{"slug": "duck-ai", "name": "duck.ai", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "DuckDuckGo's AI chat service offering anonymized access to several third-party language models.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 9, "warners": 1, "score": 4.653, "rising": 1.69, "first": "2025-11-05", "latest": "2026-10-24", "why": "HN commenters like duck.ai for private-by-default AI chat, free access to several models without signup, and quick one-shot prompts that speed up search.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Privacy", "Free access"], "caveat": "Weaker models", "short_quote": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy.", "icon": true, "domain": "duckduckgo.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://duck.ai/", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["duck.ai", "Duck.ai"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like duck.ai for private-by-default AI chat", "cites": [{"id": 792632992, "item_id": 49539562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539562", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy.", "excerpt": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy. Microsoft already did a rug pull on me and opted me in to training months after I signed up with Github Copilot. It exhausting and ultimately futile to monitor these companies. It's not guaranteed that Duck.ai will continue to uphold its promise of not training on your sessions \u2014 if the company g", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "GitHub Copilot", "story": "Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?"}, {"id": 760375889, "item_id": 47523493, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523493", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Shit like this is why I pay for duck.ai where the main selling point is that the product is private by default.", "excerpt": "I just checked my Github settings, and found that sharing my data was \"enabled\". This setting does not represent my wishes and I definitely would not have set it that way on purpose. It was either defaulted that way, or when the option was presented to me I configured it the opposite of how I intended. Fortunately, none of the work I do these days with Copilot enabled is sensitive (if it was I would have been much mo", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Updates to GitHub Copilot interaction data usage policy"}, {"id": 740150609, "item_id": 46259413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259413", "by": "mark_l_watson", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "excerpt": "I use the DDG browser about 80% of the time. Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Some surprising things about DuckDuckGo"}, {"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}]}, {"text": ", free access to several models without signup", "cites": [{"id": 791959536, "item_id": 49497471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49497471", "by": "pratyahava", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "all this in one day, with huge help of duck.ai which is completely free.", "excerpt": "thanks to the author of the article, it inspired me to try making a small gui app i wanted for long time - it simply reads and shows the contents of the system clipboard in a window. and it was really super easy, i didn't need xcode, only `swiftc` from command line. honestly i didn't know i can make an app without opening xcode, now i want to make more :) so i made the app with approx 500 lines of Swift, with keyboar", "context": "", "use_case": "writing a Swift app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 782259232, "item_id": 48891202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48891202", "by": "simquat", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup", "excerpt": "Not sure what kind of model you're interested in, but you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup and let you use gpt-5.4 nano/mini, Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small 4 and Gemma 4 31B. [0] https://duck.ai/", "context": "", "use_case": "private LLM chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you use LLMs for private discussions?"}, {"id": 750439603, "item_id": 46902475, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902475", "by": "heraldgeezer", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version", "excerpt": "I love Claude but use the free version so would love a Sonnet & Haiku update :) I mainly use Haiku to save on tokens... Also dont use CC but I use the chatbot site or app... Claude is just much better than GPT even in conversations. Straight to the point. No cringe emoji lists. When Claude runs out I switch to Mistral Le Chat, also just the site or app. Or duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version.", "context": "", "use_case": "free chatbot access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Opus 4.6"}]}, {"text": ", and quick one-shot prompts that speed up search.", "cites": [{"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}, {"id": 788138545, "item_id": 49258659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258659", "by": "nedt", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It makes searching faster and more targeted.", "excerpt": "Google wasn't great for a very long time. Switched to Duckduckgo years ago. I just love the bangs, because I tend to go to sources I trust anyway. Doesn't mean I'm not also using duck.ai. It makes searching faster and more targeted. But then it's still giving me links to verify and is actually more limited, which means less hallucination and more directly going to the sources. Also it avoids having to open five pages", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse"}, {"id": 803571712, "item_id": 50223232, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223232", "by": "efreak", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories.", "excerpt": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories. I've come to the conclusion that I may as well use the smallest model (Gemma? Gpt-oss? I don't care enough to look) because they all get it so nearly the same every time. Provide a strict enough set of conditions (this is the plot so far, do A and B) and often enough they'll all come up with the same results on different words (A