There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this actual
true? If so is it built upon another well-known browser base? Or is it
just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use within
Firefox? TIA for any information.
--
Jeff Barnett

In <ung330$1ejis$1@dont-email.me> Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> writes:

>There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
>These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this actual
>true? If so is it built upon another well-known browser base? Or is it
>just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use within
>Firefox? TIA for any information.

DDG does offer their own browser which, some people
suggest [a], is cross licensed from M-Soft and Bing.

[a] I'm using their browser on my iPad. It works fine,
and maybe once a month I run into a web page that
doesn't like it.

I have *NO* idea whether there's any connection to Bing
but figured I'd mention that because it's a rumour
floating out there.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On 08.01.24 07:01, Jeff Barnett wrote:
> There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
> These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this actual
> true? If so is it built upon another well-known browser base? Or is it
> just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use within
> Firefox? TIA for any information.

Both is possible.
I use DDG-search engine on all machines including DDG-Privacy Protection
and DDG Privacy Dashboard as extensions in Safari and FF.

There is also a DDG-Browser. I can't say much about it. It is available
for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac.

--
"Roma locuta, causa finita." (Augustinus)

danny burstein wrote:
> In <ung330$1ejis$1@dont-email.me> Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> writes:
>
>> There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
>> These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this actual
>> true?

If you go to the DuckDuckGo site https://duckduckgo.com/ you will see
a box which says this:

| Switch to our free browser for
| even more privacy.
| | Download Browser

I wonder if that means there is a browser to download from them? :-J 😜

>> If so is it built upon another well-known browser base? Or is it
>> just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use within
>> Firefox? TIA for any information.

On Windows: See
<https://www.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/11f0v4z/calling_all_ducks_we_need_testers_for_our_beta/>

We are not forking Chromium (or anything else) and for web page
rendering it calls the underlying operating system rendering API
(in this case a Windows WebView2 call that utilizes the Blink
rendering engine underneath).

On Android: The DuckDuckGo browser is a UI wrapped around Android System
Webview the Android-provided rendering engine.

On Mac: It uses WebKit.

> DDG does offer their own browser which, some people
> suggest [a], is cross licensed from M-Soft and Bing.
>
> [a] I'm using their browser on my iPad. It works fine,
> and maybe once a month I run into a web page that
> doesn't like it.
>
> I have *NO* idea whether there's any connection to Bing
> but figured I'd mention that because it's a rumour
> floating out there.

The DuckDuckGo search engine is now powered by Bing (Bing is a search
engine, nor a browser).

The DuckDuckGo browser is a different story.

Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> wrote:

> There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
> These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this
> actual true? If so is it built upon another well-known browser base?
> Or is it just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use
> within Firefox?

https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/ddg-microsoft-tracking-blocking-limit/

I have no interest in using the DDG web browser, so I haven't kept up
with this topic as to whether or DDG amended their behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#DuckDuckGo_private_browser
So, it is a Chrome variant on Android and a Safari variant on iOS/Apple.

"[DuckDuckGo] announced that they would block Microsoft trackers in its
browsers". Would is not the same as have. I hunted around to find:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/05/duckduckgo-microsoft-tracking-scripts/

Don't know why DDG ever had any contractual obligations to Microsoft
regarding the use of Bing. Both Microsoft and Google provide APIs
usable by anyone to submit queries to the search engines. Since I use
an adblocker (uBlock Origin), I don't need to be concerned about
tendencies for alliances by any web browser. Obviously I don't need to
use the DDG web browser to get content/ad blocking available using
extensions long available for other web browsers.

Chrome does not permit installing extensions (aka add-ons) on Android,
so you cannot add an ad blocker add-on (e.g., uBlock Origin) to DDG web
browser to get better content/ad blocking that what the DDG web browser
offers. You can add ad blocker add-ons to Firefox Mobile on Android
(I'm not familiar with Friefox on iOS since I don't do Apple stuff). I
have uBlock Origin added to Firefox on my Android phone.

I've not been impressed with using ddg.com for online searches. DDG
submits its queries to Bing (but the Bing queries don't identify you,
but identify DDG as the client). I'm not impressed with Bing, either.
I prefer Startpage.com which uses Google, but like DDG submits the
queries on your behalf, so Google doesn't see you. They see Startpage
making the query.

Google is still my default search engine (in Firefox), but I can preface
the search string in the address bar with "s" to use Startpage instead.
I can use the "ddg" prefix to use DuckDuckGo's search site. I have
other search engines with prefixes used in the address bar, like wiki
for Wikipedia, yt for Youtube, amaz for Amazon, ebay for eBay, etc.
When I want to use Google, I just enter the search string. To use
Startpage, I enter "s <string>". I have 33 bookmarks for searches, and
those bookmarks have keywords that let me use them as a prefix in the
address bar when I want to use those bookmarked searches.

