Tag Archives: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo Browser Updates: Sync Your Bookmarks And Passwords

Security

DuckDuckGo has added browser updates that sync your bookmarks and passwords across devices. Here are some of newly added features:

Now live: Sync bookmarks, passwords, and Email Protection settings between DuckDuckGo browsers on phones, tablets, and computers, privately and securely.

Our new Sync & Backup feature is designed with your privacy and security in mind. You don’t need to create an account or sign in to use it, and DuckDuckGo never sees your bookmarks or passwords.

The DuckDuckGo browser is our privacy-respecting alternative to Chrome and other browsers — use it every day to visit websites and search the web. You can download it for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android devices.

Ditching Chrome for the DuckDuckGo browser is easier than ever.

Have you been waiting to try the DuckDuckGo browser? Maybe you’re using our browser on your phone but haven’t tried the Windows or Mac version? Now is the perfect time to make DuckDuckGo the default browser on all your devices, thanks to our latest improvement: Sync & Backup. You could already import bookmarks and passwords from other browsers into DuckDuckGo, but now you can privately sync those bookmarks and passwords between DuckDuckGo browsers on multiple devices.

Bring your passwords and bookmarks with you — without compromising your privacy.

When you use Chrome, there’s a good chance you’re signed in with your Google account – because they’re constantly pressuring you to do so! There is a convenience in that; all your bookmarks, passwords, and favorites follow you wherever you browse, whether you’re using your computer, phone, or tablet. But there’s a problem. This also gives Google implicit permission to collect even more data about your browsing activity than they would otherwise have and use for targeted advertising that can follow you around.

At DuckDuckGo, we don’t track you; that’s our privacy policy in a nutshell. We’ve developed our privacy-respecting import and sync functions without requiring a DuckDuckGo account – and without compromising your personal data…

ArsTechnica reported that DuckDuckGo keeps adding new features to its browser; and while these features are common in other browsers, DuckDuckGo is giving them a privacy-minded twist. The latest is a private, end-to-end encrypted syncing service. There’s no account needed, no sign-in, and the company says it never sees what you’re syncing.

DuckDuckGo points to Google’s privacy policy for using its signed-in sync services on Chrome, which uses “aggregated and anonymized synchronized browsing data to improve other Google product and services.” DuckDuckGo states that the encryption key for browsers sync is stored only locally on your devices and that to lacks any access to your password or other data.

In my opinion, DuckDuckGo is clearly trying to sway people away from Google. And why wouldn’t it? Google’s privacy options are terrible, and DuckDuckGo is much safer.

DuckDuckGo Did Not Purge Websites

search

TorrentFreak reported that sites like The Pirate Bay,1337x, and Fmovies no longer appear when searched on DuckDuckGo’s search engine. According to TorrentFreak, several YouTube ripping services have disappeared, and the homepage of the open-source software YouTube-mp3 is “unfindable”.

Gabriel Weinberg, CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, posted a thread of tweets in response to not only the TorrentFreak article, but other websites who reported similar ones. He did not name any of them in his thread.

Gabriel Weinberg’s thread started with: “Hoping to clear up some misconceptions about our private search engine. First. There is a completely made up headline going around this weekend. We are not “purging” any media outlets from results. Anyone can verify this by searching for an outlet and see it come up in results.”

“Similarly, we are not “purging” YouTube-dl or The Pirate Bay and they both have actually been continuously available in our results if your search for them by name (which most people do). Our site: operator (which hardly anyone uses) is having issues which we are looking into.”

“We are not and have never been owned by Google, and we also don’t rely on Google’s results for any of our search results. We have been an independent company since our founding in 2008.”

In a later tweet in that thread, Gabriel Weinberg wrote: “Search ranking and censorship are entirely different things. We make our results useful by ranking spam lower. We are not ranking based on any political agenda or my (or anyone else’s) personal political opinions. We are also not assessing any individual news stories.”

What happened? PCMag reported that DuckDuckGo says this was a technical issue rather than a policy shift.

“After looking into this,” the company says, “our records indicate that YouTube-dl and The Pirate Bay were never removed from our search results when you searched from them directly by name or URL, which the vast majority of people do (it’s rare for people to use site operators or query operators in general).”

“We are having issues with our site:operator, and not just for these sites, but now at least the official site should be coming up for them when you use site:operator for them,” DuckDuckGo says. “Some of the other sites routinely change domain names and have spotty availability, and so naturally come in and out of the index but should be available as of now.”

Shortly before I started writing this blog post, I went to DuckDuckGo and typed in the main domain name for The Pirate Bay. One search result appeared, and the link was clickable. I put in the main domain name for 1337x, NYAA.se, FMovies.to, lookmovie.io and 123moviesfree.net. All of them appeared in search results. My best guess is that whatever was not working on DuckDuckGo has been fixed.

DuckDuckGo Introduces Beta Launch of DuckDuckGo for Mac

Privacy

DuckDuckGo announced the beta launch of DuckDuckGo for Mac. Like their mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-in-one privacy solution for everyday browsing with no complicated settings, just a seamless experience. DuckDuckGo for Windows is coming soon.

