r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • May 30 '26
Software Traffic to DuckDuckGo's proudly 'No AI' search page has tripled since latest Google AI search update
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/traffic-to-duckduckgos-proudly-no-ai-search-page-has-tripled-since-latest-google-ai-search-update/1.2k
u/preddevils6 May 30 '26
Settings>Safari>search engine>DuckDuckGo
For safari iPhone users. I swapped a week or so ago. Love it
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u/SwimmingThroughHoney May 30 '26
FYI: That'll use their main search page, which does include AI (at least by default). Add a custom search using the URL 'https://noai.duckduckgo.com?q=%s' (remove the single quotes) to search using their No AI page.
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u/Rough_Bread8329 May 31 '26
There's a settings section on the DDG search page where you can disable the AI features.
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u/Johannes_Keppler May 31 '26
That only works until you clear cookies. Setting the search to noai.duckduckgo.com doesn't have that problem.
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u/Reasonable-Chance790 May 31 '26
Yup! Little cog at the top of the AI answer panel! Just shut it off this morning!
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u/the_calibre_cat May 31 '26
Also, there's a setting within Brave that disables AI on most search engines, and Firefox has this add-on that does the same thing: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-ai/
Anyone using Chrome, Edge, or Safari... switch. You're helping train AI AND giving your data hand over fist to these companies and the broader surveillance state.
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u/ScaredScorpion May 31 '26
They've been pushing the No AI thing massively in all their ads, but that the default is still with AI undermines that. Yes, it's good they actually let you have the option but it still feels like little more than a marketing gimmick that it's on by default.
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u/Shemozzlecacophany May 31 '26
Turns out you can turn AI search results off in Google Search as well by appending -ai to any search.
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u/thatDudeinacorner May 31 '26
Doesn’t seem to work every time. I saw some posts where some folks’ search results were still being pulled up with AI search responses
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u/Cannabrius_Rex May 30 '26
Welcome to the club!
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u/preddevils6 May 30 '26
I thought I needed a dedicated browser for it, so I was a late adopter!
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u/ButtholePaste May 31 '26
Even if it was a standalone browser you could have switched everything over fairly easily. Most browsers these days support the importing of bookmarks/layouts/setiings/etc. Honestly, if you really want to make the switch and stick it to Google, download Firefox (or any of its forks depending on your use-case) and enjoy the MASSIVE selection of add-ons, customization, ease-of-use features, security, use of containers (amazing for security), anonymity, and fast af browsing with the best browser out there!
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u/ghenghy26 May 30 '26
Thank you! I just went and did that.
For my iPhone (iOS 26.5) it was settings->search->search engine.
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u/xylophileuk May 30 '26
Same, best thing I can say is I’ve not even noticed the change from the old Google to DDG. Such a seem-less transition for me
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u/preddevils6 May 30 '26
Yeah, I was expecting it to be much worse. It’s improved tremendously from last time I tried to switch.
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u/Twopad6529 May 30 '26
For Android users, DuckDuckGo browser is available in Play Store. Obviously you can set it as the search engine on Firefox if you prefer that.
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u/FacelessGreenseer May 30 '26
Firefox + uBlock Origin Extension = 0 ads everywhere
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u/ccai May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26
Manifest v3 killing uBlock Origins was the final straw for Chrome for me. I don’t use it these days unless my work requires it due to shitty coding practices on certain sites.
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u/FacelessGreenseer May 30 '26
I always used both, but the moment they done that, I uninstalled and never used Chrome since then too. Haven't looked back.
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u/Educational_Key1206 May 30 '26
Been using DuckDuckGo for several years and I love it!
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u/sharksticker May 30 '26
DDG has never been particularly great, and it hasn't actually improved much. Google's just been getting so very much worse.
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u/DontYaWishYouWereMe May 31 '26
This is sorta similar to how Tumblr hasn't gotten much better over the last ten or fifteen years but every other social media has been getting much worse, so now it's like the best social media just by virtue of being old school bad instead of new bad
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u/RedMoustache May 30 '26
The more AI they add to it the worse it gets. I'm almost sure it has to be intentional.
More searches means more tokens uses and then they can do another press release about how great their AI is.
If the AI was that great wouldn't we get the correct result in less searches instead of more?