A feature I like about Startpage over DDG is Startpage lets you
anonymously surf to a site in its search results. You can directly go
to the site in the search results as you would with DDG, or you can
click on the mask icon (Anonymous View) shown in Startpage alongside
each search result to visit the site using Startpage's VPN. So, not
only are you using Startpage to make anonymous queries to Google's
search engine, you can also anonymously visit a site in the search
results. I find I get more relevant search hits with Google than with
Bing.

https://www.startpage.com/en/anonymous-view/
https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4455540212116-The-Anonymous-View-Proxy-technical-details

I'm not the paranoic type, so I've only use their Anonymous View mode to
test it, not to use it on a regular basis.

DDG does not collect your IP address, but they do log your searches
without any personally identifying information. The logs are used to
improve their search service. Startpage doesn't collect anything about
you, not even your search queries.

There was some concern when Startpage (previously ixQuick) was acquired
by a marketing company (System1). So far, no one has reported a change
in Startpage's behavior or privacy.

Startpage is based in the Netherlands, and outside the reach of US NSLs
(National Security Letters which can force a company to record your
info, and they cannot reveal the gov't forced them to), but is still
under jurisdiction of EU laws. DDG is US-based, so they are susceptible
to NSLs. The US is one of the 5-eyes intelligence alliance countries.
The Netherlands are not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

On 8 Jan 2024 07:34:21 -0600 VanguardLH wrote:
> You can add ad blocker add-ons to Firefox Mobile on Android
>(I'm not familiar with Friefox on iOS since I don't do Apple stuff).

Firefox on iOS is based on Webkit, not Gecko, because Apple requires it.
It does not support add-ons.

There have been rumours over the past few months that this might change.
--
(Remove numerics from email address)

VanguardLH wrote:

> I've not been impressed with using ddg.com for online searches. DDG
> submits its queries to Bing (but the Bing queries don't identify you,
> but identify DDG as the client). I'm not impressed with Bing, either.
> I prefer Startpage.com which uses Google, but like DDG submits the
> queries on your behalf, so Google doesn't see you. They see Startpage
> making the query.

I also use Startpage as my default. I miss the era when they were also
IXQuick, where the results stream was aggregated (rather than Google
exclusively). On the occasions that I use DDG or Bing, they sometimes
turn up results that Google (or Startpage proxying of Google) doesn't
show (or show as prominently), but nobody beats Google's depth of results.

One other complaint about Bing is if you're looking for stuff related to
Microsoft, Bing has a strong bias towards Microsoft-related sites. In
principle, that's not necessarily a problem, but official Microsoft
documentation is so often miserable. And far too frequently, results
turn up a lot of links at answers.microsoft.com (which are usually
useless). However, use of the uBlacklist extension really helps. I
have that set to exclude answers.microsoft.com, and that applies to all
search engines, not just Bing, and as a result, I don't have to see that
garbage in my results streams.

>
> Google is still my default search engine (in Firefox), but I can preface
> the search string in the address bar with "s" to use Startpage instead.
> I can use the "ddg" prefix to use DuckDuckGo's search site. I have
> other search engines with prefixes used in the address bar, like wiki
> for Wikipedia, yt for Youtube, amaz for Amazon, ebay for eBay, etc.
> When I want to use Google, I just enter the search string. To use
> Startpage, I enter "s <string>". I have 33 bookmarks for searches, and
> those bookmarks have keywords that let me use them as a prefix in the
> address bar when I want to use those bookmarked searches.

A useful approach, although I don't like using the address bar for
search. The way I go about things is to use a bookmarks folder that I
locate directly below the address bar, and then I have URLs for all the
search engines I might use. Thus, instead of clicking the address bar
to search, I can go down a few pixels, click the folder I've created for
searching, and then choose the search engine I want.

>
> A feature I like about Startpage over DDG is Startpage lets you
> anonymously surf to a site in its search results. You can directly go
> to the site in the search results as you would with DDG, or you can
> click on the mask icon (Anonymous View) shown in Startpage alongside
> each search result to visit the site using Startpage's VPN. So, not
> only are you using Startpage to make anonymous queries to Google's
> search engine, you can also anonymously visit a site in the search
> results. I find I get more relevant search hits with Google than with
> Bing.

Another thing that I like about Startpage is the ability to save
preferences without having to log in, or to keep a persistent cookie.
If I set preferences in Startpage, then they provide a URL that shows
Startpage and with all the preferences set. Thus, in my bookmarks,
that's the link that I use to get to StartPage. I do have StartPage set
as my default, and I do have it set to use my preferences, although at
the moment, I forget the exact tinkering I have to do to get that into
the default search. However, it's not a big thing for me, since I
normally go through the saved bookmark.

