Search engines - DuckDuckGo
Features
Search results
DuckDuckGo is a private search engine acting as a proxy and provides text, images, videos, news and
maps search results from many sources: specialized search engines, crowd-sourced / content sites and
Bing for others links and images.
Localized search
Localized search is IP-based or for more accuracy the browser refines it based on WiFi, cell towers
databases or GPS, stores it locally and send back a random nearby location. The search engine
then discards it after use and never logs it to disk.
Instant Answers
Instant answers using over 100 sources provides results in the search engine page itself and can be
useful for calculations, unit / currency conversion, definition, translation, weather maps or
factual information.
Bangs
Bangs provides shortcuts to other engines and specific websites. Users should be aware that these
searches may not be private and depend on the external site privacy policy.
Anti-Features
AI
Unfortunately it comes with some unwarranted AI tools like Search Assist for auto-generated answers,
Duck.ai a chatbot for conversations with third party AI chat models.
Ads
And anonymous ads based on search query alone.
Access
VPN and Tor
Users can easily access it using a VPN or Tor with an onion address.
No JavaScript required
With JavaScript disabled they can switch to their lite or HTML version.
Configuration
Configuration can be done using either anonymous cookies or URL parameters.
Users should use the non-AI version instead of the default, where Search Assist, Duck.ai and
AI-generated images are deactivated. They should also disable auto-complete suggestion and adverts.
Location
DuckDuckGo is based in the United States, where users are subjected to poor privacy laws.
Privacy policy
DuckDuckGo does not store or sell any personally identifiable information like IP address, or other
unique identifiers and does not track users through cookies, local storage or any others
methods. But does collect aggregated anonymous queries such as number of queries for a specific search
for search improvements. When requesting data on users behalf they share anonymous browsers and
devices information to hosting and content provider.