this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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35
DuckDuckGo Gone Rogue (lemmus.org)
submitted 9 hours ago by anon@lemmus.org to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

They've decided to incorporate ChatGPT.

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[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 58 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I mean, this seems like a really stupid gripe. You can completely disable it for your searches: https://i.xno.dev/FUHSj.png

In addition, it gives you a way to interface with ChatGPT without an account, or using the API, and maintaining privacy... I see this as an absolute win. They stay competitive by including AI for people who can't live without, while making it completely optional. Offering duck.ai is a smart move, too. I just don't see the issue here.

[–] AnAmericanPotato@programming.dev 22 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Defaults matter. Every time you open a private browsing window, that's what you're going to get. Every time you use LibreWolf or Firefox Focus or any other browser that disables/clears cookies by default (which is a good practice), that's what you're going to get.

I don't want anything I search for going into OpenAI. Ever. I'd feel fine about this if they hosted their own models.

[–] harsh3466@lemmy.ml 22 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

This. I fucking hate that it's opt out. Every goddamn time I open Firefox and run a search I gotta disable the stupid AI bullshit.

[–] criitz@reddthat.com 11 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't think it AI's your search immediately. It just shows you the option to generate an AI response. At least that's how it's been working for me. It's not doing anything unless you hit that button.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

It’s been hit and miss for me. It feels like there’s some cached queries that it presents the AI results for without user interaction. But it’s very clearly marked.

[–] Xanza@lemm.ee -4 points 5 hours ago

Like, sure. That's a valid argument. But it's not the end of the goddamn world because they make you click a button to use a completely free service.

If you're that pissed about it, then setup SearX yourself. Not sure why every "technologist" feels like their opinion is the only that matters and gets butthurt about shit like this.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world -3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I use it if I do not have my own server running. There are many times I am looking for a word or info that is not very compatible with a search engine but is effective for AI.

I think there are a lot of people that just do not understand AI, and how to use it effectively. There seems to be a user filter where low Machiavellian individuals with poor abstractive thinking skills struggle to understand the subjective nature of the world in every space and how all of our collective incorrectness is present in AI too.

Perhaps they only played with very small models of the Llama 2 era, which were much harder to effectively use. Or maybe they played with llama.cpp before April of last year when the special tokens were incorrectly defaulted to GPT2 tokens for all models in the first ~260 positions.

I forget the name of the issue, but seem to recall there is some kind of unsolved database indexing paradox that is why search engines suck now, but that is a vague memory. Likely AI is just the whipping boy for people that are getting left behind by technology they are unable to learn effectively.

[–] threesigma@lemm.ee 3 points 5 hours ago

“Educational purposes”.. because everyone knows it’s good educational practice to spout utter bullshit at people wanting information.

[–] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 8 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

Am I the only one noticably receiving more adds on duck duck go last few days/week?

I feel like the adds and the AI response thing make it much worse.

Have to scroll a whole screen untill I see a organic result.

[–] tekeous@usenet.lol 3 points 3 hours ago

You can turn off ads in DDG settings. Better yet, use an adblocker like everyone should.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 hours ago

You see ads?

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 hours ago

Hey! I remember people saying the same thing about a different search engine!

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

On second thought, maybe they're doing the right thing. Offering what the competition does with improved privacy and the option to switch it off completely. I personally think LLMs are pretty bad at real-life queries, but ultimately the users will have to decide.

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 6 points 7 hours ago

They've helped me figure out some nested spreadsheet formulas that were pretty complicated to me.

What typically happens is that they mess up, but their malfunctioning code still has something in it that I hadn't considered, which leads me in the right direction. They have their place in terms of helpfulness when you can't or don't want to wait for someone.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 8 hours ago

I use ducks AI chat to help me with small tasks and its honestly pretty great. Always worked and has provided me with useful results.

They claim its anonymous, maybe they are lying, maybe they are not. I make sure to rinse anything I put in there first just in case.

[–] nul9o9@lemmy.world 11 points 9 hours ago

I switched to using searxng instances a while ago. Its getting the job done.

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I'm open for alternative suggestions. The ease of wiping browser data while excluding preferred sites in duckduckgo is really nice.

[–] ComradePedro@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 hours ago

You can achieve a similar thing in Firefox with auto delete browsing data in settings, then adding excluded websites.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 0 points 9 hours ago

searxng, I use disroot.

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 9 hours ago

Yeah DDG has been serving up AI slop lately, it's really annoying.

Ducky see, ducky do. It's kind of pathetic...

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com -2 points 9 hours ago

Duck search has never been good at actually finding results.