DuckDuckGo Installations Jump 30% as Users Flee Google’s AI Search
▼ Summary
– Google announced a major Search overhaul replacing traditional blue links with an AI agent that answers queries and runs background tasks, sparking backlash.
– Critics argue the changes could kill the open web, surface inaccurate AI overviews, and remove user control, with some users defecting to DuckDuckGo.
– DuckDuckGo reported a surge in U.S. app installs, averaging 18.1% week-over-week growth from May 20-25, peaking at 30.5% on May 25, with even higher iOS growth.
– DuckDuckGo offers an AI-free search page and its own AI product, Duck.ai, which prioritizes privacy by stripping IP addresses and not using chats for training.
– DuckDuckGo’s Chief Communications Officer said its AI features are popular, emphasizing that users want a choice in how much AI they use.
Just over a week ago, Google unveiled a sweeping transformation to Search at its I/O developer conference, replacing the familiar list of blue links with an AI agent that answers questions, completes tasks, and runs background monitoring. Almost immediately, the backlash began. Critics warned the move would kill the open web, while others pointed to inaccurate AI overviews and a loss of user control. Even simple queries, like searching the word “disregard,” became needlessly complicated.
One woman overheard on the phone summed it up bluntly: “Google just isn’t Google anymore.” She said she was switching to DuckDuckGo because it lets users “opt out of using AI.” It turns out she wasn’t alone.
That sentiment is now showing up in real numbers. DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine that has long struggled to chip away at Google’s dominance, reported a surge in adoption. U. S. app installs jumped 18.1% week-over-week between May 20 and May 25, compared to the prior week. The growth held steady for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on May 25. On iOS, the spike was even sharper, with weekly installs rising an average of 33% and topping out at 69.9%.
Visits to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page, noai.duckduckgo.com, also climbed. That page disables every AI feature by default, including AI-assisted answers and AI-generated images. Weekly growth there averaged 22.7%, peaking at 27.7% on May 24. The trend was most pronounced in the U. S., and traffic remained strong over the Memorial Day weekend, a period when DuckDuckGo normally sees a dip.
DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg didn’t mince words. “Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “As a result, their results are getting worse, not better. We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want.”
The irony is that DuckDuckGo has its own AI offerings. Duck.ai is free and requires no account, providing access to models like Anthropic’s Claude 4.5 Haiku, Meta’s Llama 4 Scout, Mistral’s Small 3 24B, and OpenAI’s GPT-5 mini. The company emphasizes privacy: user IP addresses are stripped before requests reach model providers, conversations are deleted within 30 days, and chats are never used for training.
“Not only do we respect user choice, but also user privacy,” Weinberg said. “Everything you do in DuckDuckGo is private; we don’t collect search histories or chats and nothing is used for AI training.”
DuckDuckGo also offers Search Assist, similar to Google’s AI overviews, and an AI Image Filter that removes AI-generated images from results. Kamyl Bazbaz, the company’s chief communications and policy officer, said both features are among its most popular, despite DuckDuckGo’s broader stance against forced AI.
“People just want a choice,” Bazbaz said.
During Google’s search antitrust trial in 2023, Weinberg testified that exclusive default search contracts made it nearly impossible for DuckDuckGo to compete. Now, with Google’s AI overhaul driving users away, that dynamic may finally be shifting.
(Source: TechCrunch)
