Brave, the browser that blocks ads and trackers so you can surf the web faster and with more privacy, announced today that it has partnered with privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo to make browsing even more anonymous. DuckDuckGo now appears as one of 19 search engines available in the browser, along with Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
It may sound redundant to have an anonymous search option in a browser that already promises to keep your data private. But the company explains that, even on Brave, “search engines such as Google record what the user enters in the search bar.”
DuckDuckGo has conducted studies that revealed Google search results were still being tailored to specific users even when those users were in incognito mode. “We take that to mean that they were being tailored based on their IP address or other fingerprinting techniques using search history from before that session,” DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg explained. “Within private browsing mode, we find that many people expect their searches to not be tracked, and this new integration with Brave enables them to get the privacy they expect and deserve in that mode.”
The new option is available beginning today on Brave’s 0.19.x desktop browser release. Brave’s Android and iOS apps will include the DuckDuckGo feature in the first quarter of 2018.
Google has been the default search engine on Brave, but beginning today DuckDuckGo is the suggested option for private tabs.
Brave, which launched in January 2016, says it currently has close to a million monthly active users. The company, founded by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, is currently making a push to expand its reach. It launched its own crypto token in June in a $35 million token sale and conducted the first of several planned token giveaways last week to attract new users. Since Brave blocks all ads, it has promised to help publishers replace lost revenue with tokens gifted from users who enjoy their content.
The DuckDuckGo announcement could entice some users to give Brave’s browser another look.
The two companies have promised there will be more to their collaboration than was revealed in today’s announcement, calling it “only the beginning of a long-term partnership.”