DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused alternative generalist search engine which relies on Bing for its traditional search results, offers an alternative “no AI” version of DuckDuckGo at https://noai.duckduckgo.com/. I turn to the About noai.duckduckgo.com page for a feature (or non-feature) summary:
If you’d prefer an AI-free DuckDuckGo Search experience, start your searches on noai.duckduckgo.com instead of on duckduckgo.com. Searching on noai.duckduckgo.com works the same as search on duckduckgo.com, except all AI features are turned off and AI-generated images are filtered out of results by default.
About noai.duckduckgo.com page (viewed 01/21/2026)
Regular DuckDuckGo has optional AI features and these features can be turned off in the settings (always welcome for new AI “features”). The “noai” version of DuckDuckGo completely disables the AI features by default. Moreover, no AI DuckDuckGo also tries to filter AI-generated images out of image search results by default, which I will submit is a useful feature. The About Page specifies that the no AI version of the search engine/front-end disables by default Search Assist, Duck.ai, and AI-generated images.
While the no AI version of DuckDuckGo has its own subdomain and home page, the best way to use it (in my humble opinion) is by adding it to your preferred web browser as a custom search engine. I have discussed custom search engines in several articles, but I will point you to Brave and DuckDuckGo Timer Shortcuts for a quick primer and demonstration of a creative custom search shortcut use-case.
Both Chromium-based and Firefox-based web browsers support adding search engines to the default list and assigning omnibar shortcuts to trigger them. In addition to my own article (linked above), see an external guide for Chrome from Zapier (this applies generally to non-Chrome Chromium-based browsers such as Chromium, Brave, Edge, and Vivaldi) and for Firefox from Mozilla (this should also work for Firefox-based browsers such as Floorp, Librewolf, Waterfox, and Zen Browser). (I recommend Soufiane Sakhi’s open source Search Engines Helper extension for Firefox and Firefox-based browsers as a tool for quickly adding custom search engines.)
The first step to adding a custom search engine is to study the URL for a query in the target search engine. Below, see an example search for “test” in the no AI version of DuckDuckGo:
Our search URL is: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=test&noai=1&t=h_&ia=web
For a search shortcut, we need to replace the query, which in this case is test, with %s.
https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&noai=1&t=h_&ia=web
I ascertained that we can also remove everything after noai for a shorter URL.
https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&noai
My main browser is still Firefox, so I will first demonstrate adding my shortcut with Firefox and Search Engines Helper (note again that you do not have to use Search Engines Helper, but it is my preferred and recommended method in Firefox), which I linked above:
Next I will assign it the :ddg shortcut in Firefox (note that you can make your own shortcut).
Now let us trigger the shortcut and run a search:
Mission accomplished. My search went to the no AI version of DuckDuckGo.
Because I am already on the topic, I will demonstrate how to add it in Chromium. Chromium-based browsers can automatically capture site-specific search URLs, and you can assign shortcuts to any sites you use regularly. Unfortunately, this does not seem to work with base no-AI DuckDuckGo where DuckDuckGo is already a default search engine (I suspect because the base domain is duckduckgo.com in both cases). But that need not stop us. First, I will navigate to the Search Engines page in the Chromium settings:
Then I scroll down to Site search and add the same DuckDuckGo no AI URL we used in Firefox:
We can now test a search with my :ddg short cut (note again the shortcut can be whatever you want it to be).
Now search:
Everything works as expected. This method can be used on all common Chromium-based browsers, including the ubiquitous Google Chrome as well as popular alternatives such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi.
Consider this post a short PSA and guide on how to set an easy-to-use shortcut for DuckDuckGo No AI in Firefox-based and Chromium-based desktop browsers. Most notable alternative browsers also support adding custom search engine shortcuts, so I recommend checking your preferred browser’s documentation for a how-to guide. Where custom search shortcuts can be added, it is also usually (if not always) possible to set them as the default search engine, eliminating the need to use a shortcut.
