Your experience is so different from mine! One of the attributes which initially made Google feel trustworthy, back when I first encountered them, was the fact that they didn't nag you to create an account and log in. I loved the fact that I could just go to google.com and search, get good results, and not feel like I was being strong-armed into some commercial relationship in the process. I just wanted to browse the web, after all, I wasn't there to build a relationship with the search company. At the time, this felt like a breath of fresh air; it was part of what I took "don't be evil" to mean.

Of course that quality faded away over the years, but I never grew comfortable with the idea of logging in to Search; it was just too creepy. But eventually it just got ridiculous, and the relentless pushiness of the whole Google+ fiasco was a big part of the reason I switched to DDG.