Is DuckDuckGo safe: benefits vs limitations

If DuckDuckGo is on your radar, odds are you’re already a privacy-conscious individual. The DuckDuckGo browser and search engine have a reputation for respecting users’ privacy, making them a popular option for consumers who don’t want their data tracked or collected. 

If you’re still not sure if it’s really trustworthy, we’ve broken down the most important factors to consider below. 

Mariam Volobueva

Updated on: August 16, 2023

Is DuckDuckGo safe?

Yes, DuckDuckGo is safe. Since DuckDuckGo doesn’t actually store your data, it reduces the risk of your personal information being stolen, leaked, and shared with third parties such as marketers or the government. However, it’s not a 100% safeguard for your online privacy.

While using DuckDuckGo’s search engine may offer some peace of mind, it’s important to note that they do not provide absolute protection.

DuckDuckGo cannot prevent you from clicking on unsafe links, downloading questionable files, or becoming victims of phishing attempts. It’s essential to recognize that no website, application, or software can entirely mitigate these risks.

What can you do make browsing safer while using DuckDuckGo?

How to use DuckDuckGo safely 

DuckDuckGo undoubtedly goes the extra mile to safeguard your online privacy, but it’s essential to acknowledge its limitations. Fortunately, you can enhance both your privacy and security with the following five measures:

1) Browse with the DuckDuckGo browser 

Even if you use a super privacy-driven search engine like DuckDuckGo, many mainstream browsers like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge may still save and share your search history. And privacy modes like incognito, don’t do much to prevent this. That’s why it’s best to use the DuckDuckGo search engine in combination with a private browser like Firefox or Brave. See our comparison of Brave and DuckDuckGo.

2) Browse with Tor for ultimate privacy 

While the DuckDuckGo browser is suitable for the average user’s privacy needs, try combining the DuckDuckGo search engine with Tor (The Onion Router) for the ultimate secure browsing experience. 

Tor routes your browsing data through multiple encrypted servers, rendering your internet use untraceable. To use these two together, simply browse with the Tor browser, and when you enter search terms into the address bar, DuckDuckGo will perform the search by default.

3) Pay attention to Privacy Grades 

Don’t let DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Grade feature go to waste. Always pay attention to the single icon or letter displayed in the browser’s main toolbar, indicating the website’s privacy rating from “A” (safest) to “F” (less secure). We recommend you steer clear of any websites with a low score, even though DuckDuckGo improves the grade by blocking all trackers. 

4) Combine with a cybersecurity and privacy suite 

While you may have heightened privacy settings, a private browser and search engine aren’t the solution to all of your privacy and security worries. We recommend using a privacy suite such as Surfshark One that offers a reliable antivirus to protect you against viruses and malware and a trusted VPN (virtual private network) to encrypt all of your internet traffic, along with other privacy and security features.

DuckDuckGo pro’s and cons

DuckDuckGo comes with great privacy features but also has its limitations. Some websites will still be able to track you and your internet service provider (ISP) will still be able to see your searches, for example. So, while it’s a great place to start, DuckDuckGo is most effective if used in combination with other privacy tools such as a trusted VPN.

Pros and cons of DuckDuckGo

Pros:

• HTTPS Everywhere: Encrypts data transmission, ensuring secure and private connections to websites.
• Do Not Track (GPC): Enforces privacy preferences and is legally binding, offering strong protection against data collection.
• Private Search (No-logs policy): Does not store user-identifiable data, providing neutral search results without profiling users.
• No Search Leakage: Acts as an intermediary to prevent search terms from being exposed to visited websites.
• Ad Blocking: Privacy Essentials extension blocks intrusive ads for a more private browsing experience.
• Privacy Grade: Offers a rating system to assess website privacy, empowering users to make informed decisions.
• Burn Bar: Automatically erases browsing data and cookies, enhancing privacy during individual sessions.
• Content Security Policy: Prevents browser access to known malicious sites, reducing the risk of XSS attacks.

