Data protection company DuckDuckGo has released the highly secure beta web browser for Mac — finally. The move comes years after the company released its browser for iOS and Android in 2018 and adds to the growing suite of digital privacy tools for everyday consumers. DuckDuckGo for Mac is built around the company’s search engine and has been developed to reduce the incredibly annoying quirks — such as cookie pop-ups and slow loading times — of pre-existing web browsers. The company is quick to point out that its new browser is not just a replacement for the not-so-private anonymous browser in Google Chrome, an option that is not so private. In contrast, the browser, aptly named DuckDuckGo for Mac, has a number of advantages for the average data-driven browser. The best piece; Privacy is the default, not a choice. The company explained in its press release: “With one download you get the built-in private search engine, the strong tracking block, the * new * pop-up protection of cookies on about 50% of the sites (with this% increasing significantly during the beta), the Fire Button ( data clearing with one click), email protection and much more – all for free. No complicated privacy settings, just simple privacy protection that works by default. “ The browser is also faster than Google Chrome, as DuckDuckGo for Mac blocks crawlers before they even have a chance to load. Likewise, DuckDuckGo for Mac navigates users to the encrypted version of a website as often as possible, which means less exposure to third-party scripts trying to capture your data. In-app data such as browsing history and stored passwords (even annoying ones) are also completely invisible in DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo built this new browser from scratch, instead of “splitting” it. A web browser is a machine that renders the site code into a usable interface, and most developers will “split” (that is, the developer is talking about copying) a rendering engine of a pre-existing web browser and build on it. DuckDuckGo for Mac is built on top of the macOS rendering engine. DuckDuckGo for Mac is currently in beta and will be open source in the future. DuckDuckGo for Windows is coming soon.