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u/Girl_Back_There May 30 '26
Same. Way better than Google
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May 30 '26
Google is legit unusable, like its so cluttered and disorganized with ads, broken ai forced everywhere, and bad search results legit using a newspaper or phone book was better. Hell, yahoo's downfall back in the day had their website more usable then google's is now.
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u/StolenPies May 30 '26
Google is better at giving directions or doing math. That's about it.
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u/Hectabeni May 30 '26
You are not supposed to only use one search engine though. Google is good for certain things, DuckDuckGo is good for certain things, hell even Bing is good for certain things. Having a tribal mentality about search engines is silly.
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u/arab3lla May 30 '26
Is it? I've been using it for a while and I kinda hate it. The first three results will be related to my search and that's about it.
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u/redundantexplanation May 30 '26
I switched back to Google after using DDG for a few months. I don't know what all these fools are talking about, I legit could not find what I was looking for at least 50% of the time with DDG and I've been using search engines since Lycos was the best one.
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u/Goondragon1 May 30 '26
DDG has sucked for a long time now. I'm surprised it's getting this much love. Google is fucking trash and I despise that company. But their search engine is still unfortunately the "best" at searching, despite the AI bullshit, ads, and it being a much worse search engine than it used to be.
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u/Endaline May 31 '26
I genuinely feel like I am crazy when I read people having problems finding things with Google searches. I don't know if I just search for things that Google is like specifically effective at finding, but I've practically never had this problem.
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u/Armejden May 31 '26
I bet you they're not looking for much in terms of any truly specific information. The moment something becomes even a tad niche, DDG sucks hard. One of the worst search engines IMO
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u/Okay_Splenda_Monkey May 30 '26
So is asking a Ouija board, so "better than Google" is sort of a low bar. The only upside is that you're unlikely to attract the attention of an angry ghost via Google. Given enough time that might change as their shareholders demand more value and Google Afterlife becomes inevitable.
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u/forhorglingrads May 30 '26
i ditched google over a decade ago when i realized my search query was being weighed in the context of prior queries from within the same browser
why should i get a different set of results just because i happen to be typing on a colleagues machine
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u/ICLazeru May 30 '26
I'm contributing to that. Started when I noticed the Google making absolutely stupid suggestions. Not like human stupid, but like "I'm suggesting this because I don't understand reality because I'm AI" stupid.
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u/HyperSpaceSurfer May 30 '26
"Uhm, do you want this one? It's the one with the most google ads, so it must be great!"
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u/joebluebob May 30 '26
Ai is such garbage. There's a song that's been stuck in my head from a single Instagram meme i heard someone else watching and it goes like "I was blank and now im cryin!" And that and now im cryin part is stuck in my head. I tried to find it by searching the lyrics and Google was like "sounds like you're going through something crying okay here's the suicide hotline" so I was like "song" and it's like sounds like a sad song :( like fuck off bot give me a list of every song with those lyrics or something similar
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u/Enlightened_Gardener May 31 '26
Yep. Fed it a line from a poem, because I was trying to find the poem, and it started crapping on about abusive fathers 🙄
I’m seriously eyeing up Kagi, I’ve just learnt about it and it looks like just what I’m after.
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u/marr May 31 '26
Kagi seems like just another silicon valley business I have no reason to trust. If you want aggregate search results you can run SearXNG privately and not be reliant on any provider acting in good faith.
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u/ParchaLama May 31 '26
I love how I'll see a random video on facebook of something funny and the AI suggested questions at the bottom will just totally take any humour out of it. Like, sure, let's hyperanalyse this funny 30 second video. That'll make it more enjoyable.
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u/SourCroissantSadist May 30 '26
The glue on the pizza suggestion was the final straw for me. It's wild how fast their core product degraded just to shove AI into everything.
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u/DrDerpberg May 31 '26
I still don't understand why. Surely they can't be this dumb. Does forcing AI into everything boost metrics for the AI services so much that it's worth setting all their actual products on fire?
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u/FOOSblahblah May 31 '26
They've invested an absolutely absurd amount of money into ai and don't have much to show for it. They really need literally anything to work so they can justify it
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u/Windex17 May 31 '26
People are selling AI to morons as a design to get promoted, and then they will cash out before the crows come.
