DuckDuckGo Users Vote Overwhelmingly Against AI Features (pcmag.com) 54
DuckDuckGo recently asked its users how they felt about AI in search. The answer has come back loud and clear: more than 90% of the 175,354 people who voted said they don't want it.
The privacy-focused search engine has since set up two versions of its tool: noai.duckduckgo.com for the AI-averse and yesai.duckduckgo.com for the curious. Users can also tweak settings on the main site to disable AI summaries, AI-generated images, and the Duck.ai chatbot individually.
The privacy-focused search engine has since set up two versions of its tool: noai.duckduckgo.com for the AI-averse and yesai.duckduckgo.com for the curious. Users can also tweak settings on the main site to disable AI summaries, AI-generated images, and the Duck.ai chatbot individually.
I've started using DuckDuckGo now (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've been using Startpage for a few years now for this same reason. Google search has become useless.
Teaching Granny to suck duck eggs? (Score:2)
Going for funny on the duck theme, but the google needs to be ducked on. Or maybe a long ducking would be funnier?
Not funny how often the genAI websearch wastes my time telling me stuff that I obviously know already. I'm talking about the followup queries, but the next anecdote is a good example. So I think the Subject captures my main problem with genAI and I have a general observation and a narrow anecdote about my latest round with one I hadn't tried before.
My general observation is that the current Arti
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New metric of AI utility: What fraction of the AI answer is actually worth reading?
I like that one. My estimate from whatever DuckDuckGo gives by default is only about 50%. And that is for search only, an area where LLM type AI is supposedly pretty good.
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Same here. But occasionally DDG can't find what I'm looking for and I resort to Google, such as earlier today when I searched for aspirin submarine.
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I have done that, with almost no success. I have stopped that now. Better try again with DDG and another way to ask than waste time on Google.
Re: I've started using DuckDuckGo now (Score:2)
I switched to DDG too, google search results got really terrible.
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Not because of google AI or their privacy issues but because they're fucking useless at returning what I'm searching for. Duckduckduck at the very least shows what I'm searching for not what it thinks I should be asking. Now we can turn off AI at the flick of a switch I see no reason to use google again.
I've been using DDG almost exclusively for two or three years now. I find its quality has gone downhill a bit after continuously improving for a long stretch, and I still resort to Google sometimes because I occasionally find results on it when there are literally zero hits on DDG. That said, when I get zero hits on DDG I'm usually scraping the bottom of the barrel - and because it's "not Google" I default to it.
I don't see much of DDG's AI because I've used uBlock to stop it. But it's good to have an "offi
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Not because of google AI or their privacy issues but because they're fucking useless at returning what I'm searching for. Duckduckduck at the very least shows what I'm searching for not what it thinks I should be asking. Now we can turn off AI at the flick of a switch I see no reason to use google again. Just need DuckDuckGo to start an email service.
Yeah, I've been using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine for a few years now; both for privacy and search results quality. I've found it generally pretty good.
Lately, I've also been trying out Qwant [qwant.com]. It's European-based and, since 2025, they have been building their own independent search index [qwant.com] in partnership another European search engine, Ecosia. So far, it looks promising.
Re: I've started using DuckDuckGo now (Score:2)
_Ethan Frome_ is about the time Ethan fromed. (Score:2)
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Re: Luddites (Score:2)
Ah yes, blame the people who don't want to research with a tool that notoriously makes up results, not the garbage tool that tells you to drink bleach and type sudo rm -r /* to cleanup your HDD.
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Holding it wrong.
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Ah yes, blame the people who don't want to research with a tool that notoriously makes up results, not the garbage tool that tells you to drink bleach and type sudo rm -r /* to cleanup your HDD.
The guy who lost his jerb to AI just checked in! Whatever you do, don't learn anything any more, you know enough now and forever.
You sound like some of the guys who were pissed off about transistors taking over from tubes.
I know a few Hams who are that way. Bragging about their Heathkit tube radios, While my radio is an RF front end, tied to a server Software defined radio and spectrum analyzer.
