In the meantime I recommend Searx, it’s an open-source metasearch engine.
Just to be clear Duckduckgo isn’t at fault & always uses a VPN it’s the least you can do to protect yourself online (If there are financial struggles ProtonVPN is a free & open source reliable alternative.).
You could be dealing with a Spyware poisoning your search engine results or it’s done on a large scale deep packet inspection on the networks you’re using.
In the meantime I recommend Searx, it’s an open-source metasearch engine.
Just to be clear Duckduckgo isn’t at fault & always uses a VPN it’s the least you can do to protect yourself online (If there are financial struggles ProtonVPN is a free & open source reliable alternative.).