I ran the same 8 searches on 6 search engines to see which ones don't use AI

Guluhehe — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 07:48:52 +0000

If I don't want AI-generated answers on top of my search results, which search engine should I use? I couldn't find a straight answer.

Most articles on this repeat what each company says about itself, so I tested it: same queries, same browser, same day, a screenshot of every result. Below is the setup, the results, and the engines I couldn't test.

The setup

Date: October 6, 2026, one sitting of about 40 minutes.
Browser: Chrome 154 (154.0.8037.98) on a Mac, desktop window at 1366×900, signed out of everything, in a dedicated Chrome profile.
Location: a US exit IP (San Jose, California). A small script checks the IP with two services before the run and refuses to start if either one says it isn't US. It was a proxy, so a datacenter address, not a home connection. That likely played a part in the CAPTCHAs and blocks described below.
Automation: a Playwright script drove a visible Chrome window. For each query it opened the results URL, waited for the network to go quiet plus 8 seconds, then saved a full-page screenshot and the page text. Queries were 4 to 8 seconds apart. If a CAPTCHA appeared, the script paused so a person could solve it. If it stayed blocked, the cell was logged as blocked, not guessed.

The eight queries, locked before the first run:

Type	Query
knowledge	why is the sky blue
how-to	how to remove a stripped screw
health	symptoms of low iron
product	best budget noise cancelling headphones
person	who was Ada Lovelace
news	inflation news
comparison	baking soda vs baking powder
image	golden retriever puppy (image search)

Seven are web searches, and they're the ones the AI results below are counted on. The eighth is an image search, used to check for AI image filters.

What counted as AI: a generated answer, summary or Overview that shows up on its own, an AI chat or assistant panel, or AI-generated images in results. Ranking algorithms, spell check, autocomplete and knowledge panels didn't count. A tab or button that only does something AI-related after you click it is noted, but doesn't count as AI by default.

The results

Engine	Web queries with an AI answer	Notes
DuckDuckGo No-AI (`noai.duckduckgo.com`)	0 of 7	A Duck.ai link stays in the top bar. "AI images: hide" was on by default in image search.
Google with the Web filter (udm=14)	0 of 7	The AI Mode tab is still in the menu. The filter doesn't stick between searches.
Startpage	0 of 7	Results come from Google and Bing. Shopping ads can show on product queries.
SearXNG (`baresearch.org` instance)	0 of 7	Depends on the instance; I only tested this one.
Ecosia	no verdict	1 query loaded, then a Cloudflare challenge on the other 7.
Mojeek	no verdict	HTTP 403 on my test search.

Four with no AI answers (one of them is a workaround)

DuckDuckGo No-AI is a separate address, noai.duckduckgo.com, not a setting on the normal site. DuckDuckGo's help pages say it turns off Search Assist and Duck.ai and filters AI-generated images by default, and that's what I saw: no AI answer on any of the 7 web queries, and the image search had "AI images: hide" switched on. The regular duckduckgo.com can still show Search Assist.

Google with the Web filter also showed no AI Overview on any of the 7 queries. The Web filter is the "Web" option above the results (sometimes under "More"), or udm=14 in the URL. Two catches. Google's own help page says these features "cannot be turned off", so this is a workaround, and it resets on every new search unless you make that URL your default search engine (not tested yet). Also, I didn't run default Google in this round, so I can't say how often these queries get an AI Overview without the filter, only that the filtered page never had one.

Startpage showed no AI answers on any of the 7. It has no index of its own and passes your query to Google and Bing, so of the engines I tested, it's the nearest to Google results without the AI. There's no filter for AI-generated images.

SearXNG is open-source metasearch software that anyone can host, so "SearXNG" really means "one particular instance". On baresearch.org: 0 of 7. Another instance may be configured differently, and public instances go down or rate-limit you.

Two I couldn't test properly

Ecosia: the first query loaded with no AI answer, though there's an "AI Chat" tab in the top menu. Every query after that hit a Cloudflare "are you human" challenge. Ecosia's help pages describe an "AI-free searching" setting and say AI Overviews are only offered in Germany, France, the US and the UK. One query isn't a verdict.

Mojeek returned HTTP 403 on my test search, from both machines I tried. Mojeek runs its own crawler and index, so it's the one I want to retest first.

Two more on my list aren't in this write-up. Brave Search: my testing isn't finished (I still need to check the results page with its AI setting switched off), so I'll report it after the next round. Kagi: even the free trial needs an account, and I didn't sign up.

What surprised me

Bot protection was the biggest obstacle. My first attempt, a headless browser on a server outside the US, was nearly useless: Google, Mojeek and DuckDuckGo all blocked it or refused the connection. Even with a visible browser on a US IP, Google wanted a CAPTCHA on the first query, Ecosia blocked 7 of 8, and Mojeek refused my test search outright. If you try to automate this, you'll need a real browser, a residential connection and someone to solve CAPTCHAs.

"No AI" is mostly about the default, not the product. Two of the four clean results are opt-outs: a special subdomain (DuckDuckGo) or a URL parameter (Google). If you visit the normal homepage, you get the normal experience.

Location matters. From a Singapore IP, Ecosia showed no AI on the one query that loaded, which is expected if AI Overviews aren't offered there. A test from the wrong country can look clean when it isn't.

Limits of this test

One browser (desktop Chrome), one country (US), one day. No Firefox, Edge, Safari or phones yet.
Signed out. Signed-in results may differ.
It's a snapshot. I plan to rerun the same queries once a month.
Brave Search, Ecosia, Mojeek and Kagi need another round before I'd call any of them.

Where the screenshots live

I keep every screenshot, dated, plus a comparison table on a small site I run called Web Without AI. No ads or affiliate links there. The test rules are the ones in this post, and I'll update the table after each monthly rerun.

If you use a search engine I didn't cover, or you see different results in your country, tell me in the comments and I'll add it to the next round.

I drafted this article with help from an AI assistant. The test runs, screenshots and numbers come from my own test log, and I checked them before publishing.

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