20/01/2021

DuckDuckGo grows 62% in 2020 and breaks search record in 2021

The DuckDuckGo web search service, which focuses on user privacy, is growing at an accelerated level, a 62% increase in searches from 2020. In January of this year, the site reached its record for daily searches: 102 million platform searches. Information is from BleepingComputer.

The DuckDuckGo is a search system for content on the web, which works the same as Google, Yahoo and Bing. But, unlike the others mentioned, the “aviary” search engine is concerned with offering more privacy, not using user data to optimize the ads offered, as all other search engines do, in addition to ensuring anonymity, informs the company.

“The DuckDuckGo survey is completely anonymous, in accordance with our strict privacy policy. Every time you search on DuckDuckGo, you have a blank search history, as if you’ve never been there before, ”writes the company on its blog.

According to BleepingComputer, DuckDuckGo reports that it registered a 62% growth in the average daily searches in 2020. The average daily searches for January this year is around 90 million. But on January 11, 2021, the site broke its record with 102,251,307 searches.

For the company, this growth is a reflection of the current need for products focused on privacy. “Although we don’t track our users, we study user adoption through national surveys. What we learn from these surveys is that our overall growth is driven by people who want more privacy online through word of mouth“, the company told BleepingComputer.

Another point that contributed to the growth of DuckDuckGo was the cases of data breaches and abuse by major technology companies, especially the recent news of the change in WhatsApp’s privacy policy.

“The recent announcement of the Facebook / WhatsApp privacy policy appears to have had some impact in increasing search similar to how it led people to private messaging alternatives like Signal. We’ve seen this happen before, when a high profile privacy issue is exposed, there is usually an increase in usage“explained DuckDuckGo.

It is important to remember that Google still dominates an average of 93% of the global market, while DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, YANDEX and others, do not leave the 3%. According to the StatCounter website, which monitors the use of web search engines, in Brazil, Google dominates 96%, while DuckDuckGo does not even reach 0.13%.