DuckDuckGo simply picked a struggle with Google over YouTube advertisements

No one likes watching advertisements on YouTube, together with yours really, and most of the people don’t appear able to fork over $14 monthly to disable them. So it’s no shock that YouTube is commonly a main goal for ad-blocking instruments. DuckDuckGo, positioning itself because the anti-Google, is now proudly quacking that its personal browser blocks YouTube advertisements out of the field.

“The free DuckDuckGo browser now blocks most video advertisements, together with on YouTube,” mentioned a PR message in my inbox this morning. The blocking system is on by default—no additional extensions or settings modifications required—within the newest construct for desktops and iPhones. Android customers will get the replace quickly, however can already allow it manually. I checked on my Samsung telephone, and positive sufficient, “YouTube Advert Blocking” is correct there on the primary Settings web page.

The ad-blocking system is baked proper into the browser, nevertheless it’s “powered by open-source lists from uBlock Origin,” which has its personal difficult historical past with Google and the Chrome browser. DuckDuckGo’s browser is predicated on open-source Chromium.

DuckDuckGo squares as much as Google

That is an fascinating transfer from DuckDuckGo. The corporate has been capitalizing on the fatigue that some customers really feel in direction of “AI” options being crammed into each product, particularly Google Search, which is now dominated by Google’s Gemini auto-generated content material.

Whereas DuckDuckGo has all the time been introduced as a extra non-public, tracking-free search different, now it’s distinguishing itself from the market’s main participant by providing a search that’s utterly freed from generative AI, or at the least as free as the online will get in 2026. (It’s value mentioning that DuckDuckGo isn’t utterly anti-AI, like Vivaldi. DuckDuckGo nonetheless presents generative AI instruments, albeit with extra privateness options than you sometimes see.)

The DDG browser consists of a lot of privateness and ad-blocking instruments out of the field. However blocking advertisements on YouTube by default, and selling this function instantly through a press launch plus a devoted data web page, is one thing of an escalation of power. DuckDuckGo has been a bit participant on the internet for nearly 20 years. Now it’s going after a major supply of Google’s income, the promoting bucks which are raked in on the most well-liked video web site on the planet.

DuckDuckGo isn’t simply positioning itself as a substitute for Google Search or Chrome anymore—it’s turning into a method to encroach on Google’s territory with out paying the toll.

DuckDuckGo

As increasingly more customers attempt to discover a method to free themselves of platforms that forcibly shove AI options into each nook and cranny, YouTube included, DuckDuckGo has an actual branding alternative. With this, DDG might turn out to be the Firefox to Chrome’s Web Explorer, the selection of energy customers and those that simply don’t just like the mainstream possibility.

Notably, DuckDuckGo says that it broke its all-time single-day search document final month, shortly after Google introduced much more AI slop in its personal search engine.

Poking the bear

This duck is poking a really large bear. Google is thought to aggressively push again towards any ad-blocking on YouTube—utilizing an ad-blocker is technically a violation of the positioning’s phrases of service.

Google periodically updates YouTube to render ad-blocking ineffective (which is often countered by ad-block builders quickly after) and even slows down the positioning or breaks the web page if it detects ad-blocker use.

Although DuckDuckGo’s browser isn’t the one one which has ad-blocking as a core function, this particular concentrating on of YouTube is pretty brazen as this stuff go. It would create a response from YouTube and Google. I’ve reached out to a Google consultant for remark.