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DuckDuckGo is working on a privacy-focused desktop browser

38 points by panda88888 5y ago

xaxaxb 5y ago
Go DDG. Make it like no other. But don't put a wallet in there.
ddingus 5y ago
Go. Need money? Ask people. Plenty us will pitch in.
ddingus 5y ago
One other thing: don't doddle, please! Browsers are growing huge. This may be the last time someone can enter the game. At some point, the sheer size and complexity will make the effort futile. Maybe has, but I hope not. Go!
- foxrider 5y ago
  I think that if you'll focus on just the HTML5 and new stuff without any consideration for legacy things it's still a big undertaking but not impossible. There are projects focused on new browser engines, for example - Servo.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Will be interesting to see what they do.
- toper-centage 5y ago
  They are not building a browser engine.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Well bummer, but that's still good. Maybe they can prune existing ones, and or end up in a place where they have some sway on how things go. And who knows? Going down this road they may find a browser engine to be very compelling. Probably not, for the factors we both know, but maybe there's still time...
TheMonarchist 5y ago
Will it be available on Linux? Why closed beta? Wouldn't it have to be open source if they base it on Chromium? Why don't they just make repository to get contributions from all around the world?
- jchw 5y ago
  Chromium doesn’t contain any copyleft code AFAIK, which is how Edge and Google Chrome (not exactly Chromium) exist.
  - jraph 5y ago
    It does. It is based on WebKit, which is based on KHTML, which was under LGPL. But if they haven't modified the LGPL code (which is likely), they probably don't need to distribute their source code. You can still do closed betas with free software though, as long as you allow the beta users to get the source code (but they can, in turn, distribute the code to everyone).
    - jchw 5y ago
      They only have to distribute the source code for their modified Webkit, and IIRC have some way for end users to link in their own Webkit. That does not have the same vitality of a strong copyleft license like GPL. I guess this may still be classified as copyleft, but by no means does it require them to redistribute the source code of their browser. Note that Edge is not open source, even though it is based on Chromium and contains Webkit-derived code.
galbar 5y ago
Why does nobody partner with Mozilla or simply use the Firefox's web engine?
- MarcellusDrum 5y ago
  Not an expert in the field, but the consensus I keep seeing is that: 1) Gecko is harder to embed and fork. Google built chrome to be "embeddable" from the start, while Mozilla slowly made it lower priority, possibly due to the lower budget. 2) Gecko is licensed under MPL, while Chromium-Blink is available in BSD. Even if companies are going to release the source code, its easier not to be under obligation to do it properly in a timely manner. 3) A lot of websites only support Chromium-based browsers, or are at least only tested on them. While we all like an underdog success story, it makes more sense to use the better supported option. Someone more experienced can provide better insight though.
dustymcp 5y ago
Duckduckgo as much as i want to get away from Google, most my searches just fail and i end up in Google maybe its because of my localizatio n..
- pibechorro 5y ago
  I am the complete opposite. Google is filtering results so aggressively (suppressing info along political lines, prioritizing big corp media, more and more ads) that its essentially unused anymore. Besides, a quick !g to your search and you can query google is your first attempts fall flat.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  I use Brave search. I just tried "Duckduckgo browser" in both Brave search and google, and the 1st few top results were the same (except google had a load of ads scattered everywhere). Obviously YMMV, but I rarely need to use Google these days.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    Beyond general web searches, I just thought I'd expand on how I don't use Google. For code documentation, I install Zeal and perform local searches. For opensource information (medical, geopolitical, people, etc) I'll just search straight into Wikipedia. For technical stuff, I'll search straight into Stack Overflow. Honestly once you know where to search, you can pretty much skip Google search for 80% of the time. If Google / Duckduck Go / Brave search stopped working tomorrow, I wouldn't feel like I couldn't use the internet in an efficient manner.
peanut_worm 5y ago
awesome another chromium browser just what we needed
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  Well it's using Webkit on MacOS. No mention of Linux. So until then I won't be able to use it.
  - MarcellusDrum 5y ago
    Weird making a browser where its only selling point is that it respects users' privacy, and not making Linux a priority.

