Very true, I feel the same way because I absolutely can't stand censorship and ads. However, I also can't stand using poor/er quality software if I don't have to. For now, I'm noticing Google Chrome is much smoother and pleasant to use than Firefox. Sad too, I love Firefox and always have but it feels so choppy anymore in comparison.
Firefox is supposedly making a huge overhaul soon, can't wait to see what they're cooking up. I'd still like to figure out how to filter out pinterest search results in this manner using Firefox, though.
As far as Google, the search engine, goes. There's no denying that it's far superior than anyone else. DDG is close, and getting better, but since Google has so many other services that I use it makes no sense to me to use another search engine.
At the end of the day, to each their own.