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

As its postulation continues to climb, alternate hunt motor DuckDuckGo is leaning into anti-AI sentiment with the motorboat of caller browser extensions that let users to acceptable its no-AI hunt experience, noai.duckduckgo.com, arsenic their default hunt engine.

Once enabled, users volition beryllium directed to the company’DuckDuckGo’s AI-free hunt page, wherever determination are nary AI-assisted answers, nary chat prompts, and less AI images successful the hunt results, the institution claims. The extensions are presently disposable for Chrome and Firefox users. Meanwhile, radical who person switched to the DuckDuckGo web browser already person their AI settings preserved, adjacent if they wide their browser history.

The institution says the extensions are meant to assistance radical person a accordant AI-free hunt acquisition — thing that’s harder to travel by these days, particularly aft Google announced its AI-first revamp of its hunt motor astatine its developer league earlier successful May.

Image Credits:DuckDuckGo

Since then, postulation to DuckDuckGo has been booming. Last week, the institution noted that web visits to its no-AI hunt leafage were up astir 30% week-over-week, and its U.S. app installs were besides up 18.1% week-over-week, with U.S. iOS app installs peaking astatine 69.9% week-over-week growth.

Those trends followed quality that Google was overhauling its hunt container successful the biggest alteration to its hunt motor successful much than 25 years. Now, alternatively of returning links astatine the apical of the page, Google volition favour sending users into AI-generated hunt overviews, which are becoming much interactive experiences susceptible of creating visualizations, charts, graphs, oregon adjacent mini apps, arsenic needed. Follow-up questions from AI Overviews volition propulsion users into an AI Mode chat experience. The accepted “10 bluish links” that defined Google successful its earlier days are much of an afterthought, appearing beneath each this AI-fueled productivity.

But not everyone is connected committee with having AI made the default, which is wherefore immoderate are making the determination to alternative hunt engines similar DuckDuckGo, Kagi, and others.

DuckDuckGo says postulation to its no-AI hunt page was up threefold connected Thursday, May 28, 2026 — a caller high-water people since Google’s hunt announcement — and the numbers are inactive climbing. The maturation is not coming successful spurts either, the institution points out. Instead, visits are averaging astir 84% supra the baseline, suggesting a much sustained shift.

In summation to the caller “no AI” hunt Chrome and Firefox extensions, DuckDuckGo volition soon update its archetypal DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera to connection controls for AI hunt settings, arsenic well.

It’s worthy noting that DuckDuckGo isn’t an anti-AI company. The institution inactive offers its ain AI chatbot with entree to galore fashionable models, and a subscription plan that provides entree to the latest models and different tools, similar a VPN service, individuality theft restoration, and idiosyncratic accusation removal services.