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Learn what DuckDuckGo is and the reasons why it has already won millions of hearts among Internet users around the world.
Privacy is an issue that keeps many people concerned today. There are many incidents presented in digital media in which vulnerabilities are exploited to appropriate personal data without any authorization.
Some with commercial interests, others even with darker motives, the truth is that we live in the middle of a war for information. There are proposals on the net that are aimed at offering a safer browsing experience and DuckDuckGo is one of them.
It is a tool that little by little ensures a space in the market, since only in January of this year it reached the 102 million daily searches.
This not inconsiderable number helped it rank as the second most used search engine on mobile devices in countries like the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, among others.
Below, you will find out what DuckDuckGo is and why it has gained popularity in recent times.
What is DuckDuckGo?
It's about a seeker that promises safer experiences, as it focuses on improving your privacy while you obtain information on the network. DuckDuckGo limits the collection of information from its users, which makes it a very attractive tool.
It has a particular browser which can only be used as an application on mobile phones or as an extension of the main browsers on the market. That is, so far it cannot be installed as the main browser on the desktop, although the company has promised to launch its first beta by the end of the year.
DuckDuckGo was founded in 2008 by businessman Gabriel Weinberg, who gave it its name for the children's game DuckDuckGoose. The truth is that its growth has been more gradual than exponential but it is gaining more and more followers.
DuckDuckGo Features
This browser becomes notable due to its privacy functionalities. So much so that it motivated companies like Apple, Mozilla and Google to add it as options within their own search engines.
These are the most outstanding characteristics of the search engine:
1.- It does not track searches
Google plans to delete third-party cookies and this measure has also been adopted by other browsers in whole or in part. The problem is becaue this is a means by which user behavior and description is tracked.
However, third-party cookies are not the only way to identify a user. Facebook has admitted that it tracks even mouse movement, supposedly to distinguish between people and robots.
To prevent any kind of activity from taking place, DuckDuckGo prevents trackers from loading. By doing so, the browser you use will stop sending information to the companies that require it, you will be able to increase browsing speed and reduce data consumption.
2.- Inform which sites try to do a crawl
Through its Privacy Grade feature, the browser scans a website to detect how many tracking requests are blocked and performs a review of the terms of service agreement.
With this information, it establishes a rating to that website that goes from A to F, where A indicates greater security. It also offers you a report on the trackers that it has tried to install on your computer.
3.- Block social media tracking mechanisms
Often some websites introduce the content of their social networks, to show other types of information to their visitors. The problem is that these applications also collect data about your customers or users, including their respective IP.
As a solution to this, DuckDuckGo blocks Facebook content embedded in the web and has promised to soon incorporate other social networks to this extent.
4.- Prevent data from being linked
Search engines link your data. Clicking on a browser shares snippets of information with the website you have accessed.
DuckDuckGo encrypts the website you access, in this way the owner of it and the browser will not be able to know your activity on it.
5.- It does not generate user profiles
Browsers create user profiles with information such as your age, gender, IP address and devices, to offer personalized advertising information. It also makes it easier for the aforementioned filter bubbles to be generated.
There is a filter bubble when a browser shows information oriented to your profile, that is, it does not provide all the available content according to the keywords you have provided through its text box.
For this, DuckDuckGo makes it easy for you to navigate without creating user profiles that can be used by third parties without your consent.
6.- Offers security against attacks and blocks ads
This browser has a mechanism capable of detecting when you may be the victim of security attacks through Cross-Site-Scripting, code injection and clickjacking.
It does this through its Content Security Policy, through which it is possible to identify potentially dangerous sites that may violate your information.
It also allows you to block most ads or create a list of those that you consider to be the safest.
7.- Delete the browsing data when closing the tabs
It does this through the Burn Bar function available only for mobile devices. With it, every time you close the tab, the browser automatically deletes your data when it is established as the end of the session.
In this way you will have total security that your data will not be used by entities without your authorization.
Why is DuckDuckGo gaining popularity?
DuckDuckGo has grown in popularity steadily since its launch. But, in 2020 it achieved growth that has helped it reach important positions within the fierce competition of the largest search engines.
Only during the month of August This year it has exceeded 2.7 billion searches, with a daily average approaching 94 million.
The company says they believe they have between 70 and 100 million users, these figures would be calculated based on estimates of market share, download numbers and national surveys.
They can't say a number exactly, because they don't track their users.
The first factor that has undoubtedly increased the user base of this solution is the growing importance given to maintaining your privacy on the network, considering that in this environment it is very easy to be the center of attacks of all kinds.
This is why the benefits of DuckDuckGo have become so striking. This search engine solves many of the security problems that users face, although it is not perfect since it sometimes requires obtaining your location to give you more precise results based on your location.
On the other hand, thanks to the fact that it has been incorporated as a pre-installed application on Android devices in multiple countries, the creation of important links between the user and the product has been accelerated.
Conclusions
DuckDuckGo is a search and navigation solution that provides a more secure experience for users. It has reached significant levels of use, especially during 2020 and 2021.
Your search engine does not track and also prevents third parties from doing so. It has a mechanism that reports on those sites that try to carry out some kind of attack on your privacy.
It does not create profiles with your browsing data and eliminates the possibilities of linking with them. It also does not allow Facebook integrations with any website to obtain your personal information.
In addition, it removes the browsing data when the window is closed and blocks the appearance of unauthorized ads.
All this has provided it with a site as the second most used search engine on mobile devices and is committed to winning the hearts of users through its early release to the desktop browser market.
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