There is a good chance that you are searching online via Google. That works well, of course, but Google and the many advertisers don’t care much about your privacy. For example, if you want to search more anonymously, you can use DuckDuckGo. Check here three reasons to give the search engine a chance.
Using DuckDuckGo: 3 reasons to try the search engine
DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines with a selective revenue model and a focus on (your) privacy. You can read exactly how that works below.
1. The company does not collect user data
Most online search engines keep track of your searches and thus create a profile of you. Such a personal profile is valuable, because it says a lot about who you are and what you are interested in. Commercial parties would like to use these details for advertising purposes, but government services also value it. During an investigation into a (possible) criminal, the police can, for example, ask / force the company behind the search engine to hand over the profile of that person.
DuckDuckGo promises not to collect user data. Your searches and internet history are private and are not tracked by the search engine or other parties. So no personal profile is created, which is why DuckDuckGo says it doesn’t get government requests to provide data.
Anonymous searching has another advantage. DuckDuckGo – because it has no user profiles – presents the same search results to everyone. While that sounds logical, most search engines only show results that match your interests and previous searches. If a hundred people search for the same topic, they will all see different links. Experts are critical of this, because in this way people end up in a so-called filter bubble.
2. You will not receive any personal ads
Since DuckDuckGo does not store user data, it has no information about you and your search behavior. As a result, the company cannot sell data to advertisers, which other search engines do. Advertisers like to serve you personal advertisements because you click on them faster, and such companies earn from clicks. DuckDuckGo also shows ads next to and above search results, but these ads are based on the search query only.
So if you search for ‘Buy Porsche 911’, you will get general advertisements from, among other things, online price comparison sites and sites that sell car parts. The advertisements are usually less relevant than the advertisements that, for example, Google serves you, which benefits your privacy. And do you want to see no ads at all? Then you can disable the ads in the settings of the DuckDuckGo app.
3. DuckDuckGo cares about (your) privacy
DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines with a selective revenue model and a focus on (your) privacy. The company tries to cooperate as much as possible with parties with the same mission. For example, DuckDuckGo recently switched from Google Maps to Apple Maps, which now shows maps for relevant searches. If you are looking for a pizzeria in Nijmegen, DuckDuckGo will serve you all pizzerias on an Apple Maps map.
Although that doesn’t sound very exciting, Apple Maps is much more privacy-friendly than the widely used Google Maps. Apple Maps does not forward data to external partners and does not record your IP address. It is therefore very difficult for other companies to find out which addresses and routes you are looking for. DuckDuckGo will continue to use additional map services for the time being, for example those of the review platform Yelp.
How does DuckDuckGo make money?
You might be wondering how the privacy-friendly DuckDuckGo makes money. The company not only has to pay its dozens of employees, but also pay for the servers of its search engine. And then it also donates to charities. The main source of income is showing non-personal ads in searches, can be read on the DuckDuckGo site.
The search engine also uses so-called affiliate links from major online sales platforms such as Amazon and Ebay. If you buy something via a DuckDuckGo search result on one of these sites, the organization will receive a small part of the proceeds.
DuckDuckGo is free to download for iOS devices and also has a web version. We also explain how to set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine on your iPhone. You do not have to download the DuckDuckGo app for this, because the search engine is available as an option in iOS, just like Google.
Which search engine do you use? Let us know in the comments below this article.