DuckDuckGo

The company’s excellent browser does a great job of blocking trackers, and it’s always been fun to check the ‘Protections Report’ about how many it’s stopped from pinching your data. The DuckDuckGo VPN is available as part of a subscription to the DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro service that costs $9.99 a month/$99.99 a year and also includes personal information removal, and identity theft restoration. Solid speeds and reliable geo-unblocking are one thing, but a lack of features like a kill switch is likely to be tough to swallow for experienced VPN users looking for alternatives. Privacy is DuckDuckGo’s forte, and while the powerful browser that dodges trackers and digital snooping has become a go-to for many, you may not be aware of its VPN service.

It’s the kind of service you hope you never need, but it’s there if you do. Split Tunnelling is available, though, letting you route traffic from specific apps and sites through the VPN or outside of it, and you can set the VPN to connect automatically when you log in, but that’s about it for features. Perhaps the biggest downside right now is a lack of power features. It’s into this ecosystem that the VPN service arrives, and you’ll need to use the browser to install it first and foremost. It’s also now packing optional AI features, letting you takabet app engage with a chatbot with a little more privacy than a browser-based ChatGPT or Claude window.

Vivaldi Powerful Web Browser

These types of Instant Answer extensions are differentiated by how their data is retrieved. In addition to the indexed search results, DuckDuckGo displays relevant results, called instant answers, at the top of the search page. DuckDuckGo offers HTML and lite versions of its search for browsers without JavaScript capabilities.

People

A new record of 111,703,299 daily searches was set on 17 January 2022. On January 11, 2021, a record of over 102.2 million daily searches was achieved. In January 2019, DuckDuckGo set a record of 1 billion monthly searches; and in November of the same year, it hit 50 million searches per day. Danny Sullivan wrote on Search Engine Land that despite the search engine’s growth “it’s not grown anywhere near the amount to reflect any substantial or even mildly notable switching by the searching public” for reasons due to privacy, and he concluded “No One Cares About “Private” Search”. On average, during May 2013, it had 1.8 million daily direct searches.

• Longtail Instant Answers are full-text queries to a DuckDuckGo database of articles.
• Brave Search is the built-in search option for the Brave Browser and runs on its own independent search index rather than relying on Google or Bing.
• On March 10, the Pale Moon web browser, starting with version 24.4.0, included DuckDuckGo as its default search engine, as well as listed it on the browser’s homepage.
• Chrome’s Tracking Tech Protection — stops Google from using your browser to collect and auction off your personal data with their latest advertising trackers and targeting (“Protected Audience API” and “Topics API”).
• And many more protections not available on most browsers, even in private browsing mode, including protection from link tracking, Global Privacy Control (GPC), and more.

DuckDuckGo Search & Tracker Protection

The search engine, mobile browser, and browser extensions are all available at no cost. This protects sensitive information like passwords and personal data from interception. DuckDuckGo shows the same results to everyone, keeping your searches genuinely open. Google tailors what you see based on your search history, location, and past browsing behavior, which over time creates a filter around the content you encounter. Another meaningful advantage is that search results are not personalized. The result is fewer intrusive ads and a browsing experience that does not feel like you are being watched at every turn.

DuckDuckGo is built primarily upon search APIs from various vendors. The company’s name is a reference to the children’s game duck, duck, goose. Headquartered in Paoli, Pennsylvania, DuckDuckGo is a privately held company with about 200 employees.

Oh, and our browser extension is free — we make money from privacy-respecting search ads, not by exploiting your data. And our browsing protections, such as ad tracker blocking and cookie blocking, help stop other companies from collecting your data. Our built-in search engine is like Google but never tracks your searches.