When Google launched Chrome back in 2008, it changed the web overnight. Since then the web browser has become almost unstoppable: Chrome is one of Google’s most powerful data collection tools and the world’s most dominant browser. Right now 63 percent of people use Chrome on their phone, and the figure rises to 67 percent on desktop.
There are other options though—and the list of Chrome’s browser rivals just got a tiny bit longer. Today the privacy-oriented company DuckDuckGo is debuting its first desktop web browser, DuckDuckGo for Mac. The desktop app, which is being released in beta, comes years after the company launched its Android and iOS browsers, and it continues its push to create a suite of privacy-first web tools.
Since the launch of its anti-Google search engine back in 2008, DuckDuckGo’s web browser continues the company’s principle of not collecting your data, says Beah Burger-Lenehan, the product manager for the Mac app. “We don't track our users—that is our privacy policy,” Burger-Lenehan says.
The browser uses DuckDuckGo’s private search engine as the default option, blocks ad trackers on each site you visit, and shows how many have been blocked. It also includes a built-in option for saving passwords, and it incorporates the company’s recently launched email protection, which blocks hidden trackers in the emails you are sent. “Everything that we build, we want to make as frictionless and simple and easy to understand,” Burger-Lenehan says. “And just to default to the most private thing without trade-offs in that experience.”
In the new browser, this includes taking on one of the internet’s most annoying experiences: cookie consent pop-ups, which were provoked by the introduction of the GDPR, the EU’s landmark data-privacy law. While browser extensions can help you avoid cookie pop-ups, DuckDuckGo’s browser automates the process. The first time you use the app you’ll be asked if you want to let it manage the pop-ups that appear. If you give it permission to do so, it will use Javascript to automatically set the cookie preferences on each site you visit and pick the options to “maximize privacy.” What this means in practice is that you don’t see cookie pop-ups. “This feature works on about 50 percent of cookie pop-ups that you might encounter,” Burger-Lenehan says, adding that the percentage should “significantly” increase when more people use the beta.
I've been trying the DuckDuckGo desktop app for several days, and I feel like I got fewer cookie pop-ups than usual. Using the web is much more pleasant without them. The browser currently has a minimal interface, with few buttons or icons clogging up the view. Performance appears to be relatively quick. A fire emoji button—familiar to users of DuckDuckGo’s mobile apps—allows cookies and other data to be erased with a couple of clicks.
For now, the rollout of the browser is limited. DuckDuckGo’s Mac app is being released as a beta that people can access by signing up to a private waiting list, through the company’s mobile app. The beta launch means DuckDuckGo can make changes and iron out bugs before its full release. At the moment, it does feel like some common browser features are missing. There isn’t a bookmark bar for easy access to saved sites or folders, but the company says it is working on this. There’s also no way to get a detailed history list of all the sites you’ve visited. There are different ways to access your browsing history, including a privacy feed of previous websites visited and autocompletes when you start typing a previously visited site, but these don’t feel comprehensive.