this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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926
DuckDuckGo poll says 90% responders don't want AI (www.pcworld.com)
submitted 11 hours ago by very_well_lost@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 15 points 1 hour ago

It's so funny to see this pushed out as a marketing campaign for DuckDuckGo AI and it totally flopped.

[–] Young_Gilgamesh@lemmy.world 15 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Google became crap ever since they added AI. Microsoft became crap ever since they added AI. OpenAI started losing money the moment they started working on AI. Coincidence? I think not!

Rational people don't want Abominable Intelligence anywhere near them.

Personally, I don't mind the AI overviews, but they shouldn't show up every time you do a search. That's just a waste of energy.

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 11 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago)

Google became crap about 10 years ago when they added the product banner in the top, and had the first 5-10 search results be promoted ads. Long before they ever considered adding AI.

[–] flameleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 26 minutes ago (1 children)

I don’t mind the AI overviews, but they shouldn’t show up every time you do a search.

I have a uBlock filter for those

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 5 points 13 minutes ago

I mind them. Nobody at my workplace scrolls beyond the AI overview and every single one of the overviews they quote to me about technical issues are wrong, 100%. Not even an occasional "lucky guess".

[–] timestatic@feddit.org 1 points 1 minute ago

Bro you guys are freaking out too much about AI. I mean a lot of companies are pushy about it but DuckDuckGo is not. There are actually quite a lot of use cases for me personally where AI can be really useful. DuckDuckGo is not Google or Microsoft. Chill out guys

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Is there a way to get Firefox/Librewolf to have noai.duckduckgo.com set as the default search engine in settings? I can't find a way to set a custom link for something like that.

[–] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 hour ago

In your settings, first deselect Google as default so you can delete it.

Then go follow this guide

[–] letsgo2themall@lemmy.world 43 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

I made https://lite.duckduckgo.com/ my homepage. No AI and super fast loading. AI would be fine if it was opt-in. Shoving it into everything to see what works just makes people hate it. Looking at you MS.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 13 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

whoa nice! Thanks!

For people trying to configure that in mozilla (I am trying to get away from it but for now :/)

  • -> Edit -> Settings -> Search
  • "Search Shortcuts" -> Add (to add a search engine)
  • "Search Engine Name": DuckDuckGo Lite
  • "URL with %s in place of search term": https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/?q=%25s (this has to be =%s, lemmy keeps mutilating that to =%25s everytime I save my post)
  • "Keyword (optional)": @ddgl (or pick whatever you like - it appears @ddg is hardcoded and gets refused)
  • -> Save Engine
  • scroll up to the top, "Default Search Engine"
  • from the dropdown list, select "DuckGuckGo Lite"

Done.

[–] coffee_nutcase207@lemmy.world 11 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's horrible for the environment too and wastes electricity. It's fucked up that Google makes everything you search an AI search.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 hour ago

Well, Google is an evil megacorp, so not really surprising.

[–] SemiAuto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 hours ago

Damn didn't know about this lite version, thanks, also gonna change it into it.

[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 41 points 4 hours ago

THE AI by default marketing is failing? Shocker

[–] FirmDistribution@lemmy.world 21 points 4 hours ago

omfg you don't say

[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 26 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Couple months ago, I learned that duckduckgo has settings about disabling AI content. Settings>AI features.
Easy as that.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

Companies that can not be trusted to not add features their customers do not want can not be trusted to keep them disabled by default.

If the door to AI exists, we, the users, do not trust the organization to keep it locked.

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Not as easy if you auto-delete your cookies on the closing of your browser.

[–] skaffi 1 points 55 minutes ago

I had that problem, so then I started using https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ - it works well.

[–] 58008@lemmy.world 124 points 7 hours ago (12 children)

At least they have an AI-free option, as annoying as it is to have to opt into it.

On a related note, it's hilarious to me that the Ecosia search engine has AI built in. Like, I don't think planting any number of trees is going to offset the damage AI has done and will do to the planet.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 56 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

So you make noai the default, yes?

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