I was doing exactly the same thing for the last several years (Firefox, not Vivaldi, but "g" is configured for Google). Sometimes I'd slip on the space and it'd go to DDG.

This happened a few months ago after I'd spent hours trying to find the right incantation to get Google to give me something other than a bunch of troubleshooting that I'd already done. The DDG page had much of the same, but the top link was bizarre in its irrelevance to my query. I don't know if it was the two hours of frustration that led me to click it[0] or that the title also included a service that my application used, but one I had (in error) ruled out as the culprit.

It turned out to be the exact solution I needed.

Here's my assessment:

  - DDG falls down for queries that are seemingly simple but require context beyond the term to get the result I'm specifically looking for.  Google knows too much about me, so if I search for a technology company by name, and it shares a name with seven other businesses, DDG won't put it on top unless that tech company ranks higher than the others using their privacy respecting search.  Google will have it as the first link, with a sidebar explaining things that might keep me from needing to click it.

  - DDG performs as well or better (in a lot of cases *better*) than both Bing (I think the major source of its search data) and Google for queries seeking programming/troubleshooting/other technical help.  It surfaces results that don't show at all on Google for me.  Its results for these queries contain fewer spammy responses, as well, for reasons unknown.

That last point was surprising to me mainly because ... Google has all of my context and a massive team of people who are supposed to be ensuring my results are excellent. DDG is working with so much less, yet they're providing me better results often enough that it seems they've got some things implemented that exceed Google's capabilities. I'm not sure if that's the case or if it's just coincidence, but it's happening enough (now that I'm giving them a chance and looking) that I'm happy with the outcome.

Give it a shot, next time. You may find, like I did, that it works really well for a lot more than it has in the past.

[0] Details at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29725919