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Ah yes, blame the people who don't want to research with a tool that notoriously makes up results, not the garbage tool that tells you to drink bleach and type sudo rm -r /* to cleanup your HDD.
The guy who lost his jerb to AI just checked in! Whatever you do, don't learn anything any more, you know enough now and forever. You sound like some of the guys who were pissed off about transistors taking over from tubes.
> On occasion, the truth is marked as trolling. In further response to the guy, time moves on. Technology moves on. Referring to the Tube vs Transistor comment, early transistors were fragile, sensitive things. They couldn't handle much power. Tubes were better. Many thought transistors would be at best, some niche product.
The frailty and limitations of transistors were a little bit similar to AI hallucinations and slop. Some limitation, some unfixable problem that prevents success.
But time went o
Re: Luddites (Score:4)
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Every generation can say they "did fine without " .. but did they? Before humans farmed, their ancestors "did fine" with just foraging.
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You are better to offload everything that frees (mental) capacity for other things. Because I program in C++ instead of assembler I have more time thinking about efficient algorithms instead of processor architectures.
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You need to spend less time posting. Your AI girlfriend has been pinging your phone for a while. She needs your input now.
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Wikipedia can be wrong, the first result of Google can be wrong ... idiots don't check what they read.Other people use Google, Wikipedia, AI or even Slashdot as a starting point and then check the things they read if they are important for them. ChatGPT won't help you with flawless rocket science, but if you're a rocket scientists, there are things ChatGPT can do for you, even when there are many where you laugh about the results. You take what's good and leave the rest.
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"I really don't see how people aren't more productive with AI."
A couple of things:
1. The right tool for the job. We know how to use AI productively, but for us, AI in search is not it. YMMV.
2. DDG users tend to be a self-selected group of people who don't want computers to remember everything we said and maybe regurgitate it later to someone else
3. Every new technology has a choice between "go slow and understand the ramifications" and "go fast and break things". We prefer to not break things.
4. We know
Re:Luddites (Score:5, Insightful)
> I really dont see how people arenÃ(TM)t more productive with AI. You are using it wrong. Ignorance of how to prompt.
If you have to ask someone over and over, phrasing your question differently each time until you get the answer you want, that is not actually helpful or productive. That is just seeming self-affirmation, not seeking information. How's that saying go? if you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, you don't need advice.
And when that chatbot is just flat out wrong like a third of the time, leaving you to guess and need to verify everything (assuming you have the self awareness to even question the pulped data it regurgitates) you are definitely not saving any time and probably would have actually retained some of that information had you skipped the AI assistant and just did your own research to begin with.
The stochastic parrot that feeds you platitudes and tells you you're a good boy and oh so smart has rotted your fucking brain and robbed you of the ability to think. Case in point:
> Guaranteed if you idiots lived in 10,000 BC you would be against farming or agriculture
Farming dates back much farther than that, and but when I type "when was agriculture invented" into Google the AI summary gives me exactly the same wrong answer you used. Yes sir, that definitely worked out for you.
Lastly, all the complaints and gripes in that old Slashdot thread you linked? Still valid, and in fact the future that actually came true is so much worse than they were worried about.
=Smidge=
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"Lastly, all the complaints and gripes in that old Slashdot thread you linked? Still valid, and in fact the future that actually came true is so much worse than they were worried about."
So, do you use a dumb phone?
Re: Luddites (Score:2)
Last time I looked a truly dumb phone is hard to find. The last one I saw in person was an android phone without a keyboard.
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> So, do you use a dumb phone?
Wish I could, but unfortunately everything has become so shitty I'm effectively forced to use some app for even basic shit. I avoid using it for anything more than a clock most of the time and the majority of the features it has I will never use or have actively stripped out.
Hell I barely use it as a phone.
I've recently said under another /. story; Just because it's widely used doesn't mean it's popular. It could just mean there's little in the way of viable alternatives.
Enj
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You're so smart yet can't find a dumb phone? Maybe ask AI for some recommendations? Motorola Jitterbug Flip2?
