Google by far and large is the most sought after search engine for its sheer ability to answer billions of web queries faster and with more relevant results compared to any of its rivals. Google has 81.5% of the search engine market share as on September 2019 according to Netmarketshare.

In spite of all the convenience, Google seems to drag and privacy seems to precede. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is one such user who has switched to the more privacy-centric DuckDuckGo as his default search engine.

In a tweet, Dorsey wrote, “I love @DuckDuckGo. My default search engine for a while now. The app is even better!”

I love @DuckDuckGo. My default search engine for a while now. The app is even better!

— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) November 27, 2019

Soon, DuckDuckGo responded to Dorsey’s compliment with a witty tweet, writing: “That’s great to hear @jack! Happy to have you on the on the Duck side”. The reply was followed by a duck emoji.

That’s great to hear @jack! Happy to have you on the Duck side 🦆.

— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) November 27, 2019

Cookies are text files that are automatically saved on users’ device by websites. It allows them to remember users’ search preferences and to show more relevant ads. To show these ads, many websites allow marketers to embed third-party trackers.

Another more intrusive method is called Fingerprinting, which allows advertisers to build unique profiles about users.

According to Princeton’s webTap privacy project which evaluated over a million websites, Google has trackers installed on 75% of the top million Internet websites.

Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo neither tracks its users or their IP address, nor does it try to take advantage of the search history. In a nutshell, it has no personal data to sell, so a website or marketer will remain in the dark about user preferences and won’t be able to target them with personalised ads based on information gleaned from users’ search choices. DuckDuckGo redirects all search requests in a slightly different way. It does not send search terms to other websites, so they will still know what sites were visited by user, but they will not know what search was entered previously.

(With input from agencies)