DuckDuckGo is working on its own desktop browser

Daniel ZimmermannDecember 24, 2021

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In their blog, the developers of the search engine DuckDuckGo summed up the results of 2021 and said that the team is working on its own privacy-focused desktop browser.

Since DuckDuckGo moved beyond simple private search in 2018, the company’s universal apps and privacy extensions have been downloaded over 150,000,000 times.

We are currently the most downloaded Android browser app in our main markets (and ranked second on iOS, just behind Chrome). On average, we process more than 100 million requests per day, and the latest survey showed who about 27 million Americans (9%) use DuckDuckGo.the developers brag in the final post.

However, in addition to the statistics collected over the year, DuckDuckGo engineers said that they are working on an application for desktop devices that should “redefine user expectations regarding everyday privacy on the Internet.”

No complicated settings, no misleading warnings, no ‘levels’ of protection. Just strong privacy protection that works by default in search, browsing, email, and so on.the blog says.

At the same time, the head of DuckDuckGo Gabriel Weinberg emphasizes that the upcoming product is “not a browser with an emphasis on privacy”, but an application for everyday browsing that should prevent companies from spying on users’ search and browsing history. He also claims that early tests showed that the browser will be “significantly faster” than Google Chrome.

That is, to all appearances, the future product will work in the same way as the mobile applications of DuckDuckGo. For example, it is known that the analog for desktops will have the same “Fire” button, which instantly destroys the entire browsing history, any saved data and tabs.

website rendering APIs

MacOS and Windows now offer website rendering APIs (WebView / WebView2) that any application can use. This is what we relied on to create our desktop application. We are building a desktop application from scratch, based on the rendering API provided by the OS manufacturers. This means that everything other than rendering sites (for example, managing tabs, bookmarks and passwords, navigation elements, and so on), we have to develop ourselves.Allison Johnson, senior communications manager at DuckDuckGo, told The Verge.

The browser is currently in a closed beta test on macOS, but on Twitter, Weinberg hints that DuckDuckGo is preparing a version for Windows as well. Alas, it is not yet known when the desktop browser will be available to the general public.

Let me remind you that the developers of DuckDuckGo have had problems. For example, we wrote that In Android version of DuckDuckGo browser found vulnerability that helps faking URL, and also that DuckDuckGo devs warn that refuse from third-party cookies does not prevent browser tracking.

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