Does DuckDuckGo Hide Your Data From Your ISP? Need Clarification! or Can DuckDuckGo Actually Hide You

Wow, thanks for all the replies! This makes way more sense now.

So DDG encrypts my searches but doesn’t hide the fact that I’m using it from my ISP. Got it.

I’ll probably stick with DDG for now but might try a VPN later. Any free ones you’d recommend? Or are they all sketchy?

(Also, Tor sounds intense but maybe worth looking into. Thanks again!)