Bonum Certa Men Certa

DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser Isn’t Private

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about DuckDuckGo, the “branding condom” for Microsoft Bing.



The company is basically “fake”. It has a tiny little office, very few employees, almost all of the results are from Microsoft Bing, and it transmits the search parameters to Microsoft to get those results.



"About the only good thing about DuckDuckGo and Microsoft is, they did stop censoring my blog."About the only good thing about DuckDuckGo and Microsoft is, they did stop censoring my blog. I see traffic coming in from them now. I think Microsoft changed their search index and DuckDuckGo changed because Bing did.



The company has been caught exempting Microsoft trackers, then claimed that “Oh yeah, it turns out we had that deal with Microsoft to not block THEIR trackers in our ‘Privacy’ Browser.”



Later, Microsoft let them change the agreement, but the fact that they were dishonest with their users and allowed one of the biggest surveillance monsters through, quietly, shows how much you can trust DuckDuckGo [1] [2] and Gabriel Weinberg.



And it’s even hosted in Microsoft Azure, where Microsoft can take a look at everything that’s going on inside the “DuckDuckGo” server. So they have the technical capabilities to look at who is making the searches, and what the searches are.



DuckDuckGo processing



DuckDuckGo processing



As if this wasn’t enough, DuckDuckGo has tracking scripts and a tracking pixel of their own that follow you around on their site, if you don’t block this, called “Improving DuckDuckGo”.



"Also notice all the Social Media crap it got and something called “bing_market”."Adguard Tracking Protection, one of the ad blocking lists for trackers, includes the tracking pixel and the Improving DuckDuckGo script, so you get warnings from your ad blocker that DuckDuckGo is tracking you.



Also notice all the Social Media crap it got and something called “bing_market”. LOL



But lately, they have themselves a new “scam”. DuckDuckGo “Privacy Browser”.



"Plain old Mozilla Firefox browsing around with no privacy extensions at all is actually more private than DuckDuckGo on Android."One reason this is a “scam”, so to speak, is that it doesn’t actually block much tracking on Android.



Plain old Mozilla Firefox browsing around with no privacy extensions at all is actually more private than DuckDuckGo on Android.



On iOS, where all browsers inherit whatever Apple has done to WebKit, DuckDuckGo’s browser is better than Android, but still not great.



These are not platform limitations. DuckDuckGo actually just doesn’t block very much tracking.



On Privacy Tests, by far, Brave had the most green checkmarks for blocking Web tracking.



Another reason you know something is “not right” with DuckDuckGo’s “Privacy” Browser, is that the desktop version only supports the least private, least secure operating systems on the market. Windows, and Mac.



It has completely left out Linux distributions, where for the most part the OS is just an OS, and doesn’t send your keystrokes, application launches, crash data, or hard drive contents to anyone, whereas Windows and Mac do, automatically, behind-the-scenes, without asking the user.



Even if DuckDuckGo’s “Privacy Browser” wasn’t questionable, prima facie, they do encourage insecure and non-private operating systems, thus ensuring their users will be spied on by the OS vendors.



"DuckDuckGo actually just doesn’t block very much tracking."The reason why DuckDuckGo can “block Web trackers” and have that hardly matter at all, is because the threat landscape of the Web is constantly growing.



Many years ago, it was sufficient to just block certain ad and tracking servers, and browse with JavaScript turned off.



Today, led by Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, the Web platform is becoming more menacing.



You can block specific “content”, but the threat actors are operating at a higher scale than ever, leveraging “questionable” Web technologies.



Unless your browser is doing something to partition, sandbox, and disable these technologies, and either most of them or all of them, to confuse these “higher level attacks” and fingerprinting attempts, you’re really not being protected by anything “just blacklisting some resources”.



"It has completely left out Linux distributions, where for the most part the OS is just an OS, and doesn’t send your keystrokes, application launches, crash data, or hard drive contents to anyone, whereas Windows and Mac do, automatically, behind-the-scenes, without asking the user."That’s certainly better than nothing, but it’s not enough.



The most sophisticated thing about Chromium-based Web browsers is how many ways they give the Web site to attack and profile the user. Chrome and Edge are the worst, Brave is fixing a lot of it. At least they try to help the user.



Brave and LibreWolf are the only two desktop browsers left to recommend.



I firmly believe that the only purpose of DuckDuckGo’s Browser is to route traffic to DuckDuckGo (captive audience), and perhaps screw up everyone else’s ad network, but this is the same behavior that you see Microsoft Edge engaging in.

Recent Techrights' Posts

They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
 
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025
Links 25/05/2025: 15 Years of UK Legal Aid Applicant Data Grabbed and 2 Billion Discord Messages Leaked Online
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Farming and OpenBSD 7.7 on Acer Aspire ES 15
Links for the day
Fighting for Freedom is Much Better Than Fighting for Money
If life is about accumulation of money, then people will be "busy making money" till they die prematurely (with nothing to do with this money)
The Microsoft SLAPP Dossiers
A rather likely outcome is, they'll lose their licence to operate
Links 25/05/2025: Harvard’s Troubles and New Openwashing Examples
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Whales and Battery Replacement
Links for the day
Links 25/05/2025: Climate Action Ridiculed and "Tesla Executive Admits That Self-Driving Is Going Nowhere Fast"
Links for the day
The Next Two Phases of Our Open Source Initiative (OSI) Series
Whatever people used to think about the OSI is no longer applicable and its current acronym is a misleading misnomer
Richard Stallman Has Barely Changed
Collecting "estate" "assets"? That's not "success" in the eyes of Dr. Stallman
Public Talk by Richard Stallman (RMS) Tomorrow
Still advertised
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Konsole Layout Changes and Capitulation to Surveillance World
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 24, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 24, 2025