a", "context": "", "use_case": "writing short stories", "switched_from": "", "story": "Every AI model has the same \"controversial\" take on humans"}]}, {"text": " Caveats include smaller models that fall short of ChatGPT on harder tasks", "cites": [{"id": 733203265, "item_id": 45825204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825204", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I found that ChatGPT is a lot better than the \u201cmini\u201d models on duck.ai.", "excerpt": "I feel what this article says based on some recent (non-catastrophic) experiences. I think I\u2019m probably an above average user when it comes to Excel skills. I love spreadsheets. But I struggle with formulas like index, match, vlookup/xlookup and many others, and even more so when it requires nesting one within another and coming up with the underlying logic that leads to some complex nested formulas. Over the past co", "context": "above average Excel user", "use_case": "generating Excel formulas", "switched_from": "", "story": "I\u2019m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel"}]}, {"text": " and a very small context limit.", "cites": [{"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Privacy", "summary": "Paid for and recommended mainly because it is private by default and promises not to train on sessions.", "quotes": [{"id": 792632992, "item_id": 49539562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539562", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy.", "excerpt": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy. Microsoft already did a rug pull on me and opted me in to training months after I signed up with Github Copilot. It exhausting and ultimately futile to monitor these companies. It's not guaranteed that Duck.ai will continue to uphold its promise of not training on your sessions \u2014 if the company g", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "GitHub Copilot", "story": "Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?"}, {"id": 760375889, "item_id": 47523493, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523493", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Shit like this is why I pay for duck.ai where the main selling point is that the product is private by default.", "excerpt": "I just checked my Github settings, and found that sharing my data was \"enabled\". This setting does not represent my wishes and I definitely would not have set it that way on purpose. It was either defaulted that way, or when the option was presented to me I configured it the opposite of how I intended. Fortunately, none of the work I do these days with Copilot enabled is sensitive (if it was I would have been much mo", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Updates to GitHub Copilot interaction data usage policy"}, {"id": 740150609, "item_id": 46259413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259413", "by": "mark_l_watson", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "excerpt": "I use the DDG browser about 80% of the time. Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Some surprising things about DuckDuckGo"}]}, {"label": "Free access", "summary": "Usable for free with no signup, giving access to models like GPT nano/mini, Haiku, Mistral Small and Gemma.", "quotes": [{"id": 782259232, "item_id": 48891202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48891202", "by": "simquat", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup", "excerpt": "Not sure what kind of model you're interested in, but you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup and let you use gpt-5.4 nano/mini, Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small 4 and Gemma 4 31B. [0] https://duck.ai/", "context": "", "use_case": "private LLM chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you use LLMs for private discussions?"}, {"id": 791959536, "item_id": 49497471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49497471", "by": "pratyahava", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "all this in one day, with huge help of duck.ai which is completely free.", "excerpt": "thanks to the author of the article, it inspired me to try making a small gui app i wanted for long time - it simply reads and shows the contents of the system clipboard in a window. and it was really super easy, i didn't need xcode, only `swiftc` from command line. honestly i didn't know i can make an app without opening xcode, now i want to make more :) so i made the app with approx 500 lines of Swift, with keyboar", "context": "", "use_case": "writing a Swift app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 750439603, "item_id": 46902475, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902475", "by": "heraldgeezer", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version", "excerpt": "I love Claude but use the free version so would love a Sonnet & Haiku update :) I mainly use Haiku to save on tokens... Also dont use CC but I use the chatbot site or app... Claude is just much better than GPT even in conversations. Straight to the point. No cringe emoji lists. When Claude runs out I switch to Mistral Le Chat, also just the site or app. Or duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version.", "context": "", "use_case": "free chatbot access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Opus 4.6"}]}, {"label": "Quick prompts", "summary": "Handy for quick one-shot questions and simple short creative writing.", "quotes": [{"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}, {"id": 803571712, "item_id": 50223232, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223232", "by": "efreak", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories.", "excerpt": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories. I've come to the conclusion that I may as well use the smallest model (Gemma? Gpt-oss? I don't care enough to look) because they all get it so nearly the same every time. Provide a strict enough set of conditions (this is the plot so far, do A and B) and often enough they'll all come up with the same results on different words (A a", "context": "", "use_case": "writing short stories", "switched_from": "", "story": "Every AI model has the same \"controversial\" take on humans"}]}, {"label": "Faster search", "summary": "Makes searching faster and more targeted