What happens is that I type “www.goo” or “www.duckduckgo” in the address bar in explorer, the rest of the address fills in and I hit enter. Instead of bringing up the website, Bing opens a search window that asks why I would use those other search engines when I have Bing right there, and invites me to type my query in the Bing tool. Below that window is a list of search results, the top one of which is the search engine I was trying to get to in the first place.
I usually do use Bing since it’s right there, but the best search engine in terms of returning the results I want is still Google. So I end up using Google anyway on more advanced searches, after my search on Bing or Duck fails. Google is far superior on image searches, as well, and it makes images easier to download once I find them. I truly hope these other search engines are working hard on their search algorithms, because once they can match or exceed Google, I think use of Google will drop drastically.
I simply have StartPage listed as my default. I go to search and click StartPage.
I have actually compared image search on StartPage & goolag...I can find no differences. Both will open a visit site window if I select an image, only SP asks if I wish to visit the page anonymously.
I never pay any attention to auto-suggest in search. I usually only need to refine my own terms to finally achieve what I’m looking for.