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DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

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Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#331

Post by nsomaru »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #313

There's an interesting disease showing up here in the responses. I accept DDG's statement that this is about a favicon and that they "do not collect or share any personal information", and despite that, I also agree with others that DDG should be on the safe side and just stop doing this small thing. It's just the safer and more moral thing to do (So DDG, as many are suggesting, plz stop doing it. Today is good). But…

Google don’t sell privacy.

Anyways, what’s this got to do with Google? “Privacy browser violates basic privacy to do something useless” is actually ridiculous. And the response is even more ridiculous! How does literally every single other browser do it?

I’m disappointed because I put my reputation on the line to recommend DDG to users based on...privacy. But here we see they actually do not hold true to their stated values. And they don’t even seem to care.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#332

Post by dTal »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #128
tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

Complicated code can run just fine on device. I’ve been an avid DDG user for years and it worries me that DDG staff don’t see why this is an issue. We shouldn’t have to trust your privacy policy if you minimize exposure.

This. No matter how tricky the logic is, there's literally no reason to run that code on DDG server's and throw in a remote connection. What the hell?

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#333

Post by toyg »

Zhenya wrote: post #207
niftylettuce wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said in other another comment, I'm a power user. And by power user I mean probably 10x the normal standard of what a 10x power user means. Tooling is everything to me; which is why I prefer this over anything else. I'm very biased.

So you're a 100x poweruser. Got it.

That has fresh meme potential. How many 100x power-users do you need to make a 10x developer? And how many normal users for a 100xPU? Are 10 100xPU equal to a 1kPU? So many questions...

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#334

Post by [deleted] »

warpspin wrote: post #319
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #313

There's an interesting disease showing up here in the responses. I accept DDG's statement that this is about a favicon and that they "do not collect or share any personal information", and despite that, I also agree with others that DDG should be on the safe side and just stop doing this small thing. It's just the safer and more moral thing to do (So DDG, as many are suggesting, plz stop doing it. Today is good). But…

I think what angered people was actually that a company saying to hold privacy high was simply refusing to change something after a mistake was pointed out and instead kept on defending it with a technical argument, which makes no sense at all. The reaction would have been actually a lot different if someone from the company admitted the mistake and promised it will be changed. Update: Gabriel Weinberg has promised t…

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#335

Post by dTal »

st3fan wrote: post #109
tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

Take the code from Firefox iOS or Android-components. We spent a lot of time on these and it is all on device. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/Firefox-iOS

Why don't they just take the code from their "internal favicon service"? The whole thing smells.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#336

Post by TheUndead96 »

hanspeter wrote: post #324
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #313

There's an interesting disease showing up here in the responses. I accept DDG's statement that this is about a favicon and that they "do not collect or share any personal information", and despite that, I also agree with others that DDG should be on the safe side and just stop doing this small thing. It's just the safer and more moral thing to do (So DDG, as many are suggesting, plz stop doing it. Today is good). But…

> ignoring the genuinely huger issue of the amount of info and mining that google By using DuckDuckGo you're doing the opposite of ignoring privacy issues in Google products. And hence the reaction. Why use DDG at all, if they're not safely protecting your private data 100%?

This is my feeling exactly

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#337

Post by jeltz »

abc-xyz wrote: post #203
dabbernaught420 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, anyone who trusts ddg is a bit silly - founder has a bad track record on user privacy. Founded Names Database[1], a social media website designed to collect user information as aggressively as possible, before selling all the information to classmates.com. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database

Also worth mentioning they're closed-source, US-based and for-profit. Why exactly do people trust them? Simply because they write a few articles/ads saying "privacy is important"? If you're willing to sacrifice search quality for privacy, as in switching from Google to DuckDuckGo, then you might as well take a step further and switch from Google to Searx/Ask.Moe.

The reason I use them is not because I trust them but because they do not put me in my own search bubble like Google does. I hate that part of using Google. Also as a bonus I do not get any AMP results.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#338

Post by asjw »

warpspin wrote: post #319
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #313

There's an interesting disease showing up here in the responses. I accept DDG's statement that this is about a favicon and that they "do not collect or share any personal information", and despite that, I also agree with others that DDG should be on the safe side and just stop doing this small thing. It's just the safer and more moral thing to do (So DDG, as many are suggesting, plz stop doing it. Today is good). But…

I think what angered people was actually that a company saying to hold privacy high was simply refusing to change something after a mistake was pointed out and instead kept on defending it with a technical argument, which makes no sense at all. The reaction would have been actually a lot different if someone from the company admitted the mistake and promised it will be changed. Update: Gabriel Weinberg has promised t…

Yeah people burnt witches in the past ...

If they are confident that this feature has no privacy implications they are right to defend the point, despite what people say or think

People don't run DDG, the company

People can use another search engine if they want

I'll keep using DDG anyway

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#339

Post by asjw »

hanspeter wrote: post #324
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #313

There's an interesting disease showing up here in the responses. I accept DDG's statement that this is about a favicon and that they "do not collect or share any personal information", and despite that, I also agree with others that DDG should be on the safe side and just stop doing this small thing. It's just the safer and more moral thing to do (So DDG, as many are suggesting, plz stop doing it. Today is good). But…

> ignoring the genuinely huger issue of the amount of info and mining that google By using DuckDuckGo you're doing the opposite of ignoring privacy issues in Google products. And hence the reaction. Why use DDG at all, if they're not safely protecting your private data 100%?

Because some protection is better than no protection

Why use a condom which doesn't protect you 100%?

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#340

Post by yegg »

Hi all, Founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo here. I’m literally just waking up and reading the comments here.

I’m new to this issue and happy to commit us to move to doing this locally in the browser and will have us move on that ASAP.

That said, I want to be clear that we did not and have not collected any personal information here. As other staff have referenced, our services are encrypted and throw away PII like IP addresses by design. However, I take the point that it is nevertheless safer to do it locally and so we will do that.

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