DuckDuckGo has reported huge traffic growth for its “No AI search” tool following Google Search’s AI-focused updates.

[celinho@mastodon.social]

@trya2l @alternativeto in addition to the partner with bing they censor the Internet. At the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict they carried out mass censorship.

[trya2l@fosstodon.org]

@celinho @alternativeto oh so you meant it that way. I'm not really informed on these but I've heard about the bing "masquerade ?"

Well they sure aren't transparent as in open source, but one can't be dirtier than google dirt ‍️

[celinho@mastodon.social]

@trya2l @alternativeto I use Brave.

[trya2l@fosstodon.org]

@celinho @alternativeto I did too before ddg, but some people told me it wasn't good either with the crypto stuff et al.

[alison@beige.party]

@alternativeto Switched to it as default immediately upon Google's announcement.

[huntingdon@mstdn.social]

@alternativeto

Only works if none of the Tech Barons can buy up DDG and shut it down or Mozillaize it.

[geonz@mathstodon.xyz]

@alternativeto duckduckgo also FINDS THINGS like a search engine should instead of telling me what I SHOULD WANT.

[goetz@ipv6.social]

@alternativeto

#duckduckgo unfortunately it is not reachable from my vantage point.

#IPv6

[francoisprague@mastodon.social]

@alternativeto very smart. AI could not come either such ideas.

[itsec_agentur@infosec.exchange]

@celinho @trya2l @alternativeto Brave is based on chromium and google search. duckduckgo is based on Bing. The issue here is, that there are no other search indices. AFAIK there exists a collaboration between Ecosia (DE) and qwant (FR) to build an eurpean search index. But it seems, that qwant is financed by Axel Springer ...
Its a catch 22

What I really like about duckduckgo is that they also provide a JS free version lite.duckduckgo.com

[contrasocial@mastodon.social]

@geonz @alternativeto

Main issue with DDG (besides using AI by default) is that their shop search is completely useless, it's literally all Temu.

Still using it over google but hoping for a better alternative to come along. Qwant seems ok but haven't used it enough to know if there are problems.

[erin@mastodon.kvuzet.net]

@alternativeto If you want to make DuckDuckGo NoAI the default search engine in your browsers address bar, I wrote a little guide last week https://kvuzet.net/blog/2026-05-28-tip-use-duckduckgo-no-ai/

[supersatan@mastodon.social]

@celinho @trya2l @alternativeto Brave is owned and founded by an homophobic cryptofascist (we could say that of any rich guy really lol) who's friend with Peter Thiel. On top of that, Brave is not even that good when it comes to privacy.

[teflontrout@beige.party]

@itsec_agentur @celinho @trya2l @alternativeto

You use Brave, are pro crypto, pro threads, and are a huge tool

[paul@notnull.space]

@alternativeto and this is why we should be using no-ai[dot]duckduckgo instead of html[dot]duckduckgo or just javascripting the ai boxes out. DDG have given us the option to tell them we don't want it, let's use it!

Article related note: Uruky looks interesting, I may give them a go but wow I'm having trouble remembering the name... even now I know it it's taken me 4 attempts to type it correctly in this post!

[marjolica@social.linux.pizza]

@contrasocial @geonz @alternativeto strangely enough whenever I look for things to buy, Temu never features in my noAI.DDG search results. In fact I never recall any Temu anytime. Maybe something do do with my UK localisation. Btw do Temu sell bike parts?

[nicolaottomano@mastodon.uno]

@contrasocial
I use Qwant. It uses Bing for almost all search results except the ones in French and German which use a proprietary index called "EUSP" which is a joint venture with Ecosia.
Hope they would extend to other languages in the future.
@geonz @alternativeto

[orange_lux@eldritch.cafe]

@celinho @alternativeto no search engine is reliable anymore. At least we can chose one where there isn't any of this AI crap.

[reggiehere@mastodon.social]

@trya2l

There are two interfaces, one with and one without.

https://www.duckduckgo.com
https://noai.duckduckgo.com

@tootbrute @alternativeto

[dmian@mastodon.social]

@licho @trya2l @tootbrute @alternativeto They had to backpedal faster than a bullet train, and I guess they’re now getting the message. But are their investors getting the message? Investors are the dumbest people you can meet, they’re all “Here money, give back more”, and just follow trends if they think that’ll give them more money. AI = money for them now, so they want AI everywhere. And companies obey investors, not customers. We’ll see…