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Using DuckAI in Windows as an alternative to Copilot

About DuckAI and Copilot

Copilot is a handy Artificial Intelligence (AI) feature of Windows. You can quickly use ALT+SPACE to open the Copilot and use AI to answer your questions.

However, for many, privacy issues may be a reason to leave Copilot alone. Or you may not have access to Copilot for whatever reason. For those, DuckAI can be a better alternative. DuckAI uses ChatGPT and because all queries are sent to ChatGPT by DuckAI, your chats are not linked to you.

But Windows offers no easy keyboard shortcut like ALT+SPACE to open DuckAI as it does for Copilot. Luckily, using Unify's Hotkey Extender and its scripting engine you can easily create this.

Below you we give a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this.

Tutorial

Obviously, you first need to install and open Unify. Once that's done:

1. Create the script

The Hotkey Extender can pass any query / text you type to a script. That way we can process that query using scripting. In this case we want to pass the query to DuckAI.

To do this, we are going to create a script that opens DuckAI website in a popup window and once the site is loaded, the script will paste the query input from the Hotkey Extender.

To create the script:

1. Right-click Tools and then left-click Scripting.

2. Enter the following code in the Script Editor: if(input != '') // We only update the clipboard if a query was entered { ClipboardSetData('{input}'); } await OpenUrlInPopUp('https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo+AI+Chat&ia=chat&duckai=1', false, false); Sleep(500); if(input != '') // We only paste the query if there is a query { SendKeys('^v{ENTER}', 0); }
3. Save the script to a location you desire.

2. Create the HotKey

Now we will create a hotkey in Unify's HotKey extender that will execute the script:

1. From Unifys' main window, click Options then goto the Hotkeys section.
2. From there, add a new Hotkey by clicking the Add hotkey button.
3. Enter the following information:

Decription	Any name you want, like DuckAI
Action	Select Run Script
Parameter	Browse for the script file you created above
Hotkey	Check the checkbox to make this hotkey a subhotkey. Then, as the subhotkey, enter ?


4. Click Save settings.

3. Test hotkey

Now test the hotkey by opening the HotKey Extender (using CTRL+SPACE by default). Then press '? ' (question mark, space; do not forget the space!) followed by the query and press ENTER.

If you do not enter any query, the script will simply open DuckAI.

This will open DuckAI. The first time you do this you will need to setup DuckAI. But after that, DuckAI wil start answering your queries.

Conclusion

As you can see above, Unify allows you to quickly open DuckAI from a hotkey and start chatting with an AI without having to worry if your chats are being sent directly to your president or any other dictator 😊!

Happy chatting everyone!