DuckDuckGo, the popular privacy-focused search engine, on Thursday officially released the public beta version of DuckDuckGo for Windows after it was announced last year.
Announcing the launch of the DuckDuckGo for Windows beta in a blog post, the company said that the new privacy-focused desktop browser for Windows features several privacy and security features that are already available in the Android, iOS, and Mac versions.
DuckDuckGo for Windows comes with multiple privacy-focused such as a built-in password manager, tracker blocking, ad-blocking Duck Player, a Fire Button, cookie pop-up management, built-in email protection, and much more.
“Starting today, our desktop browser for Windows is officially in public beta – no invite codes, no waiting list, just a fast, lightweight browser that makes the Internet less creepy and less cluttered,” the company wrote in the blog post.
“DuckDuckGo for Windows is already equipped with nearly all the privacy protections and everyday features that users know and trust from our iOS, Mac, and Android browsers – and it’s getting closer to parity with those browsers every day.”
Privacy-Centric Features Of DuckDuckGo For Windows
The most notable feature of the Windows version of the DuckDuckGo browser is the Duck Player, a built-in YouTube player that protects you from tracking cookies and personalized ads when watching YouTube. It allows you to watch YouTube videos without contributing to your personalized recommendations.
The browser also offers advanced tracker blocking, which blocks hidden trackers from the likes of Google and Facebook lurking on other websites before they can load.
Other native features of the WebView2-based browser include smarter encryption, which means for every website you visit and the links you click, DuckDuckGo will crawl the web continuously to see if it matches the “HTTPS” parameters.
Further, the browser comes with a “Fire Button” that burns your recent browsing data in one click and also has a “Fireproof” option for any sites you want to stay logged into.
In addition, it has a Cookie Pop-up Management tool that automatically selects the most private options available and hides cookie consent pop-ups, as well as a secure password manager that can automatically remember and fill in login credentials as well as suggest secure passwords for new logins.
The Email Protection feature will hide your email address with unique @duck.com addresses when signing up for new websites.
DuckDuckGo for Windows can already import passwords and bookmarks from other browsers or password managers when setting up the browser. However, it does not yet support extensions, but DuckDuckGo plans to add that in the future.
Further, the company is also working on another feature that will allow the ability to sync bookmarks and saved passwords between different devices.
According to DuckDuckGo, the web browser for Windows “comes with these best-in-class privacy protections switched on by default, leading to a better everyday user experience. By blocking trackers before they load, for example, our desktop browsers use about 60% less data than Chrome.”
The company says it is working to achieve full parity with the Mac browser, including improvements like faster start-up performance, the ability to pin tabs, HTML bookmark import, more options for the Fire Button, and additional privacy features.
DuckDuckGo for Windows is now available for everyone to download in public beta without invite codes or waiting lists. To try out the DuckDuckGo browser for Windows, you need to go to duckduckgo.com/windows using any web browser and download the installer file for the browser. Now run the installer file and install the web browser on your PC.