Using an app designed to protect your privacy by default not only reduces invasive tracking, it also speeds up browsing and eliminates many everyday annoyances like cookie consent pop-ups.

DuckDuckGo for Mac gives you privacy by default. With one download you get their built-in private search engine, powerful tracker blocker, “new” cookie pop-up protection on approximately 50% of sites (with that % growing significantly throughout beta), Fire Button (one-click data clearing), email protection and more – all for free. No complicated privacy settings, just simple privacy protection that works by default.

DuckDuckGo for Mac is really fast! By using your computer’s built-in website rendering engine (the same one Safari uses), and by blocking trackers before they load (unlike all the major browsers), you’ll get really fast browsing. It is already faster than Chrome on some graphics performance (using the Motion Mark 1.2 benchmark) and as an additional benefit, by blocking trackers, DuckDuckGo uses about 60% less data than Chrome.

DuckDuckGo for Mac is built for security. Their built-in Smarter Encryption ensures you navigate to the encrypted (HTTPS) version of a website more often, and their tracking blocker means less exposure to third-party scripts that could try to access your data. And they design their product so that all in-app data, like history, bookmarks, and passwords, by default are only stored locally on your device and aren’t accessible to DuckDuckGo.

The beta of DuckDuckGo for Mac has a waitlist. The company is letting new people off the waitlist, and says the sooner you join, the sooner you’ll get it. You won’t need to share any personal information to join. Instead you’ll secure your place in line with a date and time that exists solely on your device. DuckDuckGo will notify you when they are ready for you to join the beta.

Right now, the beta is Mac only. The Windows beta is coming. DuckDuckGo recommends Windows users follow them on Twitter for updates.

Personally, I would like to check out DuckDuckGo for Mac after it launches. Im not a fan of having my data taken without my permission by websites that want to use it for their own financial benefit.

Doing that is very likely illegal, because I live in California which instituted the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) in 2020. There have been countless times when a website intentionally makes it extremely difficult to shut off their tracking and cookies. I would love to see DuckDuckGo for Mac shut all that garbage off for me!

DuckDuckGo Introduced App Tracking Protection for Android

Android

DuckDuckGo has introduced App Tracking Protection for Android into beta. It is a new feature in their existing app that will block third-party trackers like Google and Facebook lurking in other apps.

Across all your apps, your personal data is being sent to dozens of third-party companies, thousands of times per week. This data enables tracking networks like Facebook and Google to create even more detailed digital profiles on you. With those profiles, tracking networks can manipulate what you see online, target you with ads based on your behavior, and even sell your data to other companies like data brokers, advertisers, and governments.

According to DuckDuckGo, over 96% of the popular free Android apps they tested (based on AndroidRank.org rankings) contained hidden third-party trackers. Of those, 87% sent data to Google and 68% sent data to Facebook.

If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, you are protected by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. This feature asks users in each app whether they want to allow third-party app tracking or not, with the vast majority of people opting-out.

Most smartphone users worldwide use Android, DuckDuckGo claims, where no similar feature to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency exists. As such, it makes sense for DuckDuckGo to create something similar that protects Android users from being tracked without their permission.

The App Tracking Protection from DuckDuckGo is currently in beta and is free. It blocks trackers it identifies in other apps from third-party companies (those different from the company that owns each app). The App Tracking Protection is built into the DuckDuckGo Android app.

I think this is an excellent solution, especially since it is created by DuckDuckGo, a company that clearly cares about privacy. It is unclear to me why Android smartphones don’t already have something like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency protections. In my opinion, users of Android phones should have the same protection as users of Apple’s iPhones and iPads do.

DuckDuckGo Revamped Their Browser Extension and Mobile App

Privacy

DuckDuckGo announced that they have fully revamped versions of their browser extension and mobile app. Their new app and browser extension will block advertising tracker networks, increase encryption protection, and help you search privately – no matter what platform you are on.

Today, we’re taking a major step to simplify online privacy with the launch of fully revamped network blocking, smarter encryption, and, of course, private search – all designed to operate seamlessly together while you search and browse the web. Our updated app and extension are now available across all major platforms – Firefox, Safari, Chrome, iOS, and Android – so that you can easily get all the privacy essentials you need on any device with just one download.

Both the revamped browser extension and mobile app will show you a Privacy Grade rating (A-F) when you visit a website. The rating lets you see at a glance how protected you are, dig into the details to see who DuckDuckGo caught trying to track you, and learn how DuckDuckGo enhanced the underlying website’s privacy measures.

The Privacy Grade is scored automatically based on the prevalence of hidden tracker networks, encryption availability, and website privacy practices.

DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Protection will block all the hidden trackers they can find, exposing the major advertising networks tracking you over time, so that you can find out who is trying to track you.

If DuckDuckGo discovers a site offers an encrypted version but does not send you to it automatically, DuckDuckGo will send you to the encrypted version of that website.