Cons:

• Displays Search Terms in URL: Search terms appear in the URL, potentially compromising privacy.
• Displays Search Terms in Browser History: Search terms become part of the browser history, requiring additional steps to remove.
• Ad-Driven Business Model: While privacy-focused, DuckDuckGo profits from advertising and affiliate marketing.
• !Bangs Feature forgoes Privacy Protection: Using !bangs may expose search data to third-party sites.
• Can Reveal Your Location: While optional, sharing approximate location for localized results may raise privacy concerns.
• US-Based: Located in the US, potentially subject to US law enforcement requests, although it claims not to collect logs.

Why do people use DuckDuckGo? Main privacy benefits

People use DuckDuckGo mainly because of its focus on privacy. Some of DuckDuckGo’s privacy features that users appreciates are HTTPS Everywhere, Do Not Track, Private Search, No search leakage, Ad Blocking, Privacy Grade, Burn Bar and Content Security Policy.

Let’s look at each of these features:

HTTPS Everywhere 

The DuckDuckGo browser implements the HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) protocol everywhere, which provides an additional layer of security by encrypting your data when transmitting it between your web browser and the website you’re visiting. This encryption process scrambles the information, making it unreadable to anyone trying to intercept or eavesdrop on your data.

In addition to encryption, HTTPS ensures your data integrity by using digital certificates to verify that the information sent and received hasn’t been tampered with by malicious actors during transmission between your browser and the website. 

HTTPS also employs Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols to authenticate the identity of the website you are visiting. This means you can trust that you are connecting to a legitimate website and not an imposter posing as the real thing.

Do Not Track 

Through its Global Privacy Control (GPC) feature, the DuckDuckGo browser actively warns sites against collecting, sharing, or selling your data. Unlike other browsers’ Do Not Track (DNT) feature, which is often disregarded by websites, DuckDuckGo’s GPC holds more power. 

A regular DNT sends a signal to websites you visit, indicating that you prefer not to be tracked across the internet for behavioral advertising and data collection purposes. However, it isn’t a standardized requirement, which means that websites can choose to ignore it. 

DuckDuckGo’s GPC is a more advanced privacy feature that goes beyond the traditional DNT setting found in most browsers. Similar to a DNT, it conveys your privacy preference to websites you visit, indicating that you do not want your data to be collected, shared, or sold. But unlike a DNT, it’s more enforceable and legally binding. So if a website fails to respect the GPC request, DuckDuckGo has the potential to take legal action in specific regions where this feature is recognized and upheld by privacy laws.

Private Search 

DuckDuckGo’s private search is designed to prioritize your privacy. Unlike other popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, DuckDuckGo operates under a strict “no-logs” policy, which means it doesn’t store any user-identifiable data, such as IP addresses, search queries, or user-agent information (like device details and web browser used). 

Instead of creating a user profile to track your search behavior to target you with personalized ads, DuckDuckGo provides neutral search results and displays ads linked to the search term from each individual session. 

No search leakage

DuckDuckGo also takes a strong stance against search leakage, which is when search engines expose your search terms to the websites you visit.

So to protect your privacy, not only does DuckDuckGo not collect your data, it acts as an intermediary or proxy between you and the search results. Instead of sending your search query directly to the target website, DuckDuckGo retrieves the search results from its own servers.

DuckDuckGo uses the POST method for searches instead of the traditional GET method most search engines use. In the GET method, search terms are appended to the URL, which could be leaked to the websites you click on. However, with the POST method, the search terms are sent in the request body, making them less susceptible to leakage.

DuckDuckGo also ensures that “referrer” headers are not sent to the websites you visit. Referrer headers contain the URL of the page that referred you to the current page, which could potentially include your search terms. By not sending referrer headers, DuckDuckGo prevents the leakage of your search queries to third-party websites.

