I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo’s personal research: 5 large takeaways

Google is far and away the most well known lookup engine—but in some cases it can feel extra like Major Brother and much less like a welcoming assistant. Indeed, for these worried about privacy, Google oversteps some boundaries by amassing your personalized data, and serving you adverts primarily based on what it collects. Enter DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused lookup engine with its possess desktop extension and cellular browser app.

DuckDuckGo touts by itself as the anti-Google, promising not to observe or collect your details. It features a thoroughly clean interface and familiar format, and offers a lot of of the capabilities you have appear to assume from a lookup engine—but with no people invasive information trackers. (If privacy is a issue of yours, also consider switching from Google Chrome to Firefox.)

On paper, DuckDuckGo seems like a deserving competitor. But how does it genuinely stack up to Google? To discover out, I switched to DuckDuckGo and made use of the support solely for a 7 days. Here are my 5 essential takeaways.

1. DuckDuckGo is refreshing

DuckDuckGo’s privacy options surprised me with how liberating they experience. The company insists that it does not collect consumer facts or track you across unique web-sites. It also doesn’t associate your searching with your IP tackle, and will not help you save your lookup record.

For somebody who has employed Google most of his grownup life, this feels oddly refreshing. I scarcely keep in mind a time when my each and every transfer was not tracked, analyzed, and then marketed back to me through targeted ideas and advertisements. 

Employing DuckDuckGo brought me again to a less difficult time when a search engine was only there to solution concerns like, “What is the best laptop below $1000?” or “What was Tim Robbins’ character’s nickname in Top Gun?” (It was Merlin.)

Privacy is the largest attract of DuckDuckGo, and it applies it in a way that does not really feel proscribing. The overall time I was using the look for engine, I did not really feel inconvenienced by the absence of personalization. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo will not automobile-counsel new queries mainly because it does not gather your look for historical past, but this felt like a modest cost to pay back for extra non-public searching.

Another refreshing privacy characteristic: DuckDuckGo actively blocks external trackers from next you about on the internet. So, not only does the provider itself continue to keep your browsing personal, it also prevents 3rd events from tracking you as effectively.

2. DuckDuckGo has a very good UI

Before I started working with DuckDuckGo, I experienced this picture of a bare-bones research engine, a la early 2000s Google. It proved me erroneous. Incredibly erroneous. The DuckDuckGo designers have put a lot of thought into usability, and it shows. The interface is aesthetically pleasing with a thoroughly clean and uncomplicated format that does not try to reinvent the wheel.

Make no error, DuckDuckGo has a very similar truly feel to Google (but then again, so do all contemporary lookup engines). Components these kinds of as ad placements and knowledge panels are ripped straight from Google. This isn’t automatically a knock on DuckDuckGo, nonetheless. The engine’s “if it ain’t broke, never correct it” approach to design works flawlessly properly. 

They’ve even cleaned it up a little bit and added some welcome changes. For occasion, DuckDuckGo does not split effects throughout pages. Fairly, when you reach the bottom of a website page, you can just click on “See a lot more results” in an limitless scroll. This is a insignificant tweak, but it felt much better than clicking again and forth as a result of webpages and internet pages.

3. Sure, you can escape from ads

This form of goes along with the very first place on this record: Considering the fact that DuckDuckGo does not observe your searching record, it cannot give you with qualified personalised ads.

As you use its providers, Google creates a profile on you centered on individual data, such as your search habits and purchasing heritage. This knowledge is then utilized to advert targeting, foremost to highly unique ads popping up on seemingly every web-site you visit. For example, when I searched Google for stuffed toys to purchase for my youthful nephew’s birthday, each web site I frequented for the subsequent few months kept displaying me Pokemon plushies in their banner commercials.

But I had none of these exact ad hauntings although making use of DuckDuckGo. When I searched for a thing, the results page would demonstrate only a several similar commercials along the correct-hand side, or above the 1st benefits. These advertisements have been only suitable to what I was searching, and hardly ever followed me close to while searching other websites. In simple fact, even though utilizing DuckDuckGo, I seen much less ads in general. In a working day and age when we’re continually bombarded with flashing adverts and pop-ups, this produced for a definitely enjoyable browsing encounter.

4. You’ll trade some lookup smarts for privacy

Google is wonderful for locating issues I just just cannot really remember. I enter a couple random information that I do keep in mind, and it will usually will give me the solution. When I tried out these exact types of searches with DuckDuckGo, it just did not have the algorithms (or data?) to provide. 

In the screenshot below, you can see that I was seeking for the title of a motion picture (Guys Who Stare at Goats) centered on a random scene. Given that I did not know the movie’s name, I rather searched working with “film george clooney do you have superpowers scene”. Google returned the motion picture I was on the lookout for on the to start with final result, while DuckDuckGo just could not uncover it. Now this is a somewhat particular example, but customers have occur to count on Google offering fantastic outcomes with sparse inputs.

Of course, a single of the key causes Google is so helpful is that it collects and suppliers person information, and then tailors it for personalization. Without tapping into a substantial library of contextual info, DuckDuckGo will go on to slide powering Google in returned outcome precision.

5. I definitely miss Google maps

Soon after exclusively applying DuckDuckGo for a 7 days, I can say that I officially pass up the way Google search seamlessly hooks into Google maps. Guaranteed, DuckDuckGo has a maps function furnished by Apple, but it isn’t the identical. Just like when I’m using an Iphone, I want to use Google Maps fairly than the pre-put in Apple Maps. It just feels far better in terms of the readily available knowledge and its trustworthiness.

Something else I skipped is direct access to the entire Google ecosystem. The two in my particular and specialist lifetime, I have appear to count on Google apps such as Travel and Google Workspaces. Google has finished a great occupation connecting all of their characteristics seamlessly with each other. Not remaining capable to combine these with my search engine practical experience felt like I was lacking a piece of the puzzle.

Will I swap to DuckDuckGo permanently? Should you?

Need to you switch to DuckDuckGo? It depends on what you want from your research motor. Do you worth privacy higher than all else? Then go ahead and make the swap. Do you want the most correct benefits and most superior features? Then you’ll want to adhere with Google.  

As for me, I strategy to carry on applying DuckDuckGo. I’m a jaded millennial and I grew up in the age of net info monitoring. I experienced long back recognized that my privacy would be sacrificed for much more correct outcomes. But what I identified from this small experiment was that, for the most section, what we’re all seeking for on the internet is really straightforward and simple. 

Though Google is able to accurately guess what you’re wanting for, a bit much more hand-holding is required with DuckDuckGo. This does not mean that DuckDuckGo can’t find what you are soon after. It just usually means that you may have to modify your research parameters. The streamlined Google world wide web browsing I’ve become accustomed to through cookies, automobile-fill, and personalization are of study course a advantage. But without the need of these bells and whistles, the success are mainly the similar.

And I figure, if the benefits are the same, why not err on the facet of privateness?