Google Chrome Now Supports DuckDuckGo As A Search Engine Option
- Google Chrome has updated its list of default search engines based on a per-market basis and has included the most popular search engines.
- Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo has been added to Chrome along with other privacy-focused search engines like Qwant.
- The changes to Chrome were added to v73 of the Chromium project.
A recent update to the Chromium engine saw DuckDuckGo being added to Google Chrome’s list of default search engines in over 60 markets. The update was pushed out as part of Chromium’s v73 stable release. According to Google software engineer Orin Jaworski, the list of search engines is being updated based on recently collected data on usage statistics.
With pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo being extremely popular amongst users who are concerned about online privacy, it was added to Google Chrome. Prior to the update, DuckDuckGo was not available at all. The UK, US, India, Canada, and Australia are just some of the countries that the search engine is now available in.
DuckDuckGo founder Gabe Weinberg told TechCrunch that the team is happy about the search engine being recognized and realizing the importance of offering users a private search option. Towards the end of 2018, the search engine company had to acquire the duck.com domain from Google which was held by the tech giant for years.
DuckDuckGo is set to grow bigger thanks to outside investment, which will help the search engine company to expand its efforts towards pro-privacy. Competitor Qwant has also been added to Chrome as a default search engine but only for France. The changes to Chrome were implemented just weeks after Google was accused of unethical practices. The company has not released an official statement on the timing of these changes to Chrome.
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