The DuckDuckGo project, which is developing a search engine that works without tracking user preferences and movements, announced work on its own desktop browser, which will complement the mobile applications and browser add-on previously offered by the service . The key feature of the new browser will be the lack of binding to separate browser engines – the program is positioned as a binding over the browser engines provided by the operating system.
It is noted that in terms of the tasks being solved, the stationary browser is close to the already proposed mobile browser DuckDuckGo for Android and iOS. The user will be offered a ready-made solution that allows, without additional manipulations and study of technical subtleties, to ensure the proper level of confidentiality and control over personal information. The browser interface is planned to get rid of complications and unnecessary settings, such as incomprehensible warnings and suggestions for choosing a protection level – the capabilities necessary for protection will be activated by default, and the degree of threat to personal data will be clearly displayed in the form of a privacy rating.
By default, the browser will block all scripts for tracking movements and mechanisms used by ad networks to determine user preferences. Searches will be sent anonymously. When accessing sites, it will automatically be redirected to HTTPS to encrypt connections. For visited sites, labels with information about the resource’s privacy policy will be displayed . As in the mobile application, the “Fire” button will be available in a prominent place in a stationary browser, which allows you to immediately delete all data related to the user, including open tabs, data accumulated while working with sites, and information about visits.
Currently, the DuckDuckGo browser is not yet ready for public testing, but according to the developers, internal tests show that it significantly outperforms regular Chrome in terms of speed (acceleration is achieved by blocking the download of unwanted content and external JavaScript code for tracking movements, which significantly reduces the size of the loaded data, reduces page load time and reduces the amount of JavaScript code executed).
