DuckDuckGo Review: what is DuckDuckGo, owner, how it works, how to use duckduckgo, safety, benefits, how to download, and how they make money?
There has been increased demand for the need for cyber-privacy over the years, with huge tech companies like Facebook facing allegations and charges regarding such. In March 2008, The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection began investigating Facebook after it had been revealed that private data was illegally harvested from a web personality quiz and sold to Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm.
Subsequent claims were made, alleging that the data may have been used to try and influence the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election and UK Brexit referendum. We’ve also heard of the customer’s privacy violations involving other companies like Yahoo, Vizio, CVS, Verizon and Ashley Madison.
It is due to concerns like this which actually makes DuckDuckGo stand out among the myriad of other search engines out there.
In this article, we’ll plunge right into a full review of the DuckDuckGo search engine.
What is DuckDuckGo?
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an internet search engine just like the popular Google we’ve all gotten used to. September 25, 2008, saw the birth of DuckDuckGo, an online program which emphasizes the protection of searchers’ privacy and therefore the avoidance of filter bubbles of personalized search results.
DDG was created by Gabriel Weinberg using Perl, Javascript and Python as programming languages. It is owned by Duck Duck Go Inc. The company name may be a regard to the children’s game ‘’duck, duck, goose”. The company is predicated in Paoli, Pennsylvania, in Greater Philadelphia and has 116 employees as of November 2020.
Search results from DuckDuckGo are a compilation of about 400 sources, including Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, Yandex, its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot) et al. . In addition to the aforementioned sources, DuckDuckGo also uses data from crowdsourced sites with Wikipedia included, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the results.
URL: http://DuckDuckGo.com/
Benefits/What makes DuckDuckGo different
- Privacy Protection:
DuckDuckGo is committed to the protection of the privacy of its users. It stands out among other search engines by not profiling its users and by showing all users similar search results for a given search term. It doesn’t collect, store, share any personal data. It neither track nor store your search history.
DuckDuckGo does not put your personal data up for sale neither does it make them available to advertisers. As a bonus, it also blocks advertising trackers. DuckDuckGo also allows a user to extend his or her privacy further, to cover not just the searches but other browser activity by making available, complementary DuckDuckGo products.
- Fewer Ads
Comparison of search results obtained from DuckDuckGo with that obtained from Google, showed that DuckDuckGo displays fewer ads compared to that of Google. While Google displayed a total of 6 ads upon searching for “real estate” alongside its usual “People Also Ask” suggestions, DuckDuckGo only displayed a total of 3.
Since DuckDuckGo doesn’t store your search history, the company therefore has nothing to sell to advertisers that track you across the internet.
- No Tracking in Or Out Of Private Browsing Mode
A lot of other browsers still track your activities even after they’ve promised you complete privacy in their incognito mode. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you both in and out of private mode. They uphold their vow for maintaining your privacy.
- Non-Personalized Search Results
One thing you’ll notice about DuckDuckGo is that their search results are not personalized or tailored to your needs in any way. Take the result from Google as an example. Results from Google are personalized in ways which could be based on parameters like: location, search and browsing history, information Google knows about you, as well as other Google products you’ve patronized.
This particular lack of personalization in the side of DuckDuckGo though awesome for privacy protection, does reduce the quality of user experience. Nevertheless, there’s an option which allows you to enable your location for personalized local searches which will help you find businesses that are close to your area.
- Instant Search Results (Instant Answers)
DuckDuckGo has this feature of displaying the relevant results referred to as “Instant Answers”, on top of the search page. The displayed instant answers are obtained from either third party APIs or static data sources like text files.
The instant answers also are called zeroclickinfo; this is often because the intention behind it, is to supply what users are checking out within the search result page itself in order that they do not need to click any results to seek out what they’re trying to find .
- User Experience
DuckDuckGo has some features that may be manipulated to obtain the desired user experience. It has an option for infinite scroll, which means that you can keep accessing your search results vertically without having to go from page 1 to page 2 and so on, as seen with Google.
You also have the option to turn off adverts totally, I don’t know if it’s wise for the company to do this considering the fact that they actually need the proceeds obtained via advertising to keep the site running, but yeah, they’ve been doing it for years now and still haven’t shutdown, which means they are cool with it. So, if you find search result ads to be annoying, you can go ahead and turn it off.
Options are also made available for choosing fonts settings, colour scheme, and even getting to decide if you want the URL to appear above or below the snippet.
- Tor Access
DuckDuckGo introduced anonymous searching in August 2010. It also included an exit enclave for its search engine traffic using Tor network and also enabling access through an onion service. This helps to bring about anonymity by routing traffic through a series of encrypted relays.
- Voice search
DuckDuckGo introduced voice search for individuals who uses the Google chrome voice search extension.
- Bang commands
DuckDuckGo makes use of “Bang” commands which are shortcuts that allow you to search for results on other websites. It gives users the ability to search on specific third-party websites, using the site’s own search engine if applicable.
13,564 “bangs” for a diverse range of internet sites have been made available as at August 2020.
How DuckDuckGo makes money
DuckDuckGo earns revenue primarily by serving ads from the Yahoo-Bing search alliance network and through affiliate relations with ecommerce sites like Amazon and eBay.
Where to get DuckDuckGo
It can be downloaded from www.duckduckgo.com/app
Alternatively, you can download directly here for Android or IOS