DuckDuckGo Launches Privacy Pro: A 3-in-1 Service That Includes a VPN

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused web search and browser company, announced on today the launch of its first subscription service, Privacy Pro. The service, priced at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, includes a browser-based tool that automatically scans data broker websites for users' personal information and requests its removal. The service also includes DuckDuckGo's first VPN and an identity-theft-restoration service. Available initially only in the U.S.

Can you rely on DDG though?

[AmiMoJo]

DuckDuckGo is based in the United States, so even if they are being truthful about their servers being no-log (not seeing any independent audits like Mulvad gets) the legal situation there is not great. There was a case many years ago where a no-log company was ordered by a court to start logging, and there is of course the on-going hacking by the NSA etc.

Given that they only accept credit card payments, you are forced to give them your details. Their browser isn't fully open source, or at least I couldn't find the full source code. It also uses the OS for displaying web pages, so Microsoft's fork of Bing on Windows, Safari on iOS/Mac OS, and WebView on Android. In other words, even if the VPN works as claimed, those browser engines may not. Being closed source, you can't audit it, and unlike say WireGuard it's not proven technology and there is no way of knowing how long they take to respond to vulnerability reports.

I think you can do a lot better for the $10/month they are asking for this.

I'll say it again...

[Midnight_Falcon]

The only VPN you should use is one controlled by yourself or your employer. Use Tor to stay anonymous on the Internet. Otherwise, VPNs are a legacy scareware industry with little security or privacy value for the vast majority of users.

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[DarkRookie2]

Still useful for Linux isos. Tor can't do that well at all.

Re: I'll say it again...

[Midnight_Falcon]

Why do you need a VPN to protect your privacy downloading a Linux ISO? Won't plain ol TLS hide the already -public contents from any MiTM?

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[schneidafunk]

We've had this debate in previous articles, but I'll bite again. I agree TOR is better than a VPN, being decentralized and bounced through 3 random nodes (I think?) but then you're trading speed for security. But: If you are not worried too much about the government forcing a VPN provider to snoop on you, then a VPN provider has little to no downside. Can you give an example of why you wouldn't want to use a VPN? Because I get the impression you are saying something along the lines of "wear a jacke

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[Midnight_Falcon]

The problem is it's not a t-shirt, it's more like the "Emperor Has No Clothes" t-shirt, it doesn't really do anything. VPNs provide a false sense of security, and barely boost privacy..web trackers work regardless of most users' use of a VPN. All it takes is a visit to a single web site with trackers while logged into Facebook etc for the correlation to occur. One wouldn't want to use a VPN because as mentioned in the other article, they can be malicious, like Facebook's. [slashdot.org] In addition, numerous VPN p

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[aldousd666]

You're right. When VPNs first came out, it was adding encryption when there was none. So, if someone had a span port on you, they could read your HTTP traffic. Now, even P2P traffic on the web is mostly SSL, so there's almost nothing added and you're probably suffering a traffic bottleneck at the VPN. Not to mention that VPN is a veritable span port for anything you're running that isn't over TLS.

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[The-Ixian]

Depends on what you are using the VPN for.

VPNs are very useful for troubleshooting geo-ip filter rules :)

Re: I'll say it again...

[Midnight_Falcon]

Yes, multiple geoip changeups is one of few valid use cases of a commercial VPN. My issue is it's literally being sold here as a privacy tool from a "privacy" centric company, to get consumers to pay monthly subscriptions. But it won't help most users improve their privacy.

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[aldousd666]

They're also great for blocking Ads via DNS.

Re: I'll say it again...

[madbrain]

VPNs are needed for pr0n in some regressive states. This service will do well there.

the ultimate killer app

[CEC-P]

If this is what it appears to be on its face, this is going to absolutely skyrocket. I actually suspect they're doing this at-cost and will up the price later. The three best VPNs for true privacy right now are about $4-5/mo. The three "remove my data" companies that are hot on direct Youtube sponsorships right now are well over $10/mo for most packages. If it's 95% as good as Incogni, for example, then this is going to absolutely destroy them.

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[Midnight_Falcon]

There is no such thing as a "VPN for true privacy." That's called Tor. Looks like you got eaten by the VPN marketing monster, they have minimal benefits for privacy for about 99.9% of users.

