I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo: 5 shocking takeaways

Google is far and away the most well-liked lookup engine—but in some cases it can feel far more like Large Brother and significantly less like a welcoming assistant. In fact, for those anxious about privacy, Google oversteps some boundaries by accumulating your private information, and serving you adverts centered on what it collects. Enter DuckDuckGo, a privacy-centered look for motor with its have desktop extension and mobile browser app.

DuckDuckGo touts itself as the anti-Google, promising not to track or acquire your data. It presents a cleanse interface and common structure, and gives a lot of of the features you’ve occur to be expecting from a search engine—but without all those invasive details trackers.

On paper, DuckDuckGo looks like a deserving competitor. But how does it definitely stack up to Google? To locate out, I switched to DuckDuckGo and made use of the services solely for a week. Listed here are my 5 critical takeaways.

1. DuckDuckGo is refreshing

DuckDuckGo’s privacy characteristics stunned me with how liberating they truly feel. The company insists that it does not gather person info or observe you across different web-sites. It also doesn’t affiliate your browsing with your IP deal with, and will not help you save your look for history.

For anyone who has made use of Google most of his grownup existence, this feels oddly refreshing. I scarcely keep in mind a time when my each shift was not tracked, analyzed, and then marketed back to me through qualified tips and advertisements. 

Utilizing DuckDuckGo brought me back to a less difficult time when a research motor was only there to response questions like, “What is the finest notebook below $1000?” or “What was Tim Robbins’ character’s nickname in Top Gun?” (It was Merlin.)

Privacy is the largest draw of DuckDuckGo, and it applies it in a way that does not feel proscribing. The full time I was employing the lookup engine, I didn’t really feel inconvenienced by the absence of personalization. In contrast to Google, DuckDuckGo won’t automobile-advise new queries mainly because it does not accumulate your search heritage, but this felt like a little cost to spend for additional personal browsing.

Another refreshing privateness element: DuckDuckGo actively blocks external trackers from adhering to you around online. So, not only does the assistance by itself maintain your searching private, it also stops third events from tracking you as properly.

2. DuckDuckGo has a great UI

Just before I began employing DuckDuckGo, I had this graphic of a bare-bones search engine, a la early 2000s Google. It proved me improper. Pretty erroneous. The DuckDuckGo designers have set a good deal of assumed into usability, and it reveals. The interface is aesthetically satisfying with a clean up and straightforward layout that does not check out to reinvent the wheel.

Sam Singleton

Make no mistake, DuckDuckGo has a related truly feel to Google (but then yet again, so do all modern day look for engines). Things this kind of as advert placements and awareness panels are ripped straight from Google. This is not automatically a knock on DuckDuckGo, on the other hand. The engine’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t repair it” solution to style is effective properly nicely. 

They’ve even cleaned it up a little bit and added some welcome adjustments. For instance, DuckDuckGo doesn’t break up success across web pages. Somewhat, when you reach the base of a web page, you can just simply click “See additional results” in an countless scroll. This is a insignificant tweak, but it felt much better than clicking back again and forth through web pages and webpages.

3. Certainly, you can escape from ads

This sort of goes along with the initial place on this list: Given that DuckDuckGo does not track your searching history, it are unable to supply you with specific customized ads.

As you use its providers, Google creates a profile on you based on own facts, this sort of as your look for routines and purchasing background. This info is then utilized to advertisement targeting, main to really particular advertisements popping up on seemingly just about every website you go to. For instance, when I searched Google for stuffed toys to purchase for my younger nephew’s birthday, each web-site I visited for the subsequent few months saved exhibiting me Pokemon plushies in their banner commercials.

But I had none of these same advertisement hauntings while using DuckDuckGo. When I searched for some thing, the effects site would clearly show only a number of similar advertisements together the correct-hand facet, or over the very first results. These adverts were only pertinent to what I was exploring, and never ever followed me about although searching other web-sites. In actuality, when using DuckDuckGo, I recognized fewer advertisements in basic. In a day and age when we’re regularly bombarded with flashing advertisements and pop-ups, this made for a truly pleasurable browsing practical experience.

Sam Singleton

4. You’ll trade some look for smarts for privacy

Google is terrific for acquiring issues I just cannot fairly bear in mind. I enter a couple of random points that I do keep in mind, and it will ordinarily will give me the reply. When I tried these very same types of queries with DuckDuckGo, it just didn’t have the algorithms (or details?) to supply. 

In the screenshot underneath, you can see that I was seeking for the identify of a motion picture (Adult men Who Stare at Goats) dependent on a random scene. Since I didn’t know the movie’s title, I rather searched employing “film george clooney do you have superpowers scene”. Google returned the motion picture I was hunting for on the initially final result, although DuckDuckGo simply just could not find it. Now this is a somewhat particular example, but consumers have arrive to depend on Google providing terrific benefits with sparse inputs.

Sam Singleton

Of system, 1 of the most important explanations Google is so efficient is that it collects and suppliers person info, and then tailors it for personalization. Without having tapping into a substantial library of contextual information, DuckDuckGo will continue on to fall powering Google in returned outcome accuracy.

5. I truly miss out on Google maps

Soon after exclusively working with DuckDuckGo for a week, I can say that I officially skip the way Google search seamlessly hooks into Google maps. Absolutely sure, DuckDuckGo has a maps aspect delivered by Apple, but it isn’t the exact same. Just like when I’m working with an Iphone, I desire to use Google Maps rather than the pre-installed Apple Maps. It just feels far better in conditions of the offered details and its trustworthiness.

Sam Singleton

A thing else I missed is immediate access to the overall Google ecosystem. Equally in my private and skilled lifetime, I have appear to depend on Google applications these as Push and Google Workspaces. Google has accomplished a excellent occupation connecting all of their functions seamlessly jointly. Not becoming ready to combine these with my lookup motor practical experience felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

Will I switch to DuckDuckGo permanently? Should you?

Need to you switch to DuckDuckGo? It is dependent on what you want from your search motor. Do you worth privateness earlier mentioned all else? Then go forward and make the swap. Do you want the most exact outcomes and most superior options? Then you’ll want to adhere with Google.  

As for me, I program to proceed applying DuckDuckGo. I’m a jaded millennial and I grew up in the age of internet details monitoring. I experienced prolonged in the past accepted that my privateness would be sacrificed for more accurate effects. But what I discovered from this very little experiment was that, for the most element, what we’re all searching for on-line is really very simple and straightforward. 

Whilst Google is equipped to properly guess what you are hunting for, a little bit far more hand-keeping is expected with DuckDuckGo. This doesn’t signify that DuckDuckGo can’t locate what you are right after. It just implies that you may possibly have to modify your search parameters. The streamlined Google world-wide-web browsing I have turn into accustomed to by using cookies, auto-fill, and personalization are of training course a convenience. But devoid of these bells and whistles, the outcomes are mostly the similar.

And I figure, if the outcomes are the same, why not err on the facet of privacy?