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DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search
(techcrunch.com)
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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I like Duckduckgo been using it a while, they have a tor based search page as well which is another thing I like.
Wouldn't say they are anti-ai but at least you get the option to turn it off.
Best you can hope for these days, really.
The phone app I use to turn my lights on and off is now calling itself an "AI life assistant" and has an AI prompt box front and center that I can't get rid of. But at least I can ignore that and still use the real function. Which, to be clear, is a fucking light switch. I use this app exclusively for turning a single light on or off. It does not need a LLM 'assistant' built in. But that's just what you get these days -- it's shoved into everything.
Apparently I'm the Luddite here for sticking with the light switch on the wall that has always just worked. ;p
I exaggerate slightly, I guess. It turns the light on and off and also changes colors.
It's definitely possible to do color changing LED lighting without an app. Half of my room is lit that way, and I love it. But it's more expensive and more complicated to install, so when I went for a second light, I just went with the app-controlled bullshit.
If you self-host stuff and plan to buy more "smart" things or IoT devices try this: https://www.home-assistant.io/
Neither, really.
After this, if I install another color-changing light, I'll again go through the trouble of setting up one with 'dumb' analog controls for it. The other LED light in my room simply has three knobs that can be adjusted -- one each for red, blue, and green. It was significantly more expensive, and had to be wired up by hand, but after trying both I very much prefer that kind of control.
That's also an option with google, you know.
I did not know that. How does one go about doing so?
People refer to this as the "udm=14" trick. Edit your search engine settings/add one (Firefox made this harder than it needs to be) so that the url is
https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=%25s, and it will always display the "web" page first, which have zero "automatic" content on it; only a list of sites. At least for now.Or, use udm14.org, although it's adding yet another site in the mix, which is unnecessary.