You could already be accustomed to DuckDuckGo , the privacy-first search engine, however you may not notice that the corporate additionally affords a browser that brings the identical stage of privateness and monitoring prevention to your on a regular basis net browsing.
Whereas Apple’s Safari is already among the best browsers obtainable on the subject of defending your privateness, two years in the past, DuckDuckGo got down to construct a browser on your Mac that was much more non-public — successfully one thing that may run in an much more locked down equal of Safari’s Non-public Looking mode on a regular basis.
DuckDuckGo has at all times been the search engine for privacy-conscious Apple customers, and even when you favor one thing else for on a regular basis use, iOS 17 lets you choose DuckDuckGo individually because the search engine to make use of for Non-public Looking.
Nonetheless, the DuckDuckGo Browser goes past that to make your net browsing as non-public as potential, to the extent that the corporate has needed to forego a number of the extra helpful options like syncing your bookmarks and passwords — and even backing them as much as the cloud for catastrophe restoration.
These omissions made it a non-starter for a lot of people, however the excellent news is that DuckDuckGo has discovered a option to deliver these options to its browser with out compromising safety or privateness in any approach.
Because of the magic of end-to-end encryption, that’s not as troublesome because it sounds. Apple has at all times encrypted Safari autofill passwords saved in iCloud Keychain for sync throughout gadgets and has been encrypting Safari’s bookmarks in the identical approach since late 2021. Final 12 months, it additionally launched a brand new Superior Information Safety characteristic that lets customers end-to-end encrypt practically all the things in iCloud, together with Notes, Photographs, Voice Memos, Reminders, and extra.
So, it was solely a matter of time earlier than DuckDuckGo did likewise. Nonetheless, attributable to its concentrate on privateness, it wasn’t keen to introduce any syncing options till it may guarantee its customers had been protected. This week, it introduced that It’s prepared to show the swap on syncing with a brand new Sync & Backup characteristic that can permit bookmarks, passwords, and different settings to be shared throughout all variations of your DuckDuckGo Browser, out of your Mac to your iPhone and even your Home windows PC when you’re so inclined.
That’s among the best causes to make use of DuckDuckGo over Safari. Whereas DuckDuckGo guarantees to be higher than Safari, that’s an in depth race. Nonetheless, Safari isn’t obtainable on Home windows or Android, whereas DuckDuckGo’s Browser is — and it’s robust to argue that anything you may get on these platforms may even come near the extent of privateness that DuckDuckGo affords.
Because the title suggests, the Backup & Sync characteristic isn’t only for retaining a number of cases of the DuckDuckGo Browser updated. It will also be used to maintain a safe backup of this data within the cloud, even when you solely have DuckDuckGo put in on a single gadget like your Mac.
DuckDuckGo additionally affords an E-mail Safety service that works equally to iCloud’s Disguise my E-mail characteristic, letting you create a number of non-public electronic mail addresses that ahead to your major electronic mail account. Nonetheless, along with permitting you to maintain your actual electronic mail tackle confidential, DuckDuckGo can even strip out all these hidden electronic mail trackers that pervade advertising emails and newsletters. These electronic mail safety addresses will now be synced throughout a number of DuckDuckGo browsers, alongside along with your passwords and bookmarks.
DuckDuckGo customers can arrange the sync characteristic by ensuring their browser is updated after which going to Settings > Sync & Backup. In contrast to Google’s Chrome and even Safari, DuckDuckGo doesn’t require you to enroll in an account; as an alternative, Sync & Backup is about up by scanning a QR code or coming into an alphanumeric code. Which means your knowledge shouldn’t be solely protected by end-to-end encryption, however DuckDuckGo has no must even affiliate that encrypted blob of knowledge along with your identification in any approach.