Brave just crossed 117.56 million monthly active users in May 2026 and DuckDuckGo says its US installs jumped 76% after Google’s big AI search overhaul. Both privacy-focused products are basically saying the same thing in different ways. Users are moving when they feel Google is pushing too much AI into their everyday browsing and search.

Brave’s record month

Brendan Eich shared fresh Brave numbers on X. Brave hit 117.56 million monthly active users in May and daily active users grew 3.1%.

He called it the second-best browser growth month of 2026 and said new browser user volume hit an all-time high. This is quite a bump for a browser that already cleared 100 million MAU a little while back.

He also pointed to a jump in Android and iOS browser installs in the US right after Google I/O 2026. Android daily active users are now back at record levels after what he described as a previous “haircut.”

The official Brave account followed up with a quote-post celebrating that the browser now has over 117 million monthly users.

brave-browser-celebrates-117-million-monthly-users

Brave is also winning on other fronts as more and more alternative web browsers are now adopting its ad-blocking tech. The team also finally shipped Brave Origin to the stable channel on desktops, which further strips away all AI and bloatware.

DuckDuckGo’s AI backlash moment

On the search side, DuckDuckGo is clearly enjoying the uproar around Google’s new AI-heavy results. The company posted that “people don’t want AI forced on them” and said DuckDuckGo lets you choose.

According to the same post, since Google’s AI overhaul, DuckDuckGo’s US installs peaked at 76% above the pre-announcement average. The company also says it broke its single-day search record.

This follows an already impressive 30% boost in week-over-week installs in the US just last a few days ago. And it also comes after the platform announced a 3x spike in traffic to its “No AI” search page.

DuckDuckGo is also leaning into the message that Google is too political for some users. In a reply to a user, the company said its search ranking is “strictly non political” and that it doesn’t take into account any political bias or leanings of websites when ranking results. This approach is aimed straight at people who are tired of arguing about which search results are being boosted or buried.

Google’s AI push is the common trigger

Neither Brave nor DuckDuckGo mentions every detail of Google’s rollout in these posts. They don’t need to. Anyone who has tried the new Google AI overview style results knows what they are reacting to.

Google is betting that people will get used to AI-generated summaries on top of search. Brave and DuckDuckGo are betting that a big chunk of users still want classic control. In Brave’s case, that means more privacy, fewer trackers, and a browser that can plug into alternative search engines more easily. For DuckDuckGo, it means search where AI is a toggle, not the default experience.

But as I had pointed out in an earlier piece, retention is the hardest part. Only time will tell whether Brave and DuckDuckGo will be able to use this momentum and keep gaining even more traction, or if users flock back to Google once the dust settles.

Featured image generated with AI

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