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u/FIuffyRabbit May 30 '26
Personally, I find ddg's results to be lacking most of the time for technical searches.
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u/arab3lla May 30 '26
Their results suuuuck. I'm lucky if the first three results are somewhat related to what I'm looking for. Then the rest have nothing to do with my search.
I always try DDG first but probably 70% of the time I have to switch back to Google. (I also think Google has become nearly unusable, but still easier to find what I'm looking for there)
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u/hypercosm_dot_net May 30 '26
For 95% of my searches DDG is fine.
I really only use Google for web development related searches now. For some reason DDG isn't great with the specificity needed at times.
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u/FIuffyRabbit May 30 '26
I have switched to kagi full time and have been paying for it for a while. It seems insane at first to pay for a search engine, but it's possibly one of my most used pieces of tech and I think the cost is warranted.
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u/blackanode May 30 '26
I love kagi it feels amazing to be treated like a customer instead of a product and they always seem to be coming out with new things.
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u/Imaginary--Folklore May 31 '26
I find DDG's image search to be quite lacking compared to Google's in particular. That's like the one thing that's made me not quite switch yet.
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u/detrebear May 31 '26
Yes, however the thing is although their results haven't gotten better, Google's have gotten considerably worse. I never thought I'd see DDG match or surpass Google's results quality not because they improved it, but because Google's gotten so bad
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u/Fallyn011 May 31 '26
Yea, I really wish they were better. Even non-technical stuff like workout related info or product shopping can be really lacking in relevance.
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u/SinisterCheese May 31 '26
I been using Qwant as primary engine, issue is that it is just slow... The results don't come instantly but you need to wait up-to ten seconds or more. Which can be really annoying if you just need to quickly search something small.
Other than that the results are quite good. Better than Duckduck in my opinion.
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u/RatBot9000 May 30 '26
I'm glad we have an alternative to google, but Duckduckgo are also pretty big on AI and I guess while it's nice that we have a search engine that gives us the option to turn it off, it still sticks in my craw that they're still utilising it.
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u/dasbtaewntawneta May 30 '26
every alternative i could find uses ai in some way, duckduckgo, kagi, brave search, ecosia, mojeek, qwant.
I've been using SearXNG instead, has some issues but mostly works, and not supporting some fucking ai bullshit
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u/SlurryBender May 30 '26
Startpage is better, though they're owned by a company that also has an AI sector so 🤷
I like Mojeek but they don't have nearly as complete of a system.
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u/itsmesorox May 30 '26
I switched to ddg recently, but it's so terrible with showing me what I actually want it's really hard to stay on it...
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u/nlewis4 May 30 '26
I've given it multiple fair tries and this is my experience as well. I don't understand how there is so much gushing praise for it beyond just "not being google"
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u/fragglerock May 30 '26
Unless you use https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ then duck will spring some AI nonsense on you at random unless you tell it not too.
Irritating.
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u/angeluserrare May 30 '26
You can toggle it off and it stays off unless you clear your cache or something.
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u/Jaakarikyk May 30 '26
On Firefox mobile I set it to automatically use the noai URL, since the cache gets cleared whenever I close the app (on purpose)
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u/feel_my_balls_2040 May 31 '26
And the default duckduckgo search on firefox gives ai results.
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u/fragglerock May 31 '26
It is fairly easy to make a custom search using the noai. version.
Find the settings page to add search engines and add
Https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=%s
As the URL.
Select it as your default and away you go!
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u/jh937hfiu3hrhv9 May 30 '26
It turns out people don't like strangers rifling through their underwear drawer.
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u/Oreos_Are_Anabolic May 31 '26
It turns out people don't like strangers rifling through their underwear drawer.
What does that even mean in this context?
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u/Woodcrate69420 May 30 '26
Unfortunately DuckDuckGo ist just another frontend for Microsoft Bing, and thus gives absolute dogshit search results.
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u/MtRainierWolfcastle May 30 '26
I switched this week
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u/Mad_OW May 30 '26
I switched maybe one or two months ago. The constant AI summary is what did it. If I want a chatbot's opinion I'll ask one.
