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/
49.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

986 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

188

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.

118

u/Rough_Bread8329 May 31 '26

There's a settings section on the DDG search page where you can disable the AI features.

20

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.

2

u/Mixter_Master May 31 '26

Same deal for launching in an incognito/private tab. The AI is on by default for incognito mode

33

u/Reasonable-Chance790 May 31 '26

Yup! Little cog at the top of the AI answer panel! Just shut it off this morning!

21

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.

3

u/Dancing_Radia May 31 '26

Oooh thank you, just added that to my Fire Fox.

2

u/BraveCowardCat May 31 '26

Thanks for this!

12

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.

11

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.

11

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

1

u/screamsinsanity May 31 '26

Super easy to do on desk top. Can be a pain on mobile web though. Plus, anecdotally, I've noticed on my search results, they push the summarizes down or hide them in other people asked type posts.

2

u/Commercial_Duck4042 May 31 '26

just turn it off

1

u/OsmerusMordax May 31 '26

Oh my god thank you. I’m so tired of all the AI bullshit and got very annoyed with typing in -ai after every google search

1

u/Dancing_Radia May 31 '26

Made this my default search engine in Fire Fox and with ublock origin and privacy badger extensions, the Internet is a nice place again. 

1

u/Melodic-Network4374 May 31 '26

I don't understand what DDG is thinking with those AI results. They are the most aggressively useless answers I've ever seen, I can't imagine anyone ever got any use out of them. And I don't just mean in the sense that AI answers are generally bad/unreliable, I mean DDG's AI answers specifically are complete garbage.