{"id":257392,"date":"2026-05-27T20:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/people-flock-to-privacy-focused-duckduckgo-as-google-leans-heavily-into-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:10:14","slug":"people-flock-to-privacy-focused-duckduckgo-as-google-leans-heavily-into-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/people-flock-to-privacy-focused-duckduckgo-as-google-leans-heavily-into-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"People Flock to Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo as Google Leans Heavily Into AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

People Flock to Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo as Google Leans Heavily Into AI<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/duckduckgo-installs-increase-after-google-io\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-27 20:32:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n

These ducks are looking mighty. Search engine and web browser developer\u00a0DuckDuckGo said this week that it’s getting a surge of new customers, and the increase just happens to coincide with Google’s I\/O developer conference.<\/p>\n

User privacy was a major part of how DuckDuckGo marketed itself back when it launched in 2008. The Pennsylvania-based company doesn’t track customer data, record search histories or log IP addresses, allowing customers to avoid being targeted by ads based on their browsing patterns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A representative for DuckDuckGo told CNET that, in the US, it saw 21% more installations of its browser from May 20 through May 26 — including a 37% spike on Tuesday — compared with May 13 through May 19. Browser installs on iOS rose 33%, including 69% on Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

Why the jump? Google held its I\/O conference from May 19 to May 20 and\u00a0announced several AI initiatives<\/span><\/span>. One of those initiatives was an expanded AI-driven search interface that can deliver expanded answers to longer queries. People can also drop videos, pictures and files into the search box for a multimodal search.<\/p>\n

Beyond the installations, the DuckDuckGo representative told CNET there was a 500% increase in mentions of the company across all social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and X, among others.<\/p>\n

DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg said in a statement that Google is “force-feeding AI with no way to opt out” and pointed to a report that indicated Google searches are getting worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want,” Weinberg said.<\/p>\n

AI flexibility\u00a0<\/h2>\n

A Google spokesperson said that Google’s AI Mode, the button next to the search bar, now has more than 1 billion monthly users.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Elizabeth Reid, Google vice president and head of search, the number of searches in AI Mode has more than doubled every quarter since it launched a year ago. Reid said that Google search queries reached…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People Flock to Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo as Google Leans Heavily Into AI https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/duckduckgo-installs-increase-after-google-io\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-27…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/f43941682a90178e96d4f0d84548136fb431c085\/hub\/2024\/04\/11\/1ddda95d-f746-444e-86a3-93fcdb07d278\/duckduckgo-logo-1.png?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257395,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257392\/revisions\/257395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}