DuckDuckGo's Privacy-Centric Browser Arrives on Mac (theverge.com) 38
DuckDuckGo's privacy-focused browsing app is available in beta on Mac, but you'll have to join a private waitlist to gain access. From a report: Just like the mobile browsing app, DuckDuckGo on Mac uses the DuckDuckGo search engine by default, automatically blocks web trackers, and comes with the famous "Fire" button that burns up your browsing history and tabs in a single click. The browsing app also comes with a new feature that's supposed to help block those pesky cookie consent pop-ups that appear when you first open a website. DuckDuckGo says it will clear them on 50 percent of sites, while automatically selecting the option that blocks or minimizes the cookies that track you. Allison Goodman, the senior communications manager at DuckDuckGo, told The Verge that the company plans on increasing this coverage "significantly" as the beta progresses. You'll also gain access to a privacy feed that appears on DuckDuckGo's homepage.
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I think they buy indexes from Yandex and Bing, but they're hosted almost entirely on Amazon. You know, Amazon, the company that broke a multi-million dollar contract with a company due to political views, claimed a terms of service violation, and ignored the curing period. They also faced zero consequences due to an activist judge in Seattle:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
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...broke a multi-million dollar contract with a company due to political views, claimed a terms of service violation, and ignored the curing period."
They terminated the contract, not "broke" it, for terms of service violations which is their right. Prove they "broke" it for "political views", or that supporting an insurrection is a "political view".
"They also faced zero consequences due to an activist judge in Seattle"
Nor should they. Apparently a judge is "activist" when they refuse to force a private en
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You can read the court filing. The contract is in there. Viva Frei and Robert Barnes covered it on their live stream months ago. You can't just "terminate" a contract. That's the point of a fucking contract. If there are violations, most contracts have curing periods to fix violations (and Parler's AWS contract had a 30 day curing period). Parler had actually fixed all their violations and were continuing to work with Amazon to use their AI service to moderate posts.
Just judge is absolutely an activist. Rea
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ROM = Rude Online Morons
Privacy is Irrelvant if Search Itself Isn't Good (Score:3)
DDG just isn't very good at finding things compared to Google.
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DDG just isn't very good at finding things compared to Google.
That's because it's basically just using Bing's APIs. I like the idea of having less reliance on Google, but duckduckgo's results are truly awful.
Re:Privacy is Irrelvant if Search Itself Isn't Goo (Score:4, Insightful)
It’s possible to be worse than google? Who else is going to ignore words I typed in and give me random popular results?
Feature not a bug (Score:1)
...possible to be worse than google? Who else is going to ignore words I typed in and give me random popular results?
Hey, someone paid a lot to show you those results,
Remember, you're not Google's customer - you're Google's product.
(maybe not directly but to a SEO partner).
Re:Privacy is Irrelvant if Search Itself Isn't Goo (Score:5, Informative)
DDG just isn't very good at finding things compared to Google.
I disagree - that has not been my experience.
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DDG just isn't very good at finding things compared to Google.
I disagree - that has not been my experience.
Seconded. I have DDG as my default search engine for many years and I cannot remember the last time I found DDG results not satisfactory and need to use Google.
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Thirded. To be honest, I go to Google probably 1-in-100 of my searches because I'm not satisfied with the results I got for something obscure, but typically in those cases Google doesn't really do a better job, just a different job.
I see
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You can change the search engine to whatever you want, you don't have to use the default.
Browser != search engine.
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Ditto.:(
DuckDuckGone (Score:1)
They pretend to be a search engine, but they aren't. They're just a front-end to Bing. If I wanted Bing, I would use Bing. But I don't, because their search results suck. Privacy is nice, and desirable, but meaningless if your search results suck.
Now they are pretending to make a browser, but it's really just Safari. If I wanted Safari, I would use Safari. But I don't, because it sucks. Speed
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Now they are pretending to make a browser, but it's really just Safari. If I wanted Safari, I would use Safari. But I don't, because it sucks. Speed is nice, and desirable, but meaningless if your web browser sucks.
I think this part of your assessment is misleading, given that the article says:
~ DuckDuckGo for Mac doesn’t fork an existing browser like Chrome. It’s built off of the rendering engine used by Safari, also known as WebKit. Because of this, DuckDuckGo claims its browser is faster than Chrome “on some graphics performance” measured using the MotionMark 1.2 benchmark
and:
~ "Beyond rendering, all the code is ours — written by DuckDuckGo engineers with privacy, security, and s
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I think part of your assessment is misleading.
The rendering engine of a web browser IS THE WEB BROWSER.
Merely adding a windowing manager frame, a few menu items here and there to save settings/bookmarks, and a refresh button does not constitute the browser.