Ad Blocking

If you get the Privacy Essentials browser extension and mobile app, you’ll also benefit from an integrated ad blocker. This will prevent intrusive advertising such as banner ads, pop-up ads, and interstitial ads from appearing on websites you visit. 

Privacy Grade 

In both the mobile app and browser extension, DuckDuckGo offers a super handy privacy feature called the Privacy Grade. When you visit a website, DuckDuckGo looks at whether the site uses encryption, whether it uses third-party trackers, what data it collects from visitors, and how it handles the data it collects. Based on these factors, DuckDuckGo assigns the website a rating from “A” to “F,” “A” being private and “F” being a privacy nightmare. 

This cool feature gives you greater control over your online experiences and helps you make more informed decisions about which sites to trust and share your personal information with.

Burn Bar

DuckDuckGo’s mobile app also features the Burn Bar, which allows you to erase your browsing data and all cookies from your device each time you close a session, combining the benefits of browsing in incognito mode with DuckDuckGo’s anonymous search function. 

The biggest distinction between the burn bar and incognito mode is that, when you enable the Burn Bar feature, it ensures that your search history and cookies are automatically deleted as soon as you close the individual browsing session rather than after closing the entire browser. Better yet, the data removal not only applies to your device but also extends to DuckDuckGo’s servers and the wider web.

Content Security Policy 

DuckDuckGo’s Content Security Policy (CSP) prevents your browser from accessing any known malicious sites. It’s a set of directives that control which sources of content are considered safe to load and execute. And by specifying the allowed content sources, CSP prevents Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.

DuckDuckGo Privacy limitations

Despite being a pioneer in privacy protection, DuckDuckGo does raise some minor privacy concerns worth noting.

Displays your search terms in the URL 

DuckDuckGo displays search terms in the URL, setting it apart from other private search engines like StartPage which encrypts all URLs to prevent interpretation. While this allows for the convenience of revisiting recently visited sites and aids DuckDuckGo in suggesting fixes for misspelled words, it can be viewed as a privacy oversight.

Displays your search terms in the browser history 

Because the search terms appear in your browser’s address bar, they subsequently become part of the browser history. While you have the option to delete your history or use private browsing, this extra step may be overlooked, potentially compromising your privacy if someone gains access to your computer or network.

Is ad-driven 

Despite being privacy-driven, it could be argued that DuckDuckGo’s advertising and affiliate marketing business model still profits from user activity. However, DuckDuckGo maintains that it does not sell your personal data to marketers and can sustain itself without tracking users.

Unlike traditional search engines like Google that rely heavily on user data to target and personalize advertisements, DuckDuckGo’s ad-driven approach prioritizes your privacy and data protection. It doesn’t involve tracking or creating personalized profiles based on your search behavior. Instead, it shows non-intrusive ads that are contextually relevant to your search queries.

!Bangs feature forgoes privacy protection

DuckDuckGo’s !Bangs is a handy little feature that allows you to quickly perform searches on specific websites directly from the DuckDuckGo search bar. All you have to do is type an exclamation mark followed by a site’s alias or abbreviation (!site).

While it may be convenient, it kind of defeats the purpose of using DuckDuckGo since it doesn’t extend DuckDuckGo’s privacy protection to the sites you visit. Using !Bangs to search Google is essentially the same as conducting the search directly on Google, meaning that Google will still track your searches and data.

Can reveal your location 

DuckDuckGo offers the option to share your approximate location if you’re looking for more localized results. While this may raise some eyebrows, it is only an option, and DuckDuckGo conducts these searches without sharing your IP, specific location, or personally identifiable information with third parties.

US-Based 

Another aspect that may be cause for concern is DuckDuckGo’s location in the US. As a result, US law enforcement could potentially compel DuckDuckGo to hand over logs if required. However, DuckDuckGo emphasizes that it is not obligated to collect any logs in the first place, which means there is no data to hand over.