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[CEC-P]

Oh calm down there and take your tin foil hat off. There are VPN companies that have been raided by police and nothing happened because the servers all operate with zero logs and entire in RAM. That's a little better privacy than a network set up by the CIA that has had multiple weaknesses in the past.

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[Midnight_Falcon]

Yes, the marketing department has really gotten to you. The CIA (not sure when they got involved? But, you should read this about ExpressVPN then [ycombinator.com]) can easily conduct a traffic-correlation attack at the VPN network edge to deanonymize users. Or, just get the browser to leak data, which is how the ecosystem of internet trackers works.

Zero logs, nothing in RAM doesn't make the internet work differently. Traffic still goes from the VPN network edge to the destination just as it would through a direct co

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[Amazing Proton Boy]

I feel that most of this misses the intention. It is easy to get caught up in the edge cases, in the you vs. a powerful State actor... This is not reality, the vast majority of first world users (the reality of what we are talking about here) are not trying to hide anything from the CIA or the State, they don't want Hilton to snoop their porn browsing on the hotel wifi, they want some additional privacy from simple snooping and tracking at Starbucks. A VPN combined with some simple anti-tracking measures ac

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[Midnight_Falcon]

I'm actually responding directly to the OP's note about the CIA, but for the most part, I'm talking about general internet tracking such as that from Meta and Google. Almost all VPN users are still tracked by these despite use of a VPN provider.

Hilton already can't snoop your porn browsing on the hotel wifi, nor the folks at Starbucks. All the pr0n sites, including pornhub, enforce TLS and the end-to-end encryption means it cannot be snooped on by a wifi network. All they can possibly know is that there

Liove long enough to become the villain...

[irreverentdiscourse]

Using a US based VPN is an inherantly poor choice.

"identity-theft-restoration" sounds like a straight up scam because... it is.

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[DarkRookie2]

Using a US based VPN is an inherantly poor choice.

You say that like their is a government out their that isn't morally corrupt and could be bought for the right price.
I am sure that the politicians in your country are morally upright people.

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[Miles_O'Toole]

Many countries, Switzerland being an excellent example, understand it is extremely profitable to provide genuine security to anyone who can afford it. Morals have nothing to do with it.

Please tell me you aren't so naive you didn't understand this simple fact.

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[DarkRookie2]

You are a fool for thinking that if it became more profitable to do otherwise, they wouldn't switch over.
No politician is worth trusting and neither is anyone who believes in their lies.

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[jobslave]

I'm not so sure about the "many countries" statement. Unless "many" means 12 or so out of 195. That seems an odd definition of "many". But yes, there are a handful of places that are much more evolved than the USA as well as the rest of the world.

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[DarkRookie2]

Until it is profitable otherwise.

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[irreverentdiscourse]

Tell me you don't understand what 5-eyes/9-eyes/14-eyes is without telling me.

Three Letter Agencies

[jpatters]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... it would be pretty much intelligence malpractice if the each of the various Three Letter Agencies did not secretly operate at least one of the popular VPN providers. They've taken over whole cell phone companies before, this would be even simpler. You would never know which one(s).

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[jodido]

Even more, if any of those three-letter agencies want your info they're going to get it no matter what technical fix you've got in place. There's a tendency to forget that those agencies have guns.

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[bill_mcgonigle]

FWIW

https://screenrant.com/express... [screenrant.com]

I dumped the duck

[FudRucker]

When I was informed they datamine for Microsoft, there's no way in hell I'm paying 10 bucks a month for a browser with adblocking, I can setup my own hosts file now like a big boy

Too bad you can't trust them.

[slashkitty]

They censor critical information and are just another political entity.

No thanks

[markdavis]

>"The centerpiece of our product offering is now the DuckDuckGo browser"

Right. Another Chrom*. No thanks. Also no support for Linux, so double no thanks.

>"Please note: Setting up and managing Personal Information Removal requires a Mac or Windows computer."

Again, no Linux support. So no thanks.

>"To subscribe to Privacy Pro and use our VPN, first download the DuckDuckGo Browser on mobile or desktop and subscribe to Privacy Pro in the browserâ(TM)s settings."

It is chrom* and also no Linux. So yet again, no thanks.

That said, I still use duckduckgo as my primary web search engine, with startpage as secondary.