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DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

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Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#131

Post by Fogest »

nomel wrote: post #86
Fogest wrote: post #10

To be honest, I didn't find DuckDuckGo's AI on the top of their search to be very good anyway compared to the one Google has. However can't say I have cared much as typically if I am searching I don't want an AI response, otherwise I'd just go straight to an AI chat interface in the first place.

Biggest problem is that google has a near exclusive deal with reddit, so all other search engines have old reddit results [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033

Yeah that does make sense, though I have found the DDG AI to give me some pretty misleading, incorrect, or just completely off answers which prompted me to throw the !g on the search to see what the Google AI would have given. I'm sure this is overall because of there being more training data, however I do think that is a good reason to simply not bother with the DDG AI. If the AI is going to provide mediocre or wrong answers a lot, then it seems better to just not have it.

Unfortunately I have seen far too many people, especially less tech savvy ones rely pretty heavily on the AI summaries provided by the search engines. And I think it can be a bit dangerous to have these results be super unreliable in what they state. The Google one also isn't perfect, but I've at least found it's a bit more accurate. However I personally don't really care for either. As I mentioned in my OP if I already made the choice to use a search engine, it's likely because I don't care for an AI response as I could open up Claude/ChatGPT or whatever's interface and ask the question there if I just wanted AI.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#132

Post by WolfeReader »

marcosdumay wrote: post #34

I would be way happier with the old site-specific excepts and no AI on the search results, but the AI page still a click away like it's today. DDG today has two search options, IMO, both could get some improvement.

Can you give an example of what you're talking about? I just ran a search on an author I started reading, and the results had no AI and no obvious link to AI. Using Android and IronFox if that has an effect: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?ia=web&origin=funnel_home_websi...

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#133

Post by hparadiz »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #87
elzbardico wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to be independently rich, or be extremelly frugal to not care about the hypothetical obsolescence of their jobs. What the fuck do you expect? That people just cheer a brave new world of diminishing salaries and disappearing jobs along with some vague promises that every thing will be alright?

Yes, I absolutely do expect computer programmers to cheer as the brave new world they helped create is ushered in. How many people here got rich by automating away the jobs of others? I mean, what is this? Others are fair game, but programming is sacred? That's quite simply the peak of absurdity.

Every single step in this saga has actually created millions of jobs.

It's pretty funny seeing this play out in the HN comments because I never got any consideration before when I had to learn new frameworks and languages. But suddenly machine learning is the line one should not cross? Playing the world's smallest violin right now.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#134

Post by hparadiz »

miyoji wrote: post #76
hparadiz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how everyone on HN feels entitled to a profession that hasn't even existed for 100 years and that is constantly changing. Talk about addiction.

Yes, I am addicted to food and shelter and to being able to work in the profession that I specialized in and spent years learning to do well. Without these things I would literally die.

When I was fresh out of college in my 20s I watched two engineers get fired in front of me. They were hired to be DBAs. When I finished rewriting the software into a proper mvc their entire job became redundant since anyone could now make the database edits needed from an admin webpage. And I was better at the DBA part of my full stack role than they were. This is no different.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#135

Post by gchamonlive »

WolfeReader wrote: post #129
gchamonlive wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just that people have different understanding of the world and assuming something is self evident is dangerous. For instance the problem here is the apparent disconnection between the comment and the article, but maybe it's just that the connection isn't evident to you . Take this response to a comment of mine for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48144461 . I've read the article and someone thought…

I don't owe the benefit of the doubt to a comment that says "this is just marketing" and "are people this stupid?". If OP is going to make dismissive, vitriolic comments like that, he should probably make sure that the article is actually saying anything like what he claims.

Fair point

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#136

Post by brailsafe »

nomel wrote: post #86
Fogest wrote: post #10

To be honest, I didn't find DuckDuckGo's AI on the top of their search to be very good anyway compared to the one Google has. However can't say I have cared much as typically if I am searching I don't want an AI response, otherwise I'd just go straight to an AI chat interface in the first place.

Biggest problem is that google has a near exclusive deal with reddit, so all other search engines have old reddit results [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033

The older the better imo, seems like a useful feature. If I come across a thread from 10-15 years ago, sure it might still be a bot, but to me it's less likely to be dead internet and automatically higher signal

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#137

Post by marcosdumay »

WolfeReader wrote: post #132
marcosdumay wrote: post #34

I would be way happier with the old site-specific excepts and no AI on the search results, but the AI page still a click away like it's today. DDG today has two search options, IMO, both could get some improvement.

Can you give an example of what you're talking about? I just ran a search on an author I started reading, and the results had no AI and no obvious link to AI. Using Android and IronFox if that has an effect: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?ia=web&origin=funnel_home_websi...

The no-ai page has no ai, no except, and no link that will bring your query to the ai prompt.

DDG probably won't want the first and the last there, but the second is valuable.

The normal page has a link to the ai, and used to have an ai except (IDK if it disappeared because I went to the no-ai page), but before that it used to have an except taken from the most relevant page by a set of rules.

The link to ai is useful, and the old except was very useful.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#138

Post by dredmorbius »

ricardo81 wrote: post #103
bko wrote: post #8

> Since then, traffic to DuckDuckGo has been booming. Last week, the company noted that web visits to its no-AI search page were up nearly 30% week-over-week, and its U.S. app installs were also up 18.1% week-over-week, with U.S. iOS app installs peaking at 69.9% week-over-week growth. Of course there are no absolute numbers or scale. This is just an advertisement for DuckDuckGo. It's gross that previously respected…

DDG used to have a graph showing the number of queries they did daily. It was around 100 million searches a day before they removed it a few years back. They were receiving bad press at the time IIRC. An educated guess is they're doing a similar number of searches today.

Oh, pity, seems they did kill that.

The traffic graph used to be at:

  https://duckduckgo.com/traffic
It was originally just a raw traffic graph, see https://web.archive.org/web/20130711215117/https://duckduckg...>.

By late 2022 (18 November) it was a tabular presentation without the graph, and disappeared shortly afterward: https://web.archive.org/web/20221118045948/https://duckduckg...>.

It's gone by 6 Dec 2022 (redirect to homepage): https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080717/https://duckduckg...>

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#139

Post by WolfeReader »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #99
rpdillon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use http://noai.duckduckgo.com/ , which is mentioned in TFA.

You missed the whole point of my comment. Long time DDG users have had to deal with their dumb AI for a year now Everyone is aware of this new marketing URL now

I'm not sure why you refer to the useful noai URL as a "marketing" URL.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#140

Post by dredmorbius »

ceheaaf wrote: post #25

[flagged]

As its traffic continues to climb, alternative search engine DuckDuckGo 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.

First 'graph of TFA.

The specific URL "noai.duckduckgo.com" omits any AI summaries, generators, chats, or prompts, as advertised.

The unqualified page, www.duckduckgo.com, does include AI features at present. But that's not what's being claimed.

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