They "love" AI mode. Just like everyone "loved" Google+.
I wonder if Alphabet's investors realise when they're being lied to like that.
I think I'm the only person who liked Google+, lmao. Like it wasn't amazing but it was fun and had some neat features.
And the investors don't care so long as line goes up.
I switched my phone search months ago.
I wish my phone allowed noai DDG by default.
Go to your browser settings and to the Search section. There will be somewhere in there to add a new search engine. Add in 'https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=%25s' then set it as your default.
You should be able to do the same if you're using a search widget directly from your launcher as well.
Go to DDG → Settings → AI Features → Search Assist and turn it to "Never". It's functionally equivalent to the noai address. Note deleting cookies clears those settings, but it's a good exception if you usually don't clear cookies.
I switch between the two depending on what I'm looking for but I've been leaning towards DuckDuckGo. The only problem with DuckDuckGo is that it actually works like a search engine so I have to go back to Google when I wanna find an obscure reddit post that solves my issue because it's the best way to search for tech problems through Reddit. That's literally all Google is these days, AI and Reddit.
Yeah, sometimes DDG struggles, but you can always just add !g to the start of the search term to quickly search Google from DDG
