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We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one pack
by yegg 9y ago
We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one package, across all major browsers and platforms. In this respect, on any major mobile device or desktop browser, you should be able to look up DuckDuckGo and with one download get seamless privacy protection as you search and browse the web.
With regards to other extensions, we found that they generally lack some combination of all the essentials (e.g. missing encryption, private search), aren't totally seamless (i.e. break some of the web), or aren't available across all major browsers and platforms.
With regards to tracker blocking in particular, we would like to be as comprehensive as possible while not breaking the Web, and are close to that with this initial launch, utilizing some open source lists including Disconnect and Easylist. We are not currently using the machine learning aspects of Privacy Badger, however.
There are more nuanced UX differences, however. In the UI we're trying to move away from 'x trackers blocked' and instead group trackers from networks together, trying to identify the umbrella company and purposes.
Second, we're grading each site based on its privacy measures (including privacy policies with help from TOSDR), and telling you at a glance how protected you are on an A-F scale, based on what we could do (e.g. block trackers and upgrade encryption).
Thank you for the feedback on the right-click menu. We will look into that.
- pknight 9y agoOne privacy essential is a built-in vpn/proxy like Opera has done with its browser, this makes it slightly harder for some fingerprinting ad trackers to follow a user around.
- yegg 9y agoWe are actively exploring about how to incorporate vpn/proxy technology in while still maintaining the seamless experience.
- pknight 9y agoglad to hear that!
- kijin 9y agoProxies can be useful, but I'm not comfortable with sending all my traffic over a centralized proxy operated by a single entity. Just like Cloudflare, the entity that runs the proxy gets a free pass to MITM everyone! A decentralized solution that can be easily configured to send traffic over any third-party VPN service, HTTP proxy, or ssh tunnel would be much cleaner. Bonus points if the proxy seamlessly kicks in only when visiting a site with a low privacy score or when browsing on public Wi-Fi.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y agoIn fairness, with https it's less of a mitm opportunity... Still an issue, though.
- toyg 9y agoHow are you dealing with the "temporary disabling" scenario? I have Disconnect and uBlock, but then it's a pain to use sites like Quidco, that rely on tracking. Ideally one should be able to easily say "disable all protections for 20 minutes" or something like that, do what needs to be done, then after re-enabling protection the slate (cookies etc) is wiped clean (or ideally brought back where it was before the suspension). The way I end up doing it, I must keep a browser (typically Safari or Explorer) fairly unprotected just to deal with those transactions, and use the hardened-up Firefox for everything else. That's suboptimal.
- dingaling 9y agoI maintain a secondary Firefox profile that I named UNSAFE for that sort of thing. Destroys all cookies on exit. And another one for BANKING without plugins and with the correct bank URLs hardcoded as bookmarks.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoThanks for the reply. What I gather is that the new DDG extension functions roughly as a replacement for Disconnect/Ghostery (or specific lists in uBlock Origin), HTTPS Everywhere and ToS;DR, as well as adding DDG search to the browser (if applicable)? As a one-stop extension, that's a pretty good deal. In addition to the learning aspect like in Privacy Badger, have you also considered canvas blocking/scrambling, link referrer cleaning and possibly a function similar to Decentraleyes, to prevent big CDN tracking?
- aeo79hntaue 9y agoWould love to see link referrer cleaning! Haven't heard of Decentraleyes, but it looks really cool!
- yegg 9y agoYes, thank you for the suggestions. We would like to and plan to keep adding more privacy features in, as long as we can keep them seamless.
- ohtwenty 9y agoslightly off topic but will the extension work for mobile as well? [off topic bit:] because I've noticed the mobile ddg experience isn't as great as on desktop: the !bangs are harder to type, image search on mobile is frustrating, etc... (and even more off-topic: have you considered partnering with tin-eye for reverse image lookup?)
- yegg 9y agoOn mobile, we produced apps that have all the extension functionality, plus additional browser functionality, and more privacy browser features like a one-tap erase data button (we're calling the fire button). Thank you for the feedback on image search -- tineye is something we've considered, though haven't implemented yet.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoI'm not really interested in a different browser, though. I like Firefox, and I like the consistent sync to my other devices running Firefox. Right now the DDG plugin doesn't work on Firefox for Android, it just says "we don't filter special pages" or somesuch, probably because it tries to filter its own tab? (Firefox Android pops up extensions in separate tabs)
- ohtwenty 9y agoThanks for the reply, great to hear. btw I just tried image search again after being scared off a while ago because it was buggy, and it's in a much better state than it was back then! Love how you guys show you don't have to sell out to be able to thrive, and that caring for freedom shouldn't come at the cost of design or functionality (quite the opposite!) <3
- newman314 9y agoJust tried it out on FireFox 58. I already have Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock Origin previously installed. It appears that this combo causes the DDG extension to return a blank dropdown when I click on the DDG icon.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoNo issue here on 58, with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Maybe HTTPS Everywhere conflicts, as it provides the same functionality as DDG (forcing pages to use HTTPS).