while still giving links to verify.", "quotes": [{"id": 788138545, "item_id": 49258659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258659", "by": "nedt", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It makes searching faster and more targeted.", "excerpt": "Google wasn't great for a very long time. Switched to Duckduckgo years ago. I just love the bangs, because I tend to go to sources I trust anyway. Doesn't mean I'm not also using duck.ai. It makes searching faster and more targeted. But then it's still giving me links to verify and is actually more limited, which means less hallucination and more directly going to the sources. Also it avoids having to open five pages", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Weaker models", "summary": "One user found ChatGPT much better than duck.ai's mini models for complex Excel formulas.", "quotes": [{"id": 733203265, "item_id": 45825204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825204", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I found that ChatGPT is a lot better than the \u201cmini\u201d models on duck.ai.", "excerpt": "I feel what this article says based on some recent (non-catastrophic) experiences. I think I\u2019m probably an above average user when it comes to Excel skills. I love spreadsheets. But I struggle with formulas like index, match, vlookup/xlookup and many others, and even more so when it requires nesting one within another and coming up with the underlying logic that leads to some complex nested formulas. Over the past co", "context": "above average Excel user", "use_case": "generating Excel formulas", "switched_from": "", "story": "I\u2019m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel"}]}, {"label": "Small context", "summary": "The anonymized chat has a very small context limit.", "quotes": [{"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}]}, {"label": "Privacy durability", "summary": "One subscriber notes the no-training promise is not guaranteed if the company changes hands.", "quotes": [{"id": 792632992, "item_id": 49539562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539562", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy.", "excerpt": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy. Microsoft already did a rug pull on me and opted me in to training months after I signed up with Github Copilot. It exhausting and ultimately futile to monitor these companies. It's not guaranteed that Duck.ai will continue to uphold its promise of not training on your sessions \u2014 if the company g", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "GitHub Copilot", "story": "Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?"}]}, {"label": "Product packaging", "summary": "One commenter slightly prefers Proton's lumo+ as a packaged product.", "quotes": [{"id": 778075793, "item_id": 48629737, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48629737", "by": "mark_l_watson", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Another option is DuckDuckGo\u2019s Duck.ai subscription, but I slightly prefer ProtonMail\u2019s lumo+ packaging as a product.", "excerpt": "I live in the USA and I use a European LLM as a daily driver: Proton\u2019s lumo+ that does a good job packaging a Mistral model for general chat, with good searchable chat history \u2014 all with adequate privacy guarantees. Well worth the money. I purchase open model tokens for agent programming assistance, and I like lumo+ for everything else. Another option is DuckDuckGo\u2019s Duck.ai subscription, but I slightly prefer Proton", "context": "Lives in the USA", "use_case": "general chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}]}], "who": [], "tags": ["for privacy-conscious users", "no signup required", "for quick questions", "for casual creative writing"], "use_cases": ["private ai chat", "writing short stories", "writing a swift app", "ai-assisted search", "private llm chat", "general chat"], "compared": [{"slug": "github-copilot", "name": "GitHub Copilot", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "duckduckgo", "name": "DuckDuckGo", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50197313", "title": "Every AI model has the same \"controversial\" take on humans", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49535284", "title": "Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384210", "title": "Stop Making TUIs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49250836", "title": "Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48885422", "title": "Ask HN: How do you use LLMs for private discussions?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48622778", "title": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"compare": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803571712, "item_id": 50223232, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223232", "by": "efreak", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories.", "excerpt": "I use duck.ai for simple stupid \"creative\" stuff like writing extremely short stories. I've come to the conclusion that I may as well use the smallest model (Gemma? Gpt-oss? I don't care enough to look) because they all get it so nearly the same every time. Provide a strict enough set of conditions (this is the plot so far, do A and B) and often enough they'll all come up with the same results on different words (A a", "context": "", "use_case": "writing short stories", "switched_from": "", "story": "Every AI model has the same \"controversial\" take on humans"}, {"id": 792632992, "item_id": 49539562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49539562", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy.", "excerpt": "I pay for a subscription to Duck.ai mainly because I don't want to be constantly fighting my vendor to protect my privacy. Microsoft already did a rug pull on me and opted me in to training months after I signed up with Github Copilot. It exhausting and ultimately futile to monitor these companies. It's not guaranteed that Duck.ai will continue to uphold its promise of not training on your sessions \u2014 if the company g", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "GitHub Copilot", "story": "Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?"