Use DuckDuckGo to create a QR code for any website
If you care about your privacy on the web, and you’re worried about just what Google knows about you, then privacy-focused search site DuckDuckGo is a great alternative.
It offers lots of features that you may not be aware of, including the ability to quickly generate a QR code for any website.
FLoC off! WordPress proposes treating Google's new targeted ad tech as a security concern
Google's Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) technology has raised the hackles of many, and the latest to express concern at the new user tracking and ad targeting technique is WordPress.
The blogging platform joins the likes of DuckDuckGo in standing up to Google, suggesting it could block Google's new technology on the sites it powers. With WordPress catering for around two-fifths of the web, the proposal could have a huge impact on what Google has planned. Fighting FLoC, WordPress says it "can help combat racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and discrimination against those with mental illness with four lines of code".
EFF and DuckDuckGo's new partnership is about enhancing secure browsing and protecting user information on the web
Although most web browsers now automatically switch you to the secure HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) version of a website if you try to go to a non-secure HTTP address, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) offers another option.
Its HTTPS Everywhere add-on has been protecting users for over a decade now, and automatically sends your browser to the secure version of a site if it exists. Thanks to a new partnership with privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, the tool is about to get even better at redirecting users.
DuckDuckGo's Chrome extension blocks Google's controversial new FLoC tracking technique
That Google tracks internet usage is hardly news -- it how the company has operated for years, and it is central to its business model. But the search giant recently started testing a new technique for delivering targeted ads to people called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), and it's now enabled for millions of users by default.
While Google is insistent that FLoC is "privacy-preserving mechanism" and one that " enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behavior of individual users", the algorithm remains controversial for many. The cookie-free technique uses fingerprinting which the likes of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other privacy groups have expressed great concern about. For anyone who would like to block Google's new tracking method, DuckDuckGo's Chrome extension is here to help.
DuckDuckGo protects your online privacy with new open source Tracker Radar service
Google competitor DuckDuckGo is already well-known as a search engine that goes further than others to protect user privacy. Now the company has open sourced Tracker Radar, its data set that details thousands of domains that track you as you use the internet.
DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar is something that the company already uses itself to power the tracker protection in the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser mobile apps and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials desktop browser extensions. Now it is being made publicly available, and developers are invited to contribute to the ever-growing list of trackers to further protect user privacy.
DuckDuckGo launches Smarter Encryption feature in its extensions and apps
Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo announced the launch of a new feature today that it calls Smarter Encryption.
Smarter Encryption is designed to upgrade requests to HTTP sites automatically to HTTPS if the site in question supports HTTPS and if it is on DuckDuckGo's list of sites that can be upgraded.
DuckDuckGo reminds ignorant users that many websites ignore browsers' Do Not Track privacy requests
In an increasingly-connected world where data is collected and shared, privacy has become ever-more important to people. If you are of that mind, you may have enabled the Do Not Track (DNT) setting in your web browser in the hope that it will stop the websites you visit from tracking your online activities. Bad news: it probably makes no difference whatsoever.
This might be something you knew already, but research by privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo -- which famously does respect DNT requests -- found than more than three-quarters of people were not aware of that that many sites ignore DNT settings.
Privacy-centric DuckDuckGo shuns Google and turns to Apple Maps for location-based searches
With the emphasis it places on privacy, it should come as little surprise that search engine DuckDuckGo is less than keen on Google. The latest demonstration of this is the company's decision to eschew Google Maps in favor of Apple's MapKit JS framework to power its map-related searches.
DuckDuckGo says that this brings users a "valuable combination of mapping and privacy", both on the desktop and on mobile.
DuckDuckGo denies using fingerprinting to track its users
Responding to a forum post that accused it of "fingerprinting users", privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo says that fears are unfounded and that it is not tracking its users.
The allegation was made after the Firefox extension CanvasBlocker showed a warning to users. The suggestion of fingerprinting -- gathering as much information as possible about a user through their browser to create a unique identifier that can be used for tracking -- is clearly something that would seem to sit in opposition to what DuckDuckGo claims to stand for. The company CEO says the accusation is simply wrong.
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