at a price.