A search engine is used to search and find content on the internet based on a search query. When you enter any query, the search engine crawls the entire internet on your behalf and displays you a list of search results that are relevant to your query.
There are hundreds of search engines, but only a few have a dominant hand. Duckduckgo is one such search engine that is popular for its ability to keep users’ search information and data private. But is duckduckgo really safe? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
What is an anonymous search engine?
Anonymous search engines don’t store or collect user information like IP address, browser fingerprint, location, search information, cookies, or other information in any way. They are primarily aimed to maintain user privacy and leave no trace of the user search details.
Duckduckgo is one of the noteworthy search engines after the major search engine giants like google and bing.
It is a privacy-focused anonymous search engine alternative to Google, founded in 2008. It has an app and a browser extension of its search engine that is supported by almost every major operating system and browser. As of 2022, there are about 80 million users of Duckduckgo (including the search engine, extension, and mobile application).
Duckduckgo market Share
The overall market share of Duckduckgo has witnessed a significant rise over the years. Across the global search engine market, Duckduckgo claims a 3.08% of share.
Every year, the annual search queries and the number of users are constantly increasing. With people becoming aware of privacy and security issues lately, a drastic rise in the use of a private anonymous search engine like Duckduckgo is clearly evident.
How do search engines make money?
Search engines are not charity. They do need money to keep providing us with the data we need and to run their data centers. For some search engine giants in the market like google and Microsoft, this isn’t their only source of income.
But for certain companies that are completely concentrated only on search engines, it is necessary for them to make money in some way. If they provide us with the data for free, how do they make money? Mostly through the paid ads that get displayed on the search results and through affiliate marketing.
How does Duckduckgo make money?
Ads are primarily targeted based on what we search for. But if Duckduckgo doesn’t track users’ information how is it making money? They clearly state that most part of their revenue comes from private ads that are displayed based on the search results page that is viewed.
For eg: If you search for headphones you will get ads about headphones on the search results page. These ads are not targeted based on your purchase history or browsing activity, unlike the other search engines. But purely based on the keywords searched.
Duckduckgo has also clearly mentioned that they are a part of the affiliate programs of Amazon and eBay. Whenever you visit these sites or make any purchase in them, Duckduckgo would receive a small commission fee. Duckduckgo has also stated that no personal information is exchanged between these parties and the process is completely anonymous.
Incognito Mode Vs Duckduckgo
Incognito mode is Google’s version of the private browser. Google claims that when using incognito mode, it doesn’t remember your activity, browsing history, cookies, form data, and other site data.
The data isn’t stored on your device but it doesn’t mean the websites you visit or your ISP don’t have access to it. Your activities can still be tracked by the website you visited or your isp even if you use incognito mode.
Duckduckgo on the other is a completely anonymous private search engine, that doesn’t track your searches as well as blocks most of the trackers across the internet to keep your browsing safe and private.
How safe is Duckduckgo?
It is far safer than any mainstream browser. Duckduckgo doesn’t track you in any form, through searches, cookies, IP addresses, or other information. There is no auto-suggestion or search history that you can check back. It also blocks third-party trackers from collecting your data. They also block the ads, banners, and popups from the websites by default.
Privacy Features of duckduckgo
Global Privacy Control – It is a way of telling websites, the user’s privacy preference not to track them in any way. It is similar to the DoNotTrack feature of google. But the DNT is optional and is more like a suggestion/recommendation.
It is up to the websites to take it or drop it. But this is not the case with the GPC of Duckduckgo, it is mandatory for websites to respect and follow it, and if they fail it gives Duckduckgo the right to take legal actions against them.
Smarter encryption – This feature is to make most of the connections (almost 81%) to websites encrypted by forcing HTTPS connection, thus preventing you from potential eavesdropping on the information.
Content Security Policy – Uses a security specification called content security policy to protect you from hacking and other vulnerabilities like XSS, CSRF, code injection, and much more.
Anonymous localized results – certain search queries like weather, and restaurants near me may require your location in order to provide accurate results.
For such queries, Duckduckgo uses the IP address in your device and predicts the location using the geo::ip lookup functionality. And it also makes sure to throw away or dispose of both the predicted location as well the IP address.
Social media embedded content protection – When a website has embedded content from any social media, then such content quite often contains a tracking code inbuilt, that is used to track your information.
Duckduckgo blocks such social media embedded content by default. Currently, they block certain social media companies like facebook, and overtime this feature will probably be enhanced to provide much more protection against other social media companies.
Microsoft controversy
Duckduckgo has always claimed that they block trackers from other sites from gathering user information and to maintain privacy. Recently security researcher Zack Edwards tweeted that Duckduckgo’s mobile browsers allow trackers from some Microsoft sites and also allow data to be transferred to Microsoft’s LinkedIn and bing ads. Though the browser does block trackers from google and Facebook, it seems that the Microsoft trackers are bypassed.
Duckduckgo has revealed that they have made a search agreement with Microsoft and have also mentioned in their help pages that they have partnered with Microsoft to display relevant ads to you while still protecting your privacy.
If you ask, is Duckduckgo still safe? Of course, it is. They have made due efforts to make sure they are far ahead of other search engines to protect users’ privacy. More transparency from the team would be much appreciated. Comparatively, it is definitely a safer browser option in the search engine market.
