DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/38069529
EDIIT :
Apparently, there is an issue with the warning request to disable the ad blocker
I use Fennec F-Droid and Cromite, and I don't see this issue.
to get around the adblocker warning, use this link.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/26/duckduckgo-installs-are-up-30-as-users-reject-being-force-fed-googles-ai-search/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
17 replies
You guys still use google ? 😂
It was trash long before AI. Now it is just speed running towards turning to absolute junk.
What is a duckduckgo INSTALL?
It’s when duckduck stays
Mobile app
It has a "browser".
It's a weird one that that relies on the OS default one.
I thought it was just a chromium thing with a big ol delete history button
Up 30 percent from one week to the next. The ai is in works for years but the article is celebrating one week to week comparison.... Will there be a sad article next week when the numbers return to the mean?
Good, fuck Google and their agentic bullshit! I hate it so much, I stopped using the majority of Google services once I saw the directly they were going in. It's pretty nasty. Glad that DuckDuckGo is giving people a way out of gassed up LLMs (despite drinking from a similarly deranged well as Google).
Ddg drinks from the Microsoft well, not Google's
DuckDuckGo has a similar ambition to make LLMs fetch, this is what I meant. Google is being dangerously extra about it, threatening the very existence of a web that we interact with in a sane manner (unless you use a different search engine).
Do they still allow Microsoft trackers?
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/duckduckgo-browser-allows-microsoft-trackers-due-to-search-agreement/
Searxng is the only real search engine alternative i found, no business ties to big tech, gives you results from multiple (configurable) public search engines at once.
Ddg always seemd like the most successful attempt to rebrand bing into something cool. Bing results can be useful but often meh.
Quickly remember. You can install waterfox (a Firefox fork with all the telemetry disable and no AI at all now or never) on any OS and also on android. Even on the android version you can install any ad block, you can also install an addon called Disable AI which automatically turn off the AI function from duck duck and other services.
Ugh, but ddg gives me slop too
noai.duckduckgo.com
Wish it was opt in only, but I'll change my home page to this, thanks
Glad to see people making the switch. Who owns DDG? I'm hoping not big tech.