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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.
There are also lite and html versions:
Neither has AI enabled.
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 have found duck to be slow in general lately for some reason, has anyone tried waterfox search for private serach?
Well shit
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/.
So don't click it then?
Oh yeah, sounds like what they said before other search engines went to shit. Its right there.
If you are really that bothered by it:
.ai-searchbox_modeSelectorWrapper__GA6Ii, .header_aiChatButton__HbhQV {display: none !important;}
OR use SearXNG.
Brave Search is really good too and you can also turn off the AI search aspect.
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)?
Yeah I used Qwant for 2/3 years. It wasn't really good either. I was constantly calling google through Qwant so it became pointless.
I think Switzerland would probably be a good place to host a search engine.
why are you thinking switzerland?
If I recall correctly they have strong privacy laws and the fact that they are not part of the EU can also help with some extra sovereignty I guess.
It's also where protonmail is hosted.
Proton are building a walled garden though. Trying to export and migrate from it is hell. I much rather have common imap/smtp and setting up pgp keys myself. That way I can easily import my local backup to a new provider if the need rises.
Proton is using that as a marketing gimmick. Swiss banking secrecy laws have absolutely nothing to do with user privacy outside of that.
Proton has complied with and handed over user data on multiple occasions.
Yes there is encryption and they can't see things, but they will hand over what metadata (IP address, device info, recovery email, payment data) they have whenever a Swiss court compels them too.
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/
Qwant and Kagi are also pretty solid search engines if people are looking for more alternatives.
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.
would be great if it could also not show links to ai generated content websites
DuckDuckGo actually tries to downrank them. It's just that there's no way ts tell for sure, especially for computers.
Combo it with Ublock Origin and use their AI site blocklist.
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.
Thanks.
Waterfox and IronWolf installs
Maybe that's why. I use Zen. Perhaps Waterfox and IronWolf already have uBO installed by default and added that AI block list?
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.
I still go to Google for image search unfortunately.
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.
It must mean they actually are logging our searches.
Or if your job wipes your browser preferences for whatever misguided security each time it closes and you end up on the default AI BS page at the start of each day.
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?
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.
Does it work as well as Google before it became absolute shit?
Per default it uses Brave's index, Mojeek's index and Google's Index via Serper. You can switch off whatever index you do not want. It also respects quotes and +/- in searches. There are no sponsored search results. You can open pages using their anonymous proxy when clicking "Open Anonymously". This is a Screenshot of a search using Brave and Google's Index.
Oh, i thought they had their own index, then i guess that a local SearXNG instance with a proxy will do...
They don't have their own index, but they implement a whole lot of other indexes (Scopia, Yahoo, Bing, Wikis, YaCy, Netluchs, Exalead, Yandex, Die ZEIT, OneNewspage, Infotiger). The 3 big indexes are the ones that charge metager for providing search results, and those costs are what you pay for, and since it's a non-profit (https://suma-ev.de/), the costs are close to what you would pay if you had access to API pricing.
Searxng, a metasearch engine, and better, self hosted in a container. Easy, searches a stupid amount of engines, 100% private.
I'm sure the search engines log the IP, and with enough searches could be correlated back to you fairly easily even if you host it on a VPS? Unless it does some kind of mitigation I'm unaware of.
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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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