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DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search [TechCrunch]
Posted by on May 27, 2026 at 2:02 pmLast week, after Google announced its huge overhaul to Search, I overheard a woman on the phone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can “opt out of using AI.”
“Google just isn’t Google anymore,” she said. It seems that others had the same idea.
At I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, the company said it would transform its search box into a conversational engine that expands for longer queries, anticipates user intent, and autocompletes searches. Rather than just returning a list of links, it will use AI Overviews to answer questions directly first. Google also unveiled a more seamless AI Mode, allowing users to ask follow-up questions within AI Overviews.
While a Google spokesperson noted that AI Overviews have existed for two years and AI Mode is not the default, the backlash has been sharp.
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1 Reply
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Good
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Hello to everyone who has just switched over to us. (And if you used us in the past, it may be time for another try as we’ve made a lot of improvements in the past few years.)
P.S. The screenshot above depicts our [noai.duckduckgo.com](https://noai.duckduckgo.com/) subdomain, a search experience we built because we believe AI should be optional. (We do offer AI features, like [duck.ai](http://duck.ai), but always optional and private.)
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Thats nice, but 30 percent of zero is still zero.
I dont think, that will make a difference -
pretty sure duck duck go just runs on Bing
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I switched to Brave, and I like it even more 😀 I’m not going back to Chrome anytime soon
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Google AI search is like six steps backwards in search.
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40% of my traffic is DDG so I’m not complaining 😂
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Yup. Me too, though for me it’s Brave search and browser. It’s a big deal because I am a Chromebook addict who lived in the Google ecosystem. Now I’m completely out, essentially.
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Hopefully a bunch of people migrate to DuckDuckGo. Google controls Search, Ads, Analytics, etc… the monopoly that can change the fortune of any small business with a small algorithm change. Google needs a wakeup call.
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[removed]
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They’ve been an amazing platform for years, and I hope their time is coming. Someone needs to put Google in their place
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