Image: DuckDuckGo
Privacy-focused search engine and mobile browser, DuckDuckGo, announced in a blog post today recapping all the new features they’ve introduced during 2021, and also gave a sneak peek at their upcoming desktop browser.
With its desktop browser, DuckDuckGo promises “no complicated settings, no misleading warnings, no “levels” of privacy protection — just robust privacy protection that works by default, across search, browsing, email, and more.”
Instead of just creating another Chromium-based browser like everyone else (we’re looking at you, Microsoft), DuckDuckGo made one of their own from scratch using Operating System-provided rendering engines for every platform, much like they did for their mobile apps.
“It’s not a ‘privacy browser’,” reads the blog post. “It’s an everyday browsing app that respects your privacy because there’s never a bad time to stop companies from spying on your search and browsing history.”
Ditching Chromium for their own solution allowed DuckDuckGo to create a clean, simple, and, most importantly, private desktop browser that doesn’t fall into the same traps of unnecessary clutter and remarkably un-unique interfaces as most Chromium derivatives.
Fortunately, the DuckDuckGo app for desktop also holds on to the beloved Fire Button from its mobile counterpart.
According to the company, their early tests have also found their desktop browser to be significantly faster than Chrome. Whether or not it’s as memory-hungry remains to be seen.
The DuckDuckGo desktop browser is currently in closed beta and will be available for macOS and more upon release.
According to DuckDuckGo, the company’s all-in-one privacy apps and extensions have seen over 150 million downloads since they moved beyond just private search back in 2018.
The blog post also goes into detail about some of the new features DuckDuckGo rolled out this past year, including App Tracking Protection — a feature similar to Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework, and Email Protection.
