Duckduckgo brings privacy-focused browsers to Windows

Duckduckgo is perhaps best known for its search engine, which stands out for its focus on privacy and anonymity. It’s something they later expanded into a full browser, and then mainly for IOS and Android devices. The focus on mobile devices also extended to PCs about a year ago, when the Mac got a version. Now the decorated browser and cookie blocking will find its way to Windows as well.

The news found its way through Reddit forum, where Duckduckgo connects to users who want to test the new browser. At the moment only a limited number of beta testers are allowed, by downloading the browser to their phone it is possible to join the queue. According to Duckduckgo, the current version should suffice for “everyday use,” but these errors may occur because they haven’t had time to test potential Windows versions or hardware options.

Currently, some features in the Mac OS version are missing, including a video player that cleans ads, email protection, and built-in support for the Bitwarden password manager. However, basic functionality is present, such as the ability to automatically skip pop-ups for and agree to cookie settings. Your browser should also automatically block third-party tracking or cookies, which collect and sell user data.

We don’t part with Chromium (or whatever) and to render a webpage it calls the underlying OS rendering API (in this case a Windows WebView2 call which uses the Blink rendering engine underneath). While this is our approach now, that may change depending on the feedback we get from this test round. If there are changes for future versions, we will make it clear.

The Windows version took longer than those for Android, IOS, and Mac likely due to Duckduckgo choosing not to base it on Chromium, the same engine behind Google Chrome and Edge. Instead, Windows Webview 2 and the Blink rendering engine are used to display web content. However, Duckduckgo states that this may change, depending on the feedback they receive from user tests.