DuckDuckGo calls itself the search engine that does not track you. Usually search engines, including search giant Google, collect and store data and link that data with the user’s account.
This information is used to personalise search results, but since DuckDuckGo does not track the user it does not personalise the search results.
DuckDuckGo, launched in 2008, has 38.8 million daily and 31 billion total searches as of June 2019.
Recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had said he has switched to DuckDuckGo, even though the brand has a mere 0.28% market share in the search engine market, while Google has a massive 81.5% share, stated the Newsmarket report as of September 2019.
Here’s a look at the five privacy features that DuckDuckGo has and Google does not:
1. Google uses information shared by websites and apps in order to deliver personalised content and ads for users, so when a user goes to a website that uses Google’s advertising service AdSense, analytics tools automatically send information such as URL, user’s IP address to Google.
In DuckDuckGo, the user is not tracked nor is the IP address tracked, as a result nobody can take advantage of the search history.
2. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo forces sites use an encrypted connection wherever available, which again protects the user from data breach.
3. DuckDuckGo search is anonymous, as a result each time the one uses it the search history is clear, leaving no trace of information. Google on the other hand by default saves a user’s search history.