DuckDuckGo has come under some heavy privacy concerns as of late so we wanted to look what other options are out there for the privacy consensus browser.
Imagine your reliable daily search engine as a relationship that cheats and betrays what you could trust in. DuckDuckGo, unfortunately has lost the position in this relationship to its user base, due to it turning back on itself with privacy. While DuckDuckGo advertises itself to be a privacy-focused browser that has good SEO and great search results, it made one mistake that made its primary feature controversial: It claimed to be privacy focused, yet relies on Microsoft’s Bing as one of its sources for search results allowing third-party trackers to identify user’s data.
What is DuckDuckGo?
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that is designed to protect your privacy while you search the internet. Unlike many other search engines, DuckDuckGo does not track your activity or collect personal information about you, such as your search history, location, or IP address. Instead, it focuses on providing relevant and unbiased search results that are not influenced by your personal data or search habits. DuckDuckGo also offers a number of additional privacy features, such as a built-in ad blocker and the ability to encrypt your searches. It offers services of Web and App Tracking Protection, Smarter Encryption, Private Search, & Email Protection.
What’s the Controversy with DuckDuckGo?
With the features mentioned in their mission statement, it’s important to understand that DuckDuckGo has followed their purpose straight and clearly for a decade as they claim. They have had their users believe their privacy laws are present within the DDG team, although it’s concerning to think that DuckDuckGo would allow Bing to be a leading exception as providence
This matter of privacy exemptions has brought the CEO of Brave.com to notice DuckDuckGo’s choice of allowing such an exception. Brendan Eich, the CEO of Brave, criticized rival search engine DuckDuckGo for not being forthcoming about its browser’s relationship with Microsoft Bing and LinkedIn trackers. Eich questioned DuckDuckGo’s claim that its browsers blocked third-party cookies, which led to an exemption for Microsoft’s Bing and LinkedIn domains. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg had previously explained that the company was limited by its contract with Microsoft and was working to address the issue. However, Eich argued that DuckDuckGo also allowed Microsoft trackers to bypass third-party cookie blocking by using appended URL parameters, making the exemption less meaningful.
It’s intriguing to note that while there are several small search engines available, Google and Bing are the only ones with comprehensive indexes. For instance, DuckDuckGo obtains its index contents from Microsoft. While Google has a monopoly on web search, the competition for indexing the web is even scarcer than that for user-facing search engines. In fact, semantically, it almost contradicts the term “search engine” since the phrase implies that the same service that crawls the web to index the results is the one presenting them to you, which is not accurate in today’s context.
3 Recommended Alternatives for Privacy Browsers
Brave
Brave.com is a web browser that focuses on protecting user privacy and security. It uses the Chromium browser engine and offers various features such as ad-blocking, tracker-blocking, and HTTPS Everywhere to ensure that users’ web browsing activities remain private. Additionally, Brave has an in-built cryptocurrency wallet and rewards program that allows users to earn cryptocurrency by viewing ads that respect their privacy. In essence, Brave.com aims to deliver a faster, more secure, and more private web browsing experience for its users.
Torry
Torry is a web browser that operates on the Tor network and can be easily enabled with a single click to ensure secure browsing. It is compatible with both Desktop and Android platforms, allowing users to safely explore dark websites and .onion sites while preserving their anonymity. Additionally, Torry has a user-friendly interface and offers practical features such as filtering search results by category and language.
MetaGer
MetaGer’s approach to search privacy is centered on anonymity from the outset. When using Metager, search queries are treated as anonymous, with no recording or storage of IP addresses, and no sharing of information with other search engines. As a German-based search engine, MetaGer is subject exclusively to Germany’s data protection laws, with all servers located within the country. The “Foundation for the Protection of Privacy,” a German organization founded by the Federal Republic of Germany, recommends MetaGer as the top choice for a search engine
WebOProxy 