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DuckDuckGo gains traffic not because it somehow gotten better recently.
Google entered heavy enshittification stage and honestly... it's sad to watch.
Google entered heavy enshittification stage and honestly… it’s sad to watch.
google has been in heavy enshittification for going on a decade now.
Honestly you could make the argument that its been on the enshittification slide since they tried to expand out from just being a search engine company.
Sometime around 2018 when they removed "dont be evil" from their company charter.
I honestly can't find anything on google anymore. I barely use it at all, but sometimes someone will hand me their phone, so I'll give it a shot. I always end up switching to ddg before I find what I'm looking for.
There might be a way to use google search these days but its apparently beyond my desire/skills to learn it.
There is a good article about how it happened: The Man Who Killed Google Search by Ed Zitron
There are also lite and html versions:
Neither has AI enabled.
would be great if it could also not show links to ai generated content websites
Combo it with Ublock Origin and use their AI site blocklist.
The fact that this is even necessary just makes me sad.
I didn't see a list like that in the Ublock Origin settings. Is it an importable list and do you have a link?
It's built in the filters list, under Annoyances>Huge AI Blocklist. There's two different ones (the larger "nuclear variant" might slow down search a bit).
Sorry, I'm still not seeing it. Firefox says uBO is already updated.
Here's the direct home link, although it's built into the list on my Waterfox and IronWolf installs.
Thank you. It wasn't there for me on regular Firefox + uBlock extension, but I got it now.
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DuckDuckGo actually tries to downrank them. It's just that there's no way ts tell for sure, especially for computers.
It really sucks that to escape Google, the second in line that is "more private" is DDG and based in the US. So that means they have to abide to the american privacy invading "patriot" laws etc.
I wish we had a good European alternative that doesn't have to comply to the NSA when they want direct access to logs while giving you a gag order...
And I know searx-ng but last time I tried it wasn't good enough imo.
Qwant is French. Not a privacy search engine and looks like it features AI now. Kagi is really good, but US based and expensive. I think most of Europe does intelligence sharing with the US ("14 eyes" or something like that)?
14 eyes
Never heard of that. There is Five Eyes (US, UK, Aus, NZ, Canada)
Well, TIL, cheers
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There is ecosia, although they also use the US indexes
French Qwant and German Ecosia are building a EU based index together, but it will probably take time to be competitive compared to Google. https://www.eu-searchperspective.com/
I wish we had a good European alternative that doesn’t have to comply to the NSA when they want direct access to logs while giving you a gag order…
Most of the European continent doesn't even require a judicial finding to turn over information to a Five Eyes agency.
My only gripe is its not default. I use many different devices and to set it on each one is annoying.
Agreed, let me opt in, dont force me to opt out, especially on something that costs them money. Like what?
Why have an extension for this?
On Firefox (desktop and mobile) you can easily add it as your default search engine. It can be done in Vivaldi too (not sure if its a chrome default or Vivaldi addition).
They could just have a 1 paragraph guide telling you how to do it.
yeah that's what I'm saying
...yes, I definitely read your entire post and repeated exactly what you said for fun.
I find that "no AI" DDG still has way more AI-generated images than default Google, sadly. And there's no before: operator as an alternative to filter them out, either.
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you can go even further with the duck. https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/
Having trouble adding this as the default search in Firefox.
Anybody know the search query needed to use this from the address bar?
https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/q=%s
Does not seem to work.
It uses a Form Post - I recommend navigating to the DDG Lite site, right click on your search bar (you might have to add it if you removed it by using "Costumize Toolbar"), and select to add it. Edit: just realized ithis also works in the address bar, no fiddling around needed. Edit2: But it does not work consistently - the search bar variant always works.
for even more easier easy lazy access: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
What makes me suspect them having an agenda behind all their self-marketing is the fact that this isn't already the default page...
Yeah, what's with the auto-opt-in for features that cost them money? I'd think they'd prefer if nobody used the AI search, because they'd get their ad impressions with only server overhead, rather than that plus AI overhead. Clearly I'm wrong, but I can't figure out why.
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I switched to MetaGer long ago. No AI bullshit, no trackers, no ads, you pay a pittance per search to cover the costs of your search. I started using it 8 months ago and i still haven't used up the 10€ i charged my account with. They are run by a non-profit, and it's FOSS under AGPL3.
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Qwant and Kagi are also pretty solid search engines if people are looking for more alternatives.
Well shit
So don't click it then?
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https://duckduckgo.com/settings#aifeatures
Have fun!
Note: These settings are stored in your cookies and if you clear those, the settings will reset. That's why we have https://noai.duckduckgo.com/.
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I have found duck to be slow in general lately for some reason, has anyone tried waterfox search for private serach?
Yeah same here. The results are still good though
Edit: and no I haven’t tried that
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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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