“DuckDuckGo told MacRumors that visits to its No AI search page more than tripled after Google’s announcement. Traffic hit the 3x mark on May 28th, and has continued to climb. Visits have averaged around 84 percent above baseline consistently since May 19.”
Looks like “A.I.” is good for something, after all. 
I’m happy to be ignorant about Google search controversies for not having used it for over a decade (probably longer). DDG has been my main search engine on all platforms and browsers (and I have never used Google Chrome).
I too have been using DDG as my search engine for years (so long that I can’t remember when I switched, but it must be getting on for 20 years) and I don’t use Chrome, though I do use the Chromium based Brave and Arc browsers, and also iCab (same engine as Safari, which I only use to go to Apple!) for some things. If I want to search for something outside my normal web usage, I use the DDG browser and immediately torch the site when I’ve finished.
I only rarely access YouTube, which is pretty much the only “Google” activity I engage in.
Mark
Thanks for this! I just put the “No AI” version of DDG as my default search engine in all my browsers.
I used to use DDG for a while, but I search for some pretty obscure stuff and it just wasn’t coming up with anything compared with Google. Now I have Google Search as my home page, but with “???“ -AI already typed in, so when I click it, I just drop whatever in between the “…“. It can occasionally be useful, but most of the time it spouts error-strewn rubbish back, so I really don’t trust it. Results from the AI-driven Grokpedia are often a bit better than Google’s drivel. I also hate watching it go “…thinking…” or whatever it claims to be doing! Google’s results used to be right on the mark, but search for an archaeological site now it is just commercial tourism crap and AI nonsense. It wastes my time, it wastes the travel company’s or whoever’s time and money, and it wastes Google’s time and money… Lose lose lose for everyone!!!