DuckDuckGo, the search engine that prides itself on protecting your privacy, is building its very own web browser for Mac. It promises to be simple and fast, with robust privacy features enabled by default.
The browser will feature DuckDuckGo’s popular “Fire Button,” which quickly wipes all your private data in just one click. It also will be built to use native browser technologies, rather than relying on third-party engines.
DuckDuckGo plans a privacy-focused Mac browser
DuckDuckGo already offers a Privacy Essentials plugin for Mac, which brings a number of its best features to Safari. You can use it to encrypt your connection, to block trackers, and to see Privacy Grades for each of the websites you visit.
On iPhone and iPad, however, DuckDuckGo is available as a standalone web browser with all of these features — and more — baked in and enabled by default. And soon, the company plans to release a desktop version built for Mac.
“DuckDuckGo for desktop will redefine user expectations of everyday online privacy,” the company said in a blog post Tuesday. “No complicated settings, no misleading warnings, no ‘levels’ of privacy protection.”
Instead, the DuckDuckGo browser will automatically protect almost everything you do on the web across search, email, browsing and more.
Build from the ground up
And DuckDuckGo isn’t taking any shortcuts. Rather than building upon an existing browser platform, like Chromium, the company is starting from scratch. Its browser will be completely native on Mac, using Apple’s own rendering technology.
This allows DuckDuckGo to “strip away a lot of the unnecessary cruft and clutter that’s accumulated over the years in major browsers,” the company said. The DuckDuckGo browser will be as streamlined and as efficient as can be on Mac — much like Safari itself.
“Compared to Chrome, the DuckDuckGo app for desktop is cleaner, way more private, and early tests have found it significantly faster too!”
There’s no word on when the DuckDuckGo browser for Mac will make its public debut, but we expect to hear more sometime next year.
