DuckDuckGo's Windows browser is now available as a public beta release
DuckDuckGo announced the release of the first public beta version of its DuckDuckGo Windows browser today. Ashwin reviewed the first version of the web browser back in March 2023 when the company released it using a private beta invite system.
Features that were not part of this initial version, like Duck Player or email protection, are now included.
The beta version of the DuckDuckgo browser is now available for all users. The download of the net installer is quick and the browser installs quickly on Windows devices. Options to import data, including passwords and bookmarks, are shown on first run. Imports from Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox are supported. There is also an option to import passwords via CSV files, which many password managers support.
DuckDuckGo has selected Microsoft Edge WebView2 for rendering web content. The company highlights some of the browser's main features on its Spread Privacy website.
- Integrated Duck Player, which lets users watch YouTube videos without "privacy-invading ads" or fuelling YouTube's video recommendations engine.
- Tracker blocking that DuckDuckGo promises "goes above and beyond what's available from Chrome and other browsers". The company explains here why it believes that its browser is doing better by default. In short, it says that its browser includes many protections by default that "most browsers do not offer by default". DuckDuckGo mentions protections such as "e 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection, Global Privacy Control, Link Tracking Protection, CNAME Cloaking Protection, Google AMP Protection" explicitly.
- Smarter Encryption, which upgrades unencrypted HTTP connections to HTTPS whenever possible.
- Cookie Pop-up Management, which allows users to hide cookie consent pop-ups and selects the "most private option" automatically.
- Fire Button, which erases "recent browsing data".
- Email protection, courtesy of DuckDuckGo's email protection service.
The web browser displayed all websites just fine during tests. Prompts are displayed to users when they encounter their first cookie consent pop-up or load the first video on YouTube.
For cookie consent pop-ups, users get the option to enable the feature to have them handled automatically by the browser. On YouTube, DuckDuckGo's Duck Player may be used to watch videos. An option to always use the player is provided as well. The player worked without any issues during tests and ads were not shown on a test system.
Experienced users may notice that the browser comes with just a small set of settings. In fact, a single Settings page of browsers such as Firefox or Brave offers the same amount of features as the entire Settings of DuckDuckGo's browser.
Granted, the browser is in Beta and more options may be added at a later point. Some features, like the ability to install Chrome extensions, are not available, which limits the browser significantly for some users. This means, for example, that users can't install password manager extensions, third-party content blockers, video downloads, or other types of extensions in the browser at this point.
Closing Words
DuckDuckGo's browser offers some interesting features, but it is also limited in some regards. Most users may want to wait and observe how development of the browser progresses. Those who don't customize their browser's much may be the main target audience for the browser.
Now You: have you tried the DuckDuckGo browser?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.