DuckDuckGo is an Internet search engine that is considered an alternative to Google and Bing. The main characteristics of this search engine are simplicity, minimalism and greater privacy compared to other more established search engines.
DuckDuckGo Features
The DuckDuckGo finder comes with a duck-shaped logo , which makes it very distinctive and unmistakable. This search engine aims to be as simple to use as possible, so it has a very simple interface. You just have to enter the search terms and click on the button Easy right? The search engine is adapted to both PC and mobile devices , so there is no excuse not to steal it.
Technically DuckDuckGo is written in Perl code and runs on the FreeBSD operating system under an Nginx web server . This makes it state of the art to run very fast, and supports the use of a free operating system based on the BSD kernel.
The main features of DuckDuckGo are as follows:
- It places great importance on privacy , so it does not save data on users or the equipment they use to access the network. This feature is very relevant in an age when privacy is very important.
- There are no user profiles , which makes all of them the same in the search engine.
- It is a search engine that bets on simplicity and minimalism as a hallmark, you will not find as many options as in other search engines like Google.
- DuckDuckGo relies on many websites to deliver its results, the most notable of which are Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, and Yahoo!
- It has a large community of followers who are actively involved in the project.
Testing DuckDuckGo
After having seen its most basic features, it is time to try the DuckDuckGo search engine , this is the best way to see what it is capable of offering us.
First, we see its interface , which already warns us that we will not be tracked or our information will be saved:
We do our first search , in this case we look for this website "your expert" and this is the result obtained:
We can verify that the search engine has been able to find the information without problems . Also, it shows us a lot of data such as the home page of this website and a lot of videos uploaded to the YouTube channel.
DuckDuckGo offers us several options when doing a search . The first one is the type of content. Here we can select if we want it to show us websites, images, videos or news.
We keep looking at your options and we find something as interesting as the possibility of selecting the country where we want the search to be carried out, security and the moment of publication of the information. We found options as important as making adult content not be shown, something useful if we are going to let our children use the computer.
From "Settings" we can change some parameters such as activate the dark mode , change the size and style of the font, set a language for searches, automatic loading and make them open in another window when clicking. This helps to keep a search engine very well organized, which is important in order to use it efficiently.
The dark mode will be especially interesting for those who need to use the computer at night , because with this configuration the eyes suffer less and we will also receive less blue light, which will help us take care of our health and sleep better. The option to open the results in another window is also very interesting, as it will prevent us from losing the search results if we accidentally close the open result.
Comparison with Google
DuckDuckGo does not offer us as many options as Google but this does not have to be a bad thing. Google includes a ton of configuration options that most users will never use, so they don't really add anything to the common user. However, DuckDuckGo's respect for privacy will be valued by many people who are concerned that third parties may access data related to their Internet activity.
Something that we do miss is that DuckDuckGo does not seem to be able to show the Rich Snippets as Google does. What is that? The "box" of information that we see in the following image below the search result:
It is not essential, but it is very useful when it comes to better understanding how a website is organized , especially the larger ones that contain a multitude of categories and tags.
Is this a coincidence or is it common? The best way to check is to look up a recipe , as this is where Rich Snippets are used the most. In this case we are looking for "Baked Chicken", one of the most popular cooking recipes in the world. These are the results obtained:
The result is clear and confirms what we thought. DuckDuckGo does not show Rich Snippets , or at least not as efficiently as Google, which will often show us less important data than Google. This will be especially important if we are looking for recipes, we just have to see all the information that Google has shown us and that does not appear in its rival.
conclusion
DuckDuckGo is presented as a great alternative to Google, much more respectful of user privacy and very easy to use. However, it also lacks some important features that the internet giant's browser does have . These features may not be missed by many users, but there will also be many others who find the additional data displayed by Google very important.
The good news is that we can have both browsers installed , so that we use one or the other as it suits us. The downside of this is that we have to have both browsers and choose between one or the other, which will end up being more of an inconvenience than an advantage for many of our readers.
What is your opinion of DuckDuckGo? Do you think it is in a position to be a real alternative to Google? We would like to know your opinion.