A general question on the efficacy of Duck Duck Go in blocking trackers.

A friend of mine with decent credentials in security is constantly shitting on any use of DDG. I use it on an e/OS which was preinstalled into settings to block both browsing and tracking through my apps, the worse being banking apps even when not in use. He has even gone so far as to state that they are probably faking the numbers of blocks to get people to keep using the products. Another line is that it is Russian built/propagated garbage product.

Does anyone else hold this belief? I have not seen much of this discussed here in this forum and also see it recommended often enough. I ask you fine folks because it just feels so defeating.

Sorry for, source: this god damn bloke told me.

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    30 minutes ago

    Took me a while to even figure out vaguely what you were talking about here. I use DuckDuckGo exclusively for search. (And I use DuckDuckGo for search mostly because they let me turn off LLM BS.) I wasn’t aware they offered a browser. (I assume what you’re talking about is the DuckDuckGo browser/app, right? Not, say, search or LLM services or whatever.)

    When you say “browsing and tracking through my apps”, what do you mean exactly? Did you have the impression that having the DuckDuckGo browser installed on your phone will prevent other apps from tracking you somehow? Or are you saying that by using the webapp of whatever particular service through the DuckDuckGo browser rather than an official app, you avoid tracking built into the app? (If that’s what you’re saying it at least sounds plausible. But if you’re thinking having DuckDuckGo on your phone will prevent, say, Google Play from tracking you (assuming Google Play is installed on your phone), I can’t see how that could be the case. But I also wouldn’t think DuckDuckGo would make the claim that it would. Unless you and DuckDuckGo know something I don’t.) Or when you say “browsing and tracking through my apps” do you really mean web trackers? (Or maybe apps can interact with web stuff through the browser in ways that I’m not thinking of.)

    I guess what I’m asking is what specifically is the privacy claim related to DuckDuckGo that you’re asking the veracity of?

    Whatever the case, it’s entirely possible that the particular claim you’re asking about isn’t true, but that it’s also not a claim that DuckDuckGo makes nor that they’d expect people to think about their products and so isn’t any particular reason for your coworker to dunk on DuckDuckGo.