DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a developer of an alternative Internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding filtered results to meet personalized search results. The DuckDuckGo search engine is built on an open-source software stack. To provide users with search results, DuckDuckGo uses APIs of other websites, the help of partners, and its own crawler. The name "DuckDuckGo" is intended to be a reference to the children's game "duck, duck, goose."

Despite being a privacy-focused company, DuckDuckGo generates revenue through advertisements on its search results. However, unlike other search products, rather than using data-heavy behavioral data, DuckDuckGo uses contextual advertising, meaning rather than ads presented to users based on past behavior, users are presented with ads related to the page they are browsing.

DuckDuckGo launched with its privacy-focused browser, which can be made the default browser. This initial product was designed to allow users to search and browse the internet without taking or offering personal data and keep their searches private and anonymous, with built-in tracker blocking to make it harder for sites to collect information about them. Further, the DuckDuckGo search never tracks an individual's search history. DuckDuckGo also offered the search function as a mobile application or an extension, which turned the search function into the browser's default.

In 2018, the company released a browser extension and mobile app that protects privacy beyond search by blocking third-party trackers, enforcing encryption where possible, and showing a privacy grade for each website visited. The browser extension, called Privacy Essentials, can be used with the DuckDuckGo search bar or just in the browser to help reduce tracking in browsing and offer access to tracking for emails.

In 2022, DuckDuckGo launched a new browser with the company's privacy focus for MacOS. The browser included features such as automatically managing cookie consent pop-ups on many sites using encrytped HTTPS connections where available, blocking trackers, and allowing users to clear stored website data on a site-by-site basis. Further, the browser includes its own password manager that is capable of importing data from other browsers or browser extensions, with planned bookmark syncing features. Further, the DuckDuckGo browser, rather than using the Chrome browsing engine for its development, uses Apple's WebKit rendering engine, allowing the browser to get feature and security updates when macOS is updated.

DuckDuckGo also affirmed around the time of the launch of the macOS browser that a Windows version of the application was in development.

Prior to the March 2023 announcement of DuckAssist, DuckDuckGo offered an "Instant Answers" feature, which was intended to prevent users from digging through web search results to find quick information. Instant Answers was displayed above search results and used over one hundred sources to provide those answers. Instant Answers was replaced by DuckAssist, a generative AI system that uses OpenAI's ChatGPT paired with another generative AI company, Anthropic. This is intended to generate its own answers to certain types of questions.

DuckAssist continues to answer questions without tracking user queries and sticks to a specific set of data sources, which includes Wikipedia and other reputable online encyclopedias. This is done to minimize potential "hallucination," a phenomenon where generative AI makes up an answer to a question when it has incomplete or incorrect information. DuckDuckGo has said that DuckAssist uses the Davinci AI large language model from OpenAI and the Claude model from Anthropic.

The company warns the DuckAssist AI may not generate accurate answers all the time, as it is in development, and it may not generate answers for all questions but is a part of DuckduckGo's broader plan to integrate AI into search.