DuckDuckGo’s browser comes to the desktop: beta available for Mac and soon on Windows

For fifteen years, DuckDuckGo has built a reputation in the field of privacy by presenting alternatives to services as popular as the Google search engine or the Chrome browser on Android. Now the company has introduced its own browser for Apple-made devices, Mac computers and laptops, which it claims offers faster browsing speed than Chrome by use up to 60 percent less dataaccording to Europa Press.

DuckDuckGo is known as an alternative search engine to others such as Google or Bing and that focuses on offering the greatest possible privacy to its users, without collecting personal information with which to personalize your searches.

Its application for mobile devices, which was launched in 2018, has registered more than 150 million of user downloads, who have also claimed the experience of “simplified privacy” for their computers, the company explained in a statement.

For this reason, it has decided to launch a privacy solution for Mac computersin order to offer simple private browsing, without specific configurations, which will come later Windowsalthough without a specific date.

It is a beta version of the new DuckDuckGo browser for Macwhich at the moment is not in the App Store, intended for a small number of users, who must join the waiting list in order to try this service.

The fact that it is a private beta already indicates that the experience “is still evolving” and that it is in the testing phase, although it already has some features that could reach the final version, such as the removal of external extensions.

Among them, those of tab or password managers, bookmarks or ad blockers. At first, DuckDuckGo plans to integrate them into its own browser.

“We built these features directly into our app, which has privacy, security, speed, and simplicity benefits,” the statement read.

In relation to privacy, an essential characteristic of the search engine with which it became known, the company has insisted on its interest in protecting the security of users with tools such as its tracker blocker, DuckDuckBot, or a built-in safe search engine.

Likewise, it has underlined that it has incorporated a new functionality of pop-up cookie protection in approximately 50 percent of websites, a percentage that has increased with this beta version.

It has also ensured that users will get faster browsing due to this blocking system, a speed that exceeds that of Chromeas it uses around 60 percent less data than Google’s browser.

On the other hand, the company has recalled that its Smarter Encryption system, built-in search engine, ensures users more frequent browsing in the HTTPS encrypted version. This, along with tracker blocking, reduces exposure to third-party scripts that could access user information.

“We designed our product so that in-app data such as history, bookmarks, and passwords are stored by default only locally on the device and DuckDuckGo cannot access them”, the company has pointed out in this publication.

Why DuckDuckGo for Mac is Unique

DuckDuckGo has also explained what is the main difference of your browser compared to others and you have stressed that this lies not only in its appearance, but also in the way it is built.

Thus, he has detailed that a traditional browser is made up of two parts. On the one hand, a rendering engine which translates the web code to the websites you visit, and then everything that said interface supports: bookmarks, tabs, settings, etc.

While it is true that in recent years new browsers have been developed through a process of copying or ‘forking’ a browser, such as Chrome, DuckDuckGo takes advantage of the rendering engine that already integrates macOSas well as the one used by your browser, Safari.

In this way, just use an API provided by the Mac operating system to build your own code from scratch, based on privacy, security and simplicity.

“This means we don’t have the leftovers and clutter that have built up in browsers over the years, both in code and design, giving us the opportunity to have a different look and feel. offer higher speed”, he clarified in this writing.

The company has indicated that it plans to open source its Mac app after the beta period, just as it did with iOS and Android for their mobile versions, and that will take this approach for Windows.

At the moment, DuckDuckGo is only focusing on these two operating systems, although they have acknowledged that, ultimately, they would “love” to offer Linux support.