DuckDuckGo is rapidly gaining users for its privacy focus

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine and browser app positioned as a privacy-friendly alternative to Google. There have been around 122 billion searches on DuckDuckGo in the 14 years since it was launched.

This focus on privacy has helped propel the company’s growth since it was founded back in 2008 that claims it does not store the personal information of its users, ever. This means all searches done on the search engine are always anonymous..

The widespread backlash following a recent tracking controversy has threatened to reverse that growth. Duckduckgo Holds A Total Market Share Of 2.38% In The USA.

Experts says, depending on your needs and priorities, Google may not be the best search engine. DuckDuckGo is rapidly gaining users due to its privacy focus, especially in contrast to Google's all-seeing eyes.

DuckDuckGo is one of Google’s more formidable competitors. This is especially true for those users who hold privacy as a critical component to deciding which search engine is best for them. It is also true that, DuckDuckGo has plenty more to offer searchers in addition to its increased privacy protections.

On average, DuckDuckGo processes 98.79 million search queries a day. Daily search activity has increased 1.86x over the previous year, up from an average of 52.95 million searches in February 2020. The average number of daily queries on DuckDuckGo has grown 9.17x since January 2015.

Lack of privacy is a huge concern for today’s internet users: The company clearly says, “Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or share any of your personal information.”

DuckDuckGo doesn’t follow its users around with personalized ads since it won’t store their search history, won’t track their IP address, and essentially has no personal data to sell. This is true regardless of whether the user is in private browsing mode.

And, with the growing concerns of everyday people surrounding user privacy, it’s obvious that DuckDuckGo is doing something right.

Moving ahead, originally created as an alternative to Google’s search engine, DuckDuckGo has, over the years, grown into a fully-fledged browser.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA