DuckDuckGo is a search engine that is committed to privacy and that can be configured as the default search engine in any browser, see Chrome or Edge. In the same way, it has official applications for iOS and Android but, for the moment, it has not made the leap to desktop . And we say “for the moment” because the company is working on it.
This has been made known by Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of the company, in a publication on the search engine’s official blog. In this text, the CEO notes that “DuckDuckGo for desktop computers will redefine user expectations regarding daily online privacy.” There is no release date yet, but it is expected to be available for Windows and macOS.
Not based in Chromium
As Weinberg explained, DuckDuckGo’s desktop browser will have no “complicated settings, no misleading warnings, no” levels “of privacy protection, but rather robust privacy protection that works by default for search, browsing, and web browsing email and much more “.
Unlike other popular browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Vivaldi, the DuckDuckGo application will not be based on Chromium. Rather than fork this or any other system, DuckDuckGo is developing it based on the rendering engines of operating systems.
In the words of Allison Johnson, Senior Communication Manager at DuckDuckGo, “Both macOS and Windows now offer Website Rendering APIs ( WebView / WebView2 ) that any application can use to render a website. That’s what we’ve used to build our application on the desktop “. That, according to the company, will allow them to get rid of “a great deal of unnecessary junk and clutter that has accumulated over the years in major browsers.
Currently, the browser is in a closed beta phase for macOS users, but Weinberg himself has said on his Twitter profile that they are working on a version for Windows. There is no release date, at least for now, so we will have to wait to know its performance and functions.
According to the data provided by DuckDuckGo, its mobile browser is the most downloaded on Android in most markets and the second on iOS after Chrome. In addition, the company assures that they have an average of 100 million daily searches, a not inconsiderable figure but far from the more than 3,500 million that are made from Google.