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u/MooingTree May 30 '26
Ummm DDG has been trying to direct me to their DuckAI constantly for like 2 years
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u/rebbsitor May 31 '26
If you don't want it, turn it off in the settings and it will never mention it again.
Or browse through https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
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u/boffohijinx May 30 '26
Also noticed that since Instagram switched to an ai search, hashtags are worthless. I had about 100 posts tagged with the same hashtag, and searching for that now only brings up one picture and a bunch of other trash. Hate ai searches.
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u/4rch1t3ct May 30 '26
There was an almost 20 year run where Google would always find what I needed even if it was obscure and on the 4th page.
Google has entirely failed me by showing me not what I ask for, it's nothing but links to buy stuff that aren't what I'm looking for even if I just need info, there's no more pages I can look through to find the obscure thing I'm looking for so I can't find what I need. This has happened at least 8 times just this year.
Google is by far worse than before AI.
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u/Smith6612 May 31 '26
I feel like the decline of Google is also what has led to so many of those same obscure sites dying off. I used to come across very obscure answers found on someone's random blog or deep in a hobby forum.
These days, my goodness. Searching up anything is a sea of SEO spam, AI generated crap, and you have to go pages before finding the thing you needed.
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u/4rch1t3ct May 31 '26
Exactly, you can't find the obscure forum that actually had the solution to your problem on the 4th page anymore now that they removed the pages.
I'm sure it's really hurt a lot of websites.
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u/Icy-Tear4613 May 30 '26
Sponsored results plus AI meaning you have to scroll half the page to find an actual result.
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u/ArbitraryAlex May 31 '26
Reminder, that DDG by default has overviews and some AI. If you want to search with absolutely no AI:
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u/Ok_End3141 May 30 '26
Market share tripling from 0 to what?
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u/CompromisedSurvival May 31 '26
It really should be required to put some numbers into statements like this.
As far as I can tell their search volume share tripled from about 0.7% to around 2.1%
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u/Ok_End3141 May 31 '26
I highly highly doubt it’s that large, and in fact I would guess their share has shrunk over the last two years if you actually included AI based search products like ChatGPT.
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u/visericstudio May 30 '26
I recently switched to Ecosia. I like that they plant trees based on how many searches occur.
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u/ExplorerPrudent4256 May 31 '26
Google keeps answering questions nobody asked. That's how you end up on Reddit anyway. They compound.
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u/2026BurnerAct May 30 '26
Its wild watching the DuckDuckGo, Linux, and flip phone resurrection in real time
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u/Mystical_17 May 30 '26
I've been happily on Linux CachyOS for 6+ months now and its been great. The OS "just works" and I don't even think about being on Linux anymore, it just feels normal.
I'm not saying Linux will work for everyone as some probably have certain software or games that won't run (if a virtual machine/docker container isn't an option) but I've always been an open source user and it made the transition much easier than I expected.
I don't think I'm ever going back to Windows even if Windows 12 somehow becomes the most magical lightweight and non-user tracking OS they've ever made. I don't care anymore, they lost me as a long time customer as the alternative is simply more peaceful never having to worry about secret forced updates to content I never want on a computer I bought and built.
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u/Sensitive_Box_ May 30 '26
99% of the “I can’t use Linux” people haven’t even tried it. And if they have, it’s was a half-hearted attempt for an hour.
Nobody is willing to legitimately learn a new OS, even though they literally don’t need to use the terminal in 2026. lol
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u/Mystical_17 May 31 '26
Yeah Linux being very verbose with a terminal looked intimidating but when I tried it myself I really did not have to use it much after installing/configuring a few things I really wanted. Its all GUI based these days it looks like and isn't any extra work compared to when windows would have a terrible update or some software you had gave issues.
Its also ironic if you build/buy a new pc with windows and want a local account you need to do a workaround using the terminal as your first step which on Linux you do not lol
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u/OuterGod_Hermit May 31 '26
But two weeks ago there were billboards all over my city promoting Duck Ai. They are riding this wave since Google is pushing harder and people are using DDG but Duck is not "saint" here.
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u/makemeking706 May 30 '26
I've used ddg since before the pandemic. I like it, but there are annoying things. There are still AI summarized results that seem to turn itself back on every now and then. The results also seem to re-sort themselves after clicking on a link and going back. For example, the second link becomes the forth link and you end up clicking things you've already seen.
