Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 168 posts

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

#91

Post by capitainenemo »

emaccumber wrote: post #56

I switched to DDG search three months ago, and unfortunately it's much inferior to Google. Maybe I've subconsciously optimized my queries for Google these past 20 years and need to rethink how to query using DDG, though.

I will say it's nice to have them actually honour keywords in searches that google has made harder and harder to discover and seems to ignore at will (inurl: site: etc)

The funniest one for me in google is +"foo" they decided people didn't actually mean it, so they changed it to +""foo"" - then when we all started doing that, they made the new secret "yes I really want that string" to be +"""foo"""

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

#92

Post by john_strinlai »

skydhash wrote: post #90
john_strinlai wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i obviously agree that those are two different things. but its also obviously not true that "AI is only popular with AI providers and delusional C-suites.

That’s pretty much it. I have ai in my tracker, ai in my search engine, ai in my team chat, ai in the os (work computer),… I’ve never asked for it, but I bet I’m being counted as one of those users.

they have 50MM non-business subscribers, if that’s a better metric for you. and that’s just one ai company - not counting the others or local models.

i hate unsolicited ai in my software as much as the next guy. but it’s silly to claim ai isn’t popular just because you don’t like it.

anything else with 50MM subscribers would reasonably be called “popular”.

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

#94

Post by nitwit005 »

aexer0e wrote: post #82
bradley13 wrote: post #65

You have to ask: Why is Google pushing the AI results? You would think that this would impact their ad revenue. Since Google is fundamentally an ad company, this deserves a closer look. My suspicion - for which I have no proof - is this: With search results, Google marks the ads. The marking has gotten ever more subtle over the years, but it's there. If you want to avoid clicking on ads, you can. With AI, Google want…

The simple answer is due to popular demand. I remember when people were doom-posting about how chat GPT was making google obsolete before Google introduced AI summaries, and no one has been saying that after Google introduced it.

There's an entirely valid concern about losing traffic to a competitor, but that doesn't make it logical to drop the old product some people still clearly prefer.

Like many companies, they seem strangely determined to force AI on customers, even if it costs them money.

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

#95

Post by rpdillon »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83
ceheaaf wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Edit: I know how to turn off the goddamn AI that’s not the point I've used DDG as my primary search and it was maddening when they put that stupid AI response thing in there last year because it was not helpful and I'm a huge advocate of AI Everything is marketing now

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

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

#96

Post by andrepd »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83
ceheaaf wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Edit: I know how to turn off the goddamn AI that’s not the point I've used DDG as my primary search and it was maddening when they put that stupid AI response thing in there last year because it was not helpful and I'm a huge advocate of AI Everything is marketing now

There is a very prominent "show always / show on demand / disable completely" button, which you can choose and is respected indefinitely from that point on. That's orders of magnitude better than anything else, and really the best you can do short of refusing to use any AI at all.

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

#97

Post by gchamonlive »

WolfeReader wrote: post #84
ceheaaf wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Step 1: read the article. Step 2 (optional): comment on the article. You're doing these in the wrong order.

You should explain why, otherwise you risk becoming part of the problem.

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

#98

Post by cadamsdotcom »

guerrilla wrote: post #35
7952 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to find that the AI bit was the most useful part of Google Search. But the actual search results were terrible and now I use Kagi. I like being able to add a question mark and control what becomes AI and what doesn't. I use normal search like a Ctrl F for the internet and don't want it to be too clever.

Yeah, gonna be honest. I ridiculed people for it before, but now I use Google's AI a lot. I haven't used Google in over a decade otherwise and I still don't. I use Brave for search but Google's AI is better than anyone else's for what I do. You heard it guys, I was wrong. I admit it.

This is fascinating, contrarian viewpoints are rare, so can you elaborate?

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

#99

Post by AndrewKemendo »

rpdillon wrote: post #95
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I know how to turn off the goddamn AI that’s not the point I've used DDG as my primary search and it was maddening when they put that stupid AI response thing in there last year because it was not helpful and I'm a huge advocate of AI Everything is marketing now

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

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

#100

Post by saratogacx »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83
ceheaaf wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Edit: I know how to turn off the goddamn AI that’s not the point I've used DDG as my primary search and it was maddening when they put that stupid AI response thing in there last year because it was not helpful and I'm a huge advocate of AI Everything is marketing now

You can turn that all off in a few clicks and I believe it is kept in your site cookie so you don't need to log in

https://duckduckgo.com/settings#aifeatures

Post reply on HN