No one doubts that Google is the most popular search engine for any type of device and platform, but sometimes you might feel like the Big brother in which there is no confidentiality in your searches on the net.
And it is that Google exceeds certain limits when it comes to collecting your personal data and showing you advertisements related to the information it collects. That’s why we looked for other alternatives and that’s what we found.
DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine with its own desktop extension and mobile browser app. It presents itself as the anti-Google search engine and promises not to track or collect your data.
As we’ll see below, it offers a clean interface and familiar layout, along with many of the features you’d expect from a search engine, but without those invasive crawlers.
On paper, DuckDuckGo seems like a very worthy contender. But how does it work against Google? To find out, I switched to exclusive use of DuckDuckGo last week. Here are the five key points I found.
DuckDuckGo is refreshing
The privacy features of DuckDuckGo I was surprised by their clarity. The service insists that it does not collect your data and does not track it across different websites. It also does not associate your browsing with your IP adress and does not save search history.
For someone who’s used Google most of their life, that’s refreshing. I can barely remember a time when my every move wasn’t tracked, analyzed, and then marketed through targeted advice and advertising.
Using DuckDuckGo took me back to a simpler time when a search engine was only there to answer questions like: What’s the best laptop I can buy for under $1000? What was the nickname of Tim Robbins character in Top Gun?
Privacy is DuckDuckGo’s main selling point and it applies it non-restrictively. During all the time that I used the search engine, I did not miss any aspect of personalization.
Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo does not automatically suggest new searches because it does not collect information about your searches or your history, something to consider before evaluating the user experience.
Another interesting facet is that DuckDuckGo actively blocks external trackers from being able to track your track on the network. Therefore, the service itself not only maintains your private navigationbut also prevents third parties from tracking you.
DuckDuckGo has a good user interface
Before I started using DuckDuckGo, I had the idea that it was a basic search engine, in the style of Google in the early 2000s. However, it quickly proved me wrong.
The designers of DuckDuckGo put a lot of thought into usability, and it shows. The interface is aesthetically pleasing with a clean and simple design that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and aims to keep the homepage clean, a far cry from what Microsoft’s Edge does. 
At its core, DuckDuckGo has a similar feel to Google (but again, that’s something all modern search engines offer). Things like ad placements and knowledge panels are pulled from Google.
However, this is not necessarily a blow to DuckDuckGo. The “if it works, why change” approach to engine design is applied to perfection. They even cleaned it up a bit and added some welcome changes.
For example, DuckDuckGo does not split results across multiple pages. Instead, when you get to the bottom of a page, you can just click “See more results” in an endless scroll. It’s a minor tweak, but it’s better than scrolling through pages.
With DuckDuckGo it is possible to skip ads
Because DuckDuckGo does not track your browsing history, it cannot provide you with personalized or targeted advertisements based on your searches or interests. When you use its services, Google creates your profile based on your personal data, your search habits and your purchase history.
For example, when I Googled “plush toys” to give to my nephew, every website I visited over the next few weeks featured Pokemon plushies in their ads.
None of these advertising interactions occur with DuckDuckGo. When you search for something, the results page only shows a few related ads on the right side or above the top results.
These ads were only what I was looking for at the time and never followed me while I was browsing other websites. And it’s that while I’ve been using DuckDuckGo, I’ve noticed fewer ads in general.
At a time when the user is always bombarded with endless ads and popups, this has made the browsing experience really enjoyable.
You sacrifice smart search for privacy
Google’s search engine is very good at locating things I can’t remember. You enter random facts that you remember and usually get a very rough answer.
When I tried these same kinds of searches with DuckDuckGo, it just didn’t have the algorithms (or data?) to deliver. In the screenshot below you can see that I was looking for the name of a movie (Men Who Stare at Goats) based on a random scene.
Since I didn’t know the name of the movie, I searched instead using “George Clooney movie with superpower scene”. Google returned the movie I was looking for in the first result, while DuckDuckGo just couldn’t find it.
Now, that’s a pretty concrete example, and there’s no doubt that with the large database of users searching daily, Google is an expert at delivering great results with few entries.
Of course, one of the main reasons Google is so efficient is that it collects and stores user data and then adapts it to personalize it.
So, without the ability to access a huge library of contextual data, DuckDuckGo will always lag behind Google in the accuracy of the results returned.
You will miss Google Maps
After using DuckDuckGo exclusively for a week, I can say that I missed the way Google Search connects to Google Maps. Sure, DuckDuckGo has maps functionality provided by Apple, but that’s not the same thing.
The same thing happens to me when I use the iPhone, to the point that I prefer to use Google Maps instead of Apple Maps which comes preinstalled. It’s just better in terms of available data and reliability.
Another thing I missed was direct access to the entire Google ecosystem. In my personal and professional life, I’ve come to rely on Google apps like Drive and Google Workspaces.
Google has done a great job connecting all of its features seamlessly. Not being able to fit them into my search engine experience, I felt like I was missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Will I permanently switch to DuckDuckGo? Should we do it too?
If after that you are still wondering if you should switch to DuckDuckGo, the answer is that it depends on what you expect from your search engine. Do you value privacy above all else? So go ahead and make the switch.
However, if you want to get the most accurate search results and be able to use the most advanced features, you will need to stick with the Google engine.
As for me, I plan to continue using DuckDuckGo. I’m a millennial and grew up in the age of tracking and tracing data on the internet. I have long accepted that my privacy is something I give in exchange for more accurate results.
But what I discovered with this little experiment is that in most cases, what we are all looking for on the net is quite simple and straightforward, at least when it comes to personal matters.
Although Google can accurately guess what you’re looking for, you’ll need a little more control with DuckDuckGo. That doesn’t mean DuckDuckGo can’t find what you’re looking for. It just means that you may need to change your search settings.
Google’s streamlined web browsing that I’ve grown accustomed to through cookies, autocomplete, and personalization is, of course, a convenience. But without these alerts, the results are largely the same.
And I wonder if the results are practically the same, why not bet on the side of privacy?
You might be interested in taking a look at the article on What is the best web browserwhere we review which are the most popular browsers and we decipher in which cases you are interested in using one or the other.
Also, if you decide to continue using the Google search engine, you might be interested in learning more about the features currently offered by Google search engines. best vpn services in your web browsing, another serious alternative when it comes to boosting your privacy.
Original article by Sam Singleton and published in PC World United States.
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