}, {"id": 791959536, "item_id": 49497471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49497471", "by": "pratyahava", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "all this in one day, with huge help of duck.ai which is completely free.", "excerpt": "thanks to the author of the article, it inspired me to try making a small gui app i wanted for long time - it simply reads and shows the contents of the system clipboard in a window. and it was really super easy, i didn't need xcode, only `swiftc` from command line. honestly i didn't know i can make an app without opening xcode, now i want to make more :) so i made the app with approx 500 lines of Swift, with keyboar", "context": "", "use_case": "writing a Swift app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 788138545, "item_id": 49258659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258659", "by": "nedt", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It makes searching faster and more targeted.", "excerpt": "Google wasn't great for a very long time. Switched to Duckduckgo years ago. I just love the bangs, because I tend to go to sources I trust anyway. Doesn't mean I'm not also using duck.ai. It makes searching faster and more targeted. But then it's still giving me links to verify and is actually more limited, which means less hallucination and more directly going to the sources. Also it avoids having to open five pages", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse"}, {"id": 782259232, "item_id": 48891202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48891202", "by": "simquat", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup", "excerpt": "Not sure what kind of model you're interested in, but you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup and let you use gpt-5.4 nano/mini, Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small 4 and Gemma 4 31B. [0] https://duck.ai/", "context": "", "use_case": "private LLM chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you use LLMs for private discussions?"}, {"id": 778075793, "item_id": 48629737, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48629737", "by": "mark_l_watson", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Another option is DuckDuckGo\u2019s Duck.ai subscription, but I slightly prefer ProtonMail\u2019s lumo+ packaging as a product.", "excerpt": "I live in the USA and I use a European LLM as a daily driver: Proton\u2019s lumo+ that does a good job packaging a Mistral model for general chat, with good searchable chat history \u2014 all with adequate privacy guarantees. Well worth the money. I purchase open model tokens for agent programming assistance, and I like lumo+ for everything else. Another option is DuckDuckGo\u2019s Duck.ai subscription, but I slightly prefer Proton", "context": "Lives in the USA", "use_case": "general chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 772765377, "item_id": 48297836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297836", "by": "chrismarlow9", "date": "2026-05-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai", "excerpt": "It's been my default search for years. Lately for quick one shot AI prompts I use duck.ai (they put some basic effort into anonymizing your chat: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/ai-chat-privacy ). For the search, some of the local results are wrong but I live in a very small area so it may be more reliable for highly populated areas. Lately I've been checking out Kagi for a few things just to see ", "context": "", "use_case": "quick anonymized AI prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"}, {"id": 760375889, "item_id": 47523493, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523493", "by": "rectang", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Shit like this is why I pay for duck.ai where the main selling point is that the product is private by default.", "excerpt": "I just checked my Github settings, and found that sharing my data was \"enabled\". This setting does not represent my wishes and I definitely would not have set it that way on purpose. It was either defaulted that way, or when the option was presented to me I configured it the opposite of how I intended. Fortunately, none of the work I do these days with Copilot enabled is sensitive (if it was I would have been much mo", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Updates to GitHub Copilot interaction data usage policy"}, {"id": 750439603, "item_id": 46902475, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902475", "by": "heraldgeezer", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version", "excerpt": "I love Claude but use the free version so would love a Sonnet & Haiku update :) I mainly use Haiku to save on tokens... Also dont use CC but I use the chatbot site or app... Claude is just much better than GPT even in conversations. Straight to the point. No cringe emoji lists. When Claude runs out I switch to Mistral Le Chat, also just the site or app. Or duck.ai has Haiku 3.5 in Free version.", "context": "", "use_case": "free chatbot access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Opus 4.6"}, {"id": 740150609, "item_id": 46259413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259413", "by": "mark_l_watson", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "excerpt": "I use the DDG browser about 80% of the time. Duck.ai is an interesting product, like Proton\u2019s AI chatbot - both privacy preserving.", "context": "", "use_case": "private AI chat", "switched_from": "", "story": "Some surprising things about DuckDuckGo"}, {"id": 733203265, "item_id": 45825204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825204", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I found that ChatGPT is a lot better than the \u201cmini\u201d models on duck.ai.", "excerpt": "I feel what this article says based on some recent (non-catastrophic) experiences. I think I\u2019m probably an above average user when it comes to Excel skills. I love spreadsheets. But I struggle with formulas like index, match, vlookup/xlookup and many others, and even more so when it requires nesting one within another and coming up with the underlying logic that leads to some complex nested formulas. Over the past co", "context": "above average Excel user", "use_case": "generating Excel formulas", "switched_from": "", "story": "I\u2019m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel"}]}