Re:Luddites (Score:4, Funny)
You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote so badly I'd believe it if you said you copied it into ChatGPT to summarize it for you.
=Smidge=
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So, do you use a dumb phone?
Essentially, yes, by today's standards. I have an android phone w/ Lineage OS [lineageos.org] and none of the google nonsense installed. This gives me the smart phone features I want (simple phone, sms, browser, basic camera, calendar, clock, calculator, gps w/ open maps, etc.) and none of the google crap (playstore, AI, etc.) I don't use or need.
Phones choices are not black/white, dumb/smart. It isn't that hard to install a system that gives you exactly what you want and need.
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I really dont see how people arenâ(TM)t more productive with AI. You are using it wrong. Ignorance of how to prompt. It has flaws, but you guys consider every current shortcoming impossible to fix, you want no resources spent on improving AI.
This is true. I look at the prompting issue as learning another language. I experiment, I shift things and change words. When something turns out correct, I note what I prompted mentally as well as documented.
And that is what intrigues me. I see something that is coming along, perhaps even inevitable, so I learn about it. I always have. I cam into the workforce at the end of the tube era, so I dove into transistor tech, then IC, I dealt with old school video with linear editing, and the nightmare of fr
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A good farmer can grow crops even if they have only their hands to do the work. A bad farmer can only rely on the tractor and attachments to grow crops. What that means is that you can use a bunch of bad farmers to feed the planet, making good farmers obsolete. What happens is after a few generations all you will now have is bad farmers that
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My take is it depends on your own level of insight, experience and knowledge and respective skill.
If these are pretty low (which is what average people usually have), then LLM type AI may look like a miracle worker and actually make you more productive (from very low to low).
If you are more advanced as a person, LLM answers generally are insightless, missing important context and missing important details. And hence, the better you are at things, the more LLM use wastes your time.
Hence no connection to "Lud
I had AI vote for me (Score:2)
LLM can be useful. But not in everything (Score:2)
The main issue I have with LLMs (they are not artificial intelligences, they are large language models, only the naturally stupid think they are intelligent), is them being forced on everything.
LLMs are very good at doing Intern jobs. Sell/get me coffee because you know I do not drink anything else while at work, collate these pages, draw a logo for this project, show me inspiration based on what other people do when doing this kind of project.
They suck at doing anything more complex. Do I have this disea
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You do realize in 2026 that LLMs do do all that stuff with MCP right?
Playing both sides (Score:2)
Duckduckgo does its AI anyway, but opts out the users who don't want it. Doing this with a poll (which is probably botted by both sides and they don't care) and so clear noai/yesai start pages, they also get a lot of people talking about it and repeatedly headlines on news sites. It's not about AI or not, but a marketing stunt.
I get it (Score:2)
I'm not a fan of "AI" in general, but it has its uses.
Brave search supplemented with AI has proven helpful to me in 90%+ of cases.
However, anyone smart enough to default to DDG is smart enough to want a choice of NO AI in their search results.
Pretty much everyone else just defaults to Google search, and gets spied on.
I've taken to running a small ollama model locally under proxmox. It's actually rather interesting to talk to. But it still hallucinates when I ask it to write a short bash script to keep only
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Another Brave search user here who finds their AI summaries useful. I've used Brave exclusively for a few years now, only very rarely do I go to Google and it's usually on accident or because I'm using a device/browser (not mine) where it's the default.
They had duck.ai already... so why ask? (Score:2)
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My guess is to see if the user base wants more AI in their search or less is the reason they asked.
Have you tried using DuckAI? The information it has is out of date, and it seems to have no access to current data. When trying to look for local restaurants that have a room for groups, 80% of the places were closed.
My experiences with DuckAI is that it can summarize data from 5 years ago fine, if you need anything current, go somewhere else.
Also, with all AI interfaces, it seems to forget parameters of the
I like the AI button on websites (Score:2)
And I agree with users I don't want AI software embedded in the browser, it is just more bloated feature creep and browser packages are too big already
I had a run-in the other day (Score:2)