DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode.

[torgo@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft I like this but I wish DuckDuckGo did not conflate usage with "installs" like this – as if the only way to change search engine is to install a new browser…

[huntingdon@mstdn.social]

@nixCraft

It's also time NOT to let Giggle or its peers buy DuckDuckGo and turn it into the dog's breakfast it serves up instead of a privacy-friendly browser.

[greenpepper22@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft I gotta be honest, when I go to google.com to search, which isn’t my default I’ve been using ecosia for years, I still just see normal search results and get a list of links to various sites. I see a new tab for “AI mode” but it’s not the default

Am I missing something with all this? The news I see makes it sound like old google search isn’t available anymore, but that doesn’t match with what I see, are folks out there seeing the AI stuff as the default?

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@nixCraft Duckduckgo is bing, and when microslop follow google lead they also are dead.

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@greenpepper22 @nixCraft they anounced it in their google I/O and started rolling out in the US

The time it's expended (and the cache pass) it can take week / month before it's completly rolled out).

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@Darkphoenix @nixCraft so you in fact did it on bing as DDG is bing with an extra step

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@wyliecoyoteuk @shaedrich @nixCraft but DDG is not a search engine tough ... they simply are a Bing front-end

[greenpepper22@mastodon.social]

@hidikem @nixCraft ahhh so I’m just lucky and they haven’t foisted it upon me yet. I’ll have to check it out again in a few weeks then

I am slowly trying to de-google my life, but goddamn some the services are still useful and straightforward to use. YouTube and maps in particular are pretty up there, but I could probably stand to watch a lot less youtube so maybe ill have to end that for my mental health

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@greenpepper22 @nixCraft for youtube you can try to move out when possible and use alternative front end, like piped or invidious for the one you cannot live without.

So you use youtube ... without youtube.

Me i let youtube website app behind when they started to "force" login to prove you are not a bot (not like google own recapcha for this purpose).

So i use alt front end to bypass this bullying to accept their crappy TOS.

[greenpepper22@mastodon.social]

@hidikem @nixCraft I might have to look into that

I am def a desktop user vs mobile user for youtube so that might be easier for getting around logins and app usage

Maps however I am full mobile and I’ve checked out some alternatives and google is still miles ahead of anyone in terms of UI last time I checked. That one I might be stuck in for a while.

Gmail I gotta change, but email clients seem much easier to switch

[bedifferent@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft My head has been elsewhere. I've been using Safari/duck for years. I go there when Vivaldi hits a website that's blocked. I'm too lazy to go in.
It's worse installed ... I had no intention of doing that again. But it will be toasted and uninstalled shortly.

Ugh. People are just losing their brains.

[hidikem@piaille.fr]

@greenpepper22 @nixCraft for mobile use fdroid and install newpipe