38 points by panda88888 5y ago

xaxaxb 5y ago

Go DDG. Make it like no other. But don't put a wallet in there.

ddingus 5y ago

Go. Need money? Ask people. Plenty us will pitch in.

ddingus 5y ago

One other thing: don't doddle, please! Browsers are growing huge. This may be the last time someone can enter the game. At some point, the sheer size and complexity will make the effort futile. Maybe has, but I hope not. Go!

foxrider 5y ago
I think that if you'll focus on just the HTML5 and new stuff without any consideration for legacy things it's still a big undertaking but not impossible. There are projects focused on new browser engines, for example - Servo.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Will be interesting to see what they do.
toper-centage 5y ago
They are not building a browser engine.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Well bummer, but that's still good. Maybe they can prune existing ones, and or end up in a place where they have some sway on how things go. And who knows? Going down this road they may find a browser engine to be very compelling. Probably not, for the factors we both know, but maybe there's still time...

TheMonarchist 5y ago

Will it be available on Linux? Why closed beta? Wouldn't it have to be open source if they base it on Chromium? Why don't they just make repository to get contributions from all around the world?

jchw 5y ago
Chromium doesn’t contain any copyleft code AFAIK, which is how Edge and Google Chrome (not exactly Chromium) exist.
- jraph 5y ago
  It does. It is based on WebKit, which is based on KHTML, which was under LGPL. But if they haven't modified the LGPL code (which is likely), they probably don't need to distribute their source code. You can still do closed betas with free software though, as long as you allow the beta users to get the source code (but they can, in turn, distribute the code to everyone).
  - jchw 5y ago
    They only have to distribute the source code for their modified Webkit, and IIRC have some way for end users to link in their own Webkit. That does not have the same vitality of a strong copyleft license like GPL. I guess this may still be classified as copyleft, but by no means does it require them to redistribute the source code of their browser. Note that Edge is not open source, even though it is based on Chromium and contains Webkit-derived code.

galbar 5y ago

Why does nobody partner with Mozilla or simply use the Firefox's web engine?

MarcellusDrum 5y ago
Not an expert in the field, but the consensus I keep seeing is that: 1) Gecko is harder to embed and fork. Google built chrome to be "embeddable" from the start, while Mozilla slowly made it lower priority, possibly due to the lower budget. 2) Gecko is licensed under MPL, while Chromium-Blink is available in BSD. Even if companies are going to release the source code, its easier not to be under obligation to do it properly in a timely manner. 3) A lot of websites only support Chromium-based browsers, or are at least only tested on them. While we all like an underdog success story, it makes more sense to use the better supported option. Someone more experienced can provide better insight though.

dustymcp 5y ago

Duckduckgo as much as i want to get away from Google, most my searches just fail and i end up in Google maybe its because of my localizatio n..

pibechorro 5y ago
I am the complete opposite. Google is filtering results so aggressively (suppressing info along political lines, prioritizing big corp media, more and more ads) that its essentially unused anymore. Besides, a quick !g to your search and you can query google is your first attempts fall flat.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
I use Brave search. I just tried "Duckduckgo browser" in both Brave search and google, and the 1st few top results were the same (except google had a load of ads scattered everywhere). Obviously YMMV, but I rarely need to use Google these days.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  Beyond general web searches, I just thought I'd expand on how I don't use Google. For code documentation, I install Zeal and perform local searches. For opensource information (medical, geopolitical, people, etc) I'll just search straight into Wikipedia. For technical stuff, I'll search straight into Stack Overflow. Honestly once you know where to search, you can pretty much skip Google search for 80% of the time. If Google / Duckduck Go / Brave search stopped working tomorrow, I wouldn't feel like I couldn't use the internet in an efficient manner.

peanut_worm 5y ago

awesome another chromium browser just what we needed

CodeGlitch 5y ago
Well it's using Webkit on MacOS. No mention of Linux. So until then I won't be able to use it.
- MarcellusDrum 5y ago
  Weird making a browser where its only selling point is that it respects users' privacy, and not making Linux a priority.