You can login to (using my preferences as an example) DDG and configure it to not use AI, but I mostly browse in private/incognito mode and don’t care to login to DDG every time I open a browser. However, I - and you - don’t have to login to enforce that preference; at least with DDG you can set a default search engine that automatically avoids it. Here are the parameters in mobile Firefox:

NoAI DDG parameters

Even in Chrome and Chrome derivatives, you can set a default search engine; I don’t know the exact steps, but the end result should look similar to the above.

If you prefer to stick with Google, even they offer a no AI solution. I haven’t used Google in years, but according to arstechnica, this would be the equivalent configuration:

Arsyechnica no AI parameters for Google

I’ve not used any other search engines since Altavista, so I can’t provide details for each one, but hopefully this is a good starting point.

edit: It seems this changed … Or maybe I had it wrong from the beginning, but I tested this when I posted it, so I think it changed. Regardless, the q= is not necessary currently.

    • Ludicrous0251@piefed.zipEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      They’re scummy crypto bros, but in my anecdotal testing, their search engine is more likely to turn up useful results than DDG.

      They are, however, a fallback to the fallback in my search flow, so they get used like 1x/year. There would be little benefit to searching another Bing clone after DDG, and I have no interest in searching Google, so this is where I’ve landed.

      Would be happy to expand the list if you have suggestions for search engines, and the associated codes for blocking AI summaries in private searches.