It is the exact opposite for me. Everyone hates the LLM based search products in my circles. Just look at this shitshow.
switching to LLM based search products in droves.
The shift towards LLM-based search products is significant as they offer more conversational and personalized responses compared to traditional search engines. This change is driven by users seeking quicker, more relevant answers and a better overall experience
I don't follow NFL viewership numbers but searching and reading the results seems to indicate some support for that trend.
What's wrong with it?
The LLM responded in the affirmative to all queries, even when they seem to contradict each other.
> NFL viewership went down? Yes!
> NFL viewership went up? Yes!
> Home prices are going down? Yes!
> Home prices are going up? Yes!
Google is confirming people's biases on an industrial scale. Surely this is not going to do any damage...
1) don’t believe everything you read on the internet
2) it looks like real search results
3) it’s a bunch of crappy smartphone shots of screens
4) but why would someone work so hard to make these fake images
5) but AI image generation
6) but they don’t look AI-generated
7) but maybe it’s gotten better
I can go on and on and on
My ultimate feeling is “this looks legit.” But man. The internet just isn’t fun anymore. It’s so much work.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/25/ai-sycophancy-isnt-just-a-...
Privacy is an uphill battle, we should use our efforts where they make the most impact.
Mullvad sell a VPN and privacy-focused browser so how are they unable to proxy the searches themselves? They already have the needed tools developed.
If they crack down on it then the suggestion to use a VPN and privacy browser won't work either.
https://developers.google.com/terms
> you will not [...] keep cached copies longer than permitted by the cache header
My guess is search's days are numbered and companies are "pivoting" away to other projects
a shutdown is preferable to silent bitrot
Right this moment it seems to work. 2 Days ago Id search for something basic like "CSS colors" and not get back a single usable result
but yeah its a combination of SEO trash but it also seemingly not having stuff indexed
I'd search "Ask Clojure" or "Clojure Agents" and nothing from Clojure.org would show up
or like "MDN SVG circle" and the MDN would just not show up.
of course today im trying it and its all working haha
In the last year or so, I look for the summaries from “Search Assist” and the dive into a chat with the (limited?) LLM models that it provides. It’s my go to for LLM usage. It’s rarely and for more complex needs that I go to ChatGPT.
Wonder what's different, it seems people's experience differ quite a lot.
For $10/month it’s great to have someone whose incentives are aligned with my own managing my relationships with AI companies I’d otherwise have to monitor constantly for privacy abuses.
I haven’t noticed a recent degradation in DDG’s search results, but I’m also turning to duck.ai more frequently and on the whole my search/investigation experience is better.
The one significant downside is that duck.ai limits the length of your chats, but considering the price that’s not surprising.
The direction I’d like to see the industry go is better integration of search results into AI chat, blurring the distinction between the two. That would make both products more compelling: search results are made more friendly with AI summaries, and original sources help to counter AI hallucinations and obsequious blather.
[0]: I won't bother linking any articles since there are too many articles on the subject and whatever I link is probably not the site you want (or is maybe paywalled).
My hope is that AI helps to fine tune inquiries and helps users discover websites that would otherwise not have been uncovered by traditional index-based search.
Unfortunately it’s in the interests of search and AI companies to keep you inside their portals, so they may be less than willing to link to the outside even when it would improve the experience.
To be honest, DDG has always been far behind Google. It’s fine when I know my search result is going to be in the top 10 of any engine I use, but the moment I need to search for anything non obvious I don’t even bother with DDG any more.
DDG does seem marginally worse today than it was maybe 5 years ago. It falls off rapidly past the first few results. Now it even seems like it just starts mixing generic results from some popular adjacent keyword into the results and hopes we don’t notice as users that it stopped trying to search by page 2.
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