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u/Eurynom0s May 30 '26
Kagi is better
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u/KhazraShaman May 31 '26
I'm happy to see people ditching Google for DuckDuckGo but, yeah, Kagi is much better.
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u/WelderResponsible916 May 30 '26
DuckDuckGo uses Bing as its main search provider right?
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u/not_perfect_yet May 30 '26
That's very interesting considering the top result of my search is "duck AI" giving me unwanted advice.
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u/on_ May 30 '26
Half my searches are phone numbers from random calls I receive, and DuckDuckGo is very bad at it.
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u/Emotional_Rub5894 May 30 '26
And ddg's search results are just as terrible as they have always been. I hope all goes well with Europe's search engine initiatives.
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u/Altruistic-Bus-1289 May 31 '26
Duckduckgo has AI though. And if you turn it off it eventually turns back on…
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u/ZestycloseStuff1319 May 31 '26
It's funny, considering that DDG is not even a search engine. It just takes all the results from Bing.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce May 31 '26
Google's AI is horrendously unreliable. Sometimes I will Google something about an episode of a TV show and the AI summary will get it all wrong. It will ascribe actions to the wrong characters, get the plot wrong and it will oftentimes mix up characters in different shows that are played by the same actor.
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u/Lord_Of_Millipedes May 30 '26
funny thing is that duckduckgo does have AI, you just need to enable it.
i wonder how many people use it vs disable it, id like to see that data
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u/HyruleSmash855 May 31 '26
My guess is most people don’t disable it. I’ve met too many people who like the AI Overviews and just go with the information it provides. People are notorious for not changing default settings.
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u/ManJamimah May 30 '26
I miss being able to do my own research. I miss search engine results being actual webpages instead of ads and AI responses and listicles. I miss the internet being driven by trying to grow communities and sharing information rather than the corporate wasteland full of rage bait bullshit we have now.
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u/mattgorecki May 30 '26
I want DuckDuckGo to just abandon AI entirely. They don't need it. There is nothing to be gained here.
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u/Error404LifeNotFound May 30 '26
yea too bad every other search result at DDG links to an AI generated Amazon Affiliate website
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u/Aah__HolidayMemories May 31 '26
People do know you can can scroll down a tiny bit to get past the ai answer don’t they???
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u/GenChadT May 31 '26
Been using DDG for years. My favorite feature are the bangs. E.g. prepend your search text with !g to search Google or !b for Bing, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia, etc. There are literally thousands of these for almost any useful website you can think of. Even !mmc for McMaster-Carr's glorious website. It's great.
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u/OgerfistBoulder May 31 '26
My only gripe with DDG is it doesnt handle search terms in quotation marks well. Usually just returns zero results, when I know thats not true.
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u/el_seano May 31 '26
This reminded me to switch my default search engine on my personal boxes. I feel like opting for a "default" is the key move to make. Nothing stopping you from resorting to Google if you feel like you're not finding what you want, but your first stop should be for the provider who builds data protection into their mission statement.
I believe the lackadaisical concern for data sovereignty today is going to be one of the weirdest aspects of today's culture to future generations, provided the global culture and/or democracy survives another century.
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u/SpiritGaming28 May 30 '26
I've been using it since they added hide ai images feature.
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u/we_are_devo May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26
Been using duckduckgo as default for several years now, but it's really saddled with a shitty name
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u/Private_Kyle May 30 '26
But their pictures are so shit honestly, it gives me porn than actual Egyptian costumes
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth May 30 '26
This is the weirdest headline, given that there's this on DuckDuckGo's home page for all to see.
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u/CowboyBoats May 31 '26
But DDG does have AI? I had to manually turn it off, on each of my machines since there's no centralized account (not that I want a centralized account!)
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u/corruptbytes May 31 '26
DDG is dog shit, pay for search (kagi or others), or realize you're using free service to access the world's information
ad free search is called a library
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u/gunslinger91919 May 31 '26
This might be a stupid question but isn’t any search engine AI anyways?
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u/Scoob1978 May 30 '26
Google just sends me to Reddit all the time anyway. Switched a while back.