DuckDuckGo’s new browser hopes privacy will make you empty Chrome
Following the popularity of its mobile application, DuckDuckGo has announced plans to offer its privacy-focused browser to desktop users. The company announced the desktop browser in an article chronicling the things it accomplished throughout 2021.
Eliseu Geisler / Shutterstock
Chief among those accomplishments has been the release of an all-in-one privacy browser. The app is available on Android and iOS, and it offers a full browsing experience alongside other notable features like blocking trackers and search enhancements that protect your private data. The app also includes what DuckDuckGo calls the Fire Button, which clears all of your browsing history, cookies, and tracking data with the push of a single button.
2021 was a year of milestones for the company. DuckDuckGo already celebrated a research milestone earlier this year; it states that the app is currently one of the most downloaded apps on the Google Play Store and is only second behind Chrome on the iOS App Store. The company also said it currently averages over 100 million searches per day, and a recent survey showed that 9% of Americans (over 27 million) use DuckDuckGo to search the web.
A DuckDuckGo desktop browser is in the works
The desktop app DuckDuckGo is working on will include all the features it already offers in its mobile app, including several new features currently in beta testing like App Tracking Protection, which blocks third-party trackers from apps like Google and Facebook.
Another part of the big changes that the DuckDuckGo desktop app will offer includes an updated search results page. The company claims to have improved the look and function of its page to provide a more streamlined and refined search engine for users. In addition, DuckDuckGo says it wants to “redefine user expectations for everyday online privacy.”
It hopes to do so by offering a deep set of privacy protection features that work by default in your searches, regular browsing, email, and more. The company says it wants to go beyond simply providing another “privacy browser” and instead offer an app that respects user privacy in all aspects of your online use.
The desktop app is currently in development, and DuckDuckGo says it doesn’t use Google’s Chromium engine like other browsers have in the past. Instead, it will use the rendering engines provided by the operating system to create an application that runs without unnecessary clutter. The company says early tests are promising and the app has already proven to be much faster than Google Chrome.