One annoyance that I've found with the Android version of Firefox is
that they seem to have lowered the size of the URL that you can use for
a search engine. The one provided by Startpage is longer than that
size, and as a result, it gets truncated. Thus, if I'm using Startpage
from my Android, I have to use a bookmark to search with my preferred
preferences.

>
> There was some concern when Startpage (previously ixQuick) was acquired
> by a marketing company (System1). So far, no one has reported a change
> in Startpage's behavior or privacy.

I've seen those concerns, but I haven't noticed any issues, other than
that System1 dropped use of ixQuick's ability to provide aggregated
results from queries to multiple search engines.

Smith

NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Google is still my default search engine (in Firefox), but I can preface
>> the search string in the address bar with "s" to use Startpage instead.
>> I can use the "ddg" prefix to use DuckDuckGo's search site. I have
>> other search engines with prefixes used in the address bar, like wiki
>> for Wikipedia, yt for Youtube, amaz for Amazon, ebay for eBay, etc.
>> When I want to use Google, I just enter the search string. To use
>> Startpage, I enter "s <string>". I have 33 bookmarks for searches, and
>> those bookmarks have keywords that let me use them as a prefix in the
>> address bar when I want to use those bookmarked searches.
>
> A useful approach, although I don't like using the address bar for
> search. The way I go about things is to use a bookmarks folder that I
> locate directly below the address bar, and then I have URLs for all
> the search engines I might use. Thus, instead of clicking the
> address bar to search, I can go down a few pixels, click the folder
> I've created for searching, and then choose the search engine I want.

But I'm not interested in going to a search engine's home page, and then
entering the search criteria to start a search. With the address bar
approach of using bookmark keywords, I can 2 things at once: specify the
search engine, AND specify the search criteria.

Say I want to search on "youtube-dl GUI". I can go to the search
engine's home page, enter the string into the text box, and click to
start a search. Or I can enter "youtube-dl GUI" (sans quotes) to do the
search immediately, or "s youtube-dl GUI" to immediately start a search
at Startpage, or "yt cutest kitten" to find those videos at Youtube
instead of first using a bookmark to go to youtube.com to then enter
"cutest kitten".

> Another thing that I like about Startpage is the ability to save
> preferences without having to log in, or to keep a persistent cookie.
> If I set preferences in Startpage, then they provide a URL that shows
> Startpage and with all the preferences set.

Never tried that. Just did it now, but the URL is horrendous. I got:

https://www.startpage.com/do/mypage.pl?prfe=83e49cddec8dc3df2d74091643a1c9a1ed583f55b6da96f6c05e11732404a14094b11ab9b85bf9a5701f69eff4205b5a0f9db48ed0ed65f0bd55db38521e6dd84bab6fe21d1f868356009d

Instead of an arg=value pair for each perference, I get something that
must be a bitmask for all preference settings. Since it would be in a
bookmark, it wouldn't be onerous to use. However, that is their scheme
to load the mypage web doc (their home page). Doesn't work if I add
&q=string (where the query arg gets ignored, so I'm dumped at their home
page instead of a search results page).

In my Startpage bookmark, the URL is:

https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=%s

I can then enter "s youtube-dl gui" to get their search of:

https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=youtube-dl%20gui

The landing page is different. With the bitmask preferences argument,
the landing page is mypage.pl. With my bookmarked URL with q=%s, the
landing page is search. Doesn't look like I can combine both
preferences and query in the URL.

>> There was some concern when Startpage (previously ixQuick) was acquired
>> by a marketing company (System1). So far, no one has reported a change
>> in Startpage's behavior or privacy.
>
> I've seen those concerns, but I haven't noticed any issues, other than
> that System1 dropped use of ixQuick's ability to provide aggregated
> results from queries to multiple search engines.

For a short while, both ixQuick and Startpage domains existed. Then
ixQuick disappeared (well, they kept the domain, but visitors get
redirected to startpage.com), and that was before System1's acquisition.

1998: ixquick - a metasearch engine (queried 14 other search engines)
2002: Startpage shows up.
2003: Startpage mirrors ixquick.
2009: Startpage fetches results only from Google.
2016: ixquick and Startpage merge.
March: "ixquick" changes to "startpage" on ixquick.com.
May: ixquick.com redirects to startpage.com.
2019: Startpage acquired by System1

ixquick dropped aggregated results (metasearch) 10 years before System1
acquired startpage aka ixquick.

On Sun, 7 Jan 2024 23:01:00 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:

> There have been many recent ads on (USA) TV for DuckDuckGo browsing.
> These ads imply there is a browser to download from them. Is this actual
> true? If so is it built upon another well-known browser base? Or is it
> just the DuckDuckGo search engine that I can select to use within
> Firefox? TIA for any information.

Doesn't DDG have an exclusive deal with M$ and so they don't block M$ or
related company (Linkedin) trackers?

I've been using Startpage since they crippled Scroogle.

--
s|b