DuckDuckGo makes its ‘no-AI’ search engine easier to access as its traffic booms
Key takeaways
- Once enabled, users will be directed to the company Duck Duck Go s AI-free search page, where there are no AI-assisted answers, no chat prompts, and fewer AI images in the search results, the company claims.
- Since then, traffic to DuckDuckGo has been booming.
- Those trends followed news that Google was overhauling its search box in the biggest change to its search engine in more than 25 years.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
As its traffic continues to climb, alternative search engine Duck Duck Go is leaning into anti-AI sentiment with the launch of new browser extensions that allow users to set its no-AI search experience, noai.duckduckgo.com, as their default search engine.
Once enabled, users will be directed to the company Duck Duck Go s AI-free search page, where there are no AI-assisted answers, no chat prompts, and fewer AI images in the search results, the company claims. The extensions are currently available for Chrome and Firefox users. Meanwhile, people who have switched to the DuckDuckGo web browser already have their AI settings preserved, even if they clear their browser history.
The company says the extensions are meant to help people have a consistent AI-free search experience something that s harder to come by these days, especially after Google announced its AI-first revamp of its search engine at its developer conference earlier in May.