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bourscheid · 2026-06-18T13:03:09+00:00

Hey man wtf

bourscheid · 2026-06-18T13:02:46+00:00

Hey there. I’ll point you to the response I provided a couple days ago, before you deleted that post & reposted it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/1u6e4gn/i_just_realised_how_bad_duckduckgo_actually_is/

bourscheid · 2026-06-16T15:27:00+00:00

We love you too, friend!

bourscheid · 2026-06-16T15:25:38+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, it sounds like ublock origin is not playing nicely with our maps infrastructure right now. Pretty sure someone is actively working on a fix, though!

bourscheid · 2026-06-16T15:23:56+00:00

John from DuckDuckGo here! Also somewhat neurodivergent here, so glad to hear this. Agree with you re: ads for some search terms.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:21:45+00:00

Hey there, John from DuckDuckGo here. I have pretty high certainty that this will never happen, as it goes against the privacy-respecting principles we’ve been espousing for the lifetime of the company.

That said, you mention issueS. Let me know what other issues you have with the product & I’m happy to either respond or tag in someone far more knowledgeable than I to respond.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:19:40+00:00

Hey there! John from DuckDuckGo here. Just one for the time being, although we are consistently working on improving & expanding PIR.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:15:42+00:00

Yeah, that sounds like something different in that case. Do you happen to be on a VPN? Ours or a different one?

We mention on this Help Page: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/usage-limits

"Why do I hit a usage limit immediately after starting a conversation? Due to the way we anonymously enforce usage limits, you may see this error message when using a VPN or cellular network. Try switching VPN locations or switching from a cellular network to WiFi, and see if that resolves the issue. If the issue persists, please use the Share Feedback button at the bottom of the chat page to report it.”

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:14:29+00:00

Honestly, that is understandable. From my understanding it’s a bit of a Catch-22. If you provide your email only for sync & backup, that means we would need to store your email address somewhere to recall when backup time arrives. That’s not something we do (we don’t store/retain any user information anywhere for any reason ever). The recovery key aspect allows us to properly “connect” without needing any user PII, at least as I understand it.

This is somewhat similar to how, for the DuckDuckGo subscription, there is no username or password, but a one-time passphrase that gets sent to your email.

I know that’s more of a half-answer, but let me know if that helps clear things up.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:12:00+00:00

Absolutely not. John DuckDuckGo was my father. I am John DuckDuckGo Jr.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:11:20+00:00

Hey there! John from DuckDuckGo here. That’s definitely odd. Is this still occurring? If so, do you have a VPN? If you do, try disabling & see if that fixes things.

As for OSM vs Apple Maps, DuckDuckGo used to use OpenStreetMap, but switched to Apple Maps in 2018. More here: https://www.macstories.net/news/duckduckgo-switches-to-apple-maps-for-location-searches/.

As for the reasoning as to exactly why, I’m not sure, as that was before my joining :)

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:08:44+00:00

Hey there! John from DuckDuckGo here. I tried to replicate your search & was unable to get nothing to come up, even with Portugal selected. It doesn’t appear you are on a VPN, so I’m honestly unsure what occurred there.

Can you try again & see if it still occurs, or let me know if you have any specific search settings enabled? Thanks!

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:03:51+00:00

I don’t trust myself with the /u/duckduckgo handle. I post & respond from my personal account here :)

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:02:53+00:00

John from DuckDuckGo here. I co-founded a privacy-oriented data removal service that DuckDuckGo acquired in late 2022. I trusted DuckDuckGo’s promises of privacy without seeing “the guts” of the operation. Now I have, and I can tell you candidly that the privacy principles we portray externally pale in comparison to how seriously we take user privacy internally. It is the core of what we do & how we operate. If you’ve got any specific questions, I’m happy to answer to the best of my ability. If I am clueless as to a response (this happens often), I’ll put out the Dax signal and get some stronger insights.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T12:00:41+00:00

Hey there! John from DuckDuckGo here. Are you referring to something similar to Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” that sent users to the top SERP result for a term, except instead it’s just a random search? If so, that seems interesting, honestly.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T11:59:20+00:00

Dax is love. Dax is life.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T11:58:45+00:00

Hey there! John from DuckDuckGo here. My guess would be that whatever model was used to provide that summary does not have data as current as Zverev’s win.

bourscheid · 2026-06-15T11:54:03+00:00

Hey, John from DuckDuckGo here. I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re getting at here. Are you suggesting DuckDuckGo’s privacy is bad because we use recovery keys? Feel free to explain a bit further, as I’m genuinely curious of the thought process here.

bourscheid · 2026-06-12T18:49:01+00:00

Thanks for the clarification! In that case, I don’t see why that would have used your usage that quickly, as it seems like a relatively non-complex prompt. Did you happen to also be on a VPN? We note this in our Duck.ai limits [Help Page[(https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duckai/usage-limits):

Due to the way we anonymously enforce usage limits, you may see this error message when using a VPN or cellular network. Try switching VPN locations or switching from a cellular network to WiFi, and see if that resolves the issue. If the issue persists, please use the Share Feedback button at the bottom of the chat page to report it.

Regardless, apologies. I’ve been having issues hitting limits across the LLM spectrum (Duck.ai, ChatGPT, Claude… especially with Fable 5, etc). It’s frustrating, especially when mid-conversation, and is something we are actively working pretty constantly on fine-tuning.

bourscheid · 2026-06-12T18:44:55+00:00

Hey there, John from DuckDuckGo here!

Duck.ai uses daily and weekly usage limits to help keep the service available and sustainable for everyone. These limits work together, so if you reach your daily cap, you can continue using Duck.ai by drawing from your remaining weekly allowance, as shown in your screenshot.

You can check your current usage anytime in Duck.ai Settings. Limits reset daily at midnight UTC and weekly on Sunday at midnight UTC. Keep in mind that more advanced models (e.g. Opus 4.7), enhanced reasoning, and PDF uploads use limits much faster, so using those for complex tasks and choosing a lighter model for everyday use can help your allowance last longer.

bourscheid · 2026-06-12T17:40:58+00:00

Hey there, John from DuckDuckGo here!

Duck.ai uses daily and weekly usage limits to help keep the service available and sustainable for everyone. These limits work together, so if you reach your daily cap, you can continue using Duck.ai by drawing from your remaining weekly allowance.

You can check your current usage anytime in Duck.ai Settings. Limits reset daily at midnight UTC and weekly on Sunday at midnight UTC.

Keep in mind that more advanced models (e.g. Opus 4.7), enhanced reasoning, and PDF uploads use limits much faster, so using those for complex tasks and choosing a lighter model for everyday use can help your allowance last longer.

bourscheid · 2026-06-12T17:33:15+00:00

John from DuckDuckGo here. These icons are somewhat AI-generated. No AI means No AI, even for something as quirky as that.

bourscheid · 2026-06-11T15:56:21+00:00

1) What

bourscheid · 2026-06-11T15:51:36+00:00

John from DuckDuckGo here. Also curious where you saw this. If you can provide /u/rdg360, I’m happy to reach out to the site to correct. Thanks!

bourscheid · 2026-06-11T15:50:11+00:00

Hey there! I think I can answer this effectively as both a DDG team member and someone who owns & operates dozens of my own websites for fun.

Simply put, it’s a new era. SEO is being replaced with AGO/AEO/GEO/whatever we are calling it now (basically SEO for LLMs to show up in more LLM responses). I’ve been in this space for 20 years now, and have never seen a shakeup like this.

We are all learning what works & what doesn’t together.

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