Literally any monkey with a keyboard can build a window frame and put some buttons on it.
DDG has not built a browser any more than I have ever built a browser.
Just via utilization of one small call in Flutter I add web browsing functionality to my phone a
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The rendering engine takes care of HTML and CSS. All the privacy nightmares come from Javascript, cookies, etc.
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The rendering engine of a web browser IS THE WEB BROWSER.
Very much not so. You can make lots of interesting choices (for example regarding privacy) on top of a rendering engine. Check out Vivaldi and Brave to see what can be done on top of Chromium.
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You know what other popular browser is built off of Webkit? Chrome.
"DuckDuckGo claims its browser is faster than Chrome “on some graphics performance” measured using the MotionMark 1.2 benchmark"
So they have already mastered disingenuous marketing just like their competition.
" "Beyond rendering, all the code is ours..."
Compared to rendering code, all the other code is a drop in the bucket.
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You know what other popular browser is built off of Webkit? Chrome.
"DuckDuckGo claims its browser is faster than Chrome “on some graphics performance” measured using the MotionMark 1.2 benchmark"
So they have already mastered disingenuous marketing just like their competition.
" "Beyond rendering, all the code is ours..."
Compared to rendering code, all the other code is a drop in the bucket.
I thought Chrome's Renderer started as a Fork of WebKit; but then proceeded to break a bunch of stuff for themselves.
BTW, to all: if DDG decided to use WebKit, it's because they decided to use WebKit. Unlike iOS/iPadOS, Browsers in macOS are, AFAIK, free to use whatever Renderer they choose.
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What's your solution then? Continue to use Chrome and Google and hope something better comes along?
Classic case of letting perfect be the enemy of the good.
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"What's your solution then?"
Solution to what? The mere fact that you take for granted there is a solution, or that one is even needed, is a "classic case of letting perfect be the enemy of the good."
Not all existing products are perfect, but rejecting new products that are worse that existing ones is not a "classic case of letting perfect be the enemy of the good."
Privacy centric - also politically biased (Score:2)
The recent announcement that they are now censoring content they politically object to is a deal breaker. When I'm looking for something I want the index to show relevant results, not relevant results that also appeal to the whims of the board members.
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Perhaps you should put your money where your mouth is and fund Trump's web browser then. We know that would never be subject to anyone's whims!
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No matter how often it happens, I am always surprised when a respondent goes all in and brings up Trump when there wasn't even the slightest mention of him in the preceding comment. It reminds me of the old meme "Everyone I don't like is Hitler".
No one should be happy about a 3rd party choosing what you are and are not allowed to see. Why are you?
Why in the first place? (Score:2)
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because blackmail, that's why.
browsers aren't in a position to decide what is "strictly necessary", they implement features that are useful. Those features may be exploited and browsers can provide control over their use, but bad actors that control massive amounts of infrastructure simply break websites making such controls difficult to use.
A cookie can provide value to a browser experience, the browser cannot know whether a particular cookie is there to exploit you or help you.
Another browser is not the solution (Score:1)
That it uses DDG as the default search option is irrelevant - you can set any browser to do that.
If you want privacy control, use Firefox with your choice of privacy and adblock extensions; that actually does something for the web ecosystem by having a different browser engine underneath. Webkit is notoriously behind in implementing web APIs, so basing a new browser on it seems like folly (unless they want this to be the basis for an iOS browser, in which case it needs to be based on Webkit).
As to Android,
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That it uses DDG as the default search option is irrelevant - you can set any browser to do that.
If you want privacy control, use Firefox with your choice of privacy and adblock extensions; that actually does something for the web ecosystem by having a different browser engine underneath. Webkit is notoriously behind in implementing web APIs, so basing a new browser on it seems like folly (unless they want this to be the basis for an iOS browser, in which case it needs to be based on Webkit).
Correct me if I am wrong but I think Apple requires all browsers to use WebKit on their system. So you can use Firefox only if it's rendering websites using system library.
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That it uses DDG as the default search option is irrelevant - you can set any browser to do that.
If you want privacy control, use Firefox with your choice of privacy and adblock extensions; that actually does something for the web ecosystem by having a different browser engine underneath. Webkit is notoriously behind in implementing web APIs, so basing a new browser on it seems like folly (unless they want this to be the basis for an iOS browser, in which case it needs to be based on Webkit).
Correct me if I am wrong but I think Apple requires all browsers to use WebKit on their system. So you can use Firefox only if it's rendering websites using system library.
Not on macOS.
MacOS Browsers can use WTFEvah Renderer they choose. Their Might be more restrictions if selling through the Mac AppStore; but as far as a privately-distributed Browser for macOS, I am positive it's unrestricted.