DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode.
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DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
@nixCraft I just wish DDG had an ai reporting feature on image search- I’m glad they clear out the ai ‘emoji’ database spam, but websites using ai images remain.
Before:2023 -
@nixCraft@mastodon.social
I ditched Google as my go-to search-engine not long after I ditched Chrome as my go-to browser. Yes, I still use both, but that usage is constrained to specific scenarios:
• Google Search is much better for finding images
• Chrome is effectively required for some of the sites I have to use (mostly for work-related things). To limit the potential damage of doing so (things like theweights.binfuckery), I run it inside a sandbox.@nixCraft@mastodon.social Speaking of "
weights.binfuckery… A quick (DDG) search indicates Google may not have finalized the location of the file and that location may have shifted since the initial kerfuffle. Looks like you may need to wholly disable Chrome's AI extensions, instead (of just nulling the Chrome-installed file's original location). If they are still figuring out where to place it, I wonder if they're at least cleaning up the prior placements before trying to write further 4GiB files? -
DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
AI sloppification plague is coming for every major proprietary service out on the internet, sooner or later
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DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
@nixCraft That moment when "we have a specific feature NOT" ist the USP.
A result of very sad times... -
DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
I use duckduckgo instead of chrome but on the app it has ai. Have to go online to noai.duckduckgo.com to eliminate ai.
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@nixCraft the comments on that thread are brutal though (for good reasons IMO).
It looks like we're going back to the days where no single *good* search engine existed. We live in interesting times.
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DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
@nixCraft They just don't get it do they?
Firefox who held a survey in which a huge majority voted against AI, allows you to block AI tools, but almost begs you not to.
Duckduck go browser just lets you turn it off. -
DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
@nixCraft
How does that manifest on the other side? Was the drop in Google searches measurable? -
DuckDuckGo's AI-free search saw nearly 28% more visits in the week following Google's insistence that people love AI mode. Is anyone surprised by this result?
if only DDG didn't give the exact same results as google's pay-for-views!
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@nixCraft They just don't get it do they?
Firefox who held a survey in which a huge majority voted against AI, allows you to block AI tools, but almost begs you not to.
Duckduck go browser just lets you turn it off. -
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@nixCraft Serious question: If Google dies, what happens to Android? Google effectively owns it and it shuttering the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) in September.
@Mustardfacial @nixCraft Are you really expecting Alphabet to die?
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@shaedrich @nixCraft
I did not say that they weren't, I just pointed out that the process of turning it off is very different.
DDG also lets you turn it off in search. -
@shaedrich @nixCraft
I did not say that they weren't, I just pointed out that the process of turning it off is very different.
DDG also lets you turn it off in search.@wyliecoyoteuk @nixCraft DDG's still on quite a high horse, saying "People are fleeing from a website that embraced AI, fleeing to us¹!"
¹ a website that embraced AI
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Google will not die, at least not without a new kid on the block eating their lunch.
Being assholes will not drive users away as long as your product is better (actually or percieved as) than the competition.
So, if Google dies entirely, it will be because all of their products have been killed off by competing products.
Any product still good enough to be a contender would be bought up by someone else or (more likely) be spun off into a new company.
So, I seriously doubt that Google will die, but it may very well face the same destiny as Microsoft, who was absolutely untouchable on the desktop OS market back around the time when Windows 95 and 98 came out.
Yes, there was OS/2 and Mac OS, but they were niche players. Today, the world is completely different because of mobile devices, and none of them runs a Microsoft OS. Microsoft is now just "a" operating system provider, not "the" operating system provider.
My guess is that Google could end up in the same situation as Microsoft once the dedicated AI-companies start eating into parts of their business.
Oh, and make no mistake. LLM is here to stay.
It will not be the do-all-end-all tool that some wants it to be, but it is definitely a tool that has its uses as e.g. a dedicated knowledge management tool internally in companies.
@madsenandersc @Mustardfacial @nixCraft On mobile, yes. But desktop and mobile are very different animals in certain aspects.
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@wyliecoyoteuk @nixCraft DDG's still on quite a high horse, saying "People are fleeing from a website that embraced AI, fleeing to us¹!"
¹ a website that embraced AI
@shaedrich @nixCraft At least they let you turn it off easily, unlike Chrome or google search.
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@nixCraft Is there any real infrastructure to fill the void left by Android/Play Services and Youtube? Google runs some pretty important platforms, I don't see how they'd be allowed to die
@syrupsplashin @nixCraft There's PeerTube, for example, but no, it won't replace YouTube in the foreseeable future
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@shaedrich @nixCraft At least they let you turn it off easily, unlike Chrome or google search.
@wyliecoyoteuk @nixCraft Your post, I reacted to compares DDG with Firefox, not Google. Firefox let's you turn this off: With a single kill switch.
Sure, Mozilla stabbed its userbase in the back time and again by trying to equal Google, but this isn't that bad after all this time.
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@wyliecoyoteuk @nixCraft Your post, I reacted to compares DDG with Firefox, not Google. Firefox let's you turn this off: With a single kill switch.
Sure, Mozilla stabbed its userbase in the back time and again by trying to equal Google, but this isn't that bad after all this time.
@shaedrich @nixCraft Yes, but when you do, it almost begs you not to " But you'll lose all these useful things☆, are you sure?" and you need to confirm it, so not a single kill switch, after all.
This is despite the results of a user survey that overwhelmingly dismissed AI in the browser.
I am not saying that either of them are right to do this, just pointing out the difference in the implementation.☆Most of which aren't really that useful.
