News, 27.12.2022, 11:38 AM
DuckDuckGo, the popular platform that promises privacy to Internet users, has announced that its apps and plugins will now block Google login prompts. DuckDuckGo claims that such pop-ups are annoying and threaten users’ privacy.
DuckDuckGo is known for its privacy-focused browser, email service, and mobile apps that include numerous privacy features and web browser extensions to protect data.
DuckDuckGo has now announced that its Chrome, Firefox, Brave and Microsoft Edge browser apps and plugins will now actively block Google login prompts displayed on sites.
“Have you seen these Google login pop-ups lately? They may seem useful, but opting in actually gives consent to tracking,” DuckDuckGo wrote on Twitter.
Google offers the option to sign in on different websites – users can quickly sign in using their Google account and thus avoid the hassle of creating new accounts and remembering new passwords.
But DuckDuckGo says the downside to that is that Google can actually track the websites and apps users sign in to, even though DuckDuckGo explicitly says that “Sign in with Google data is not used for ads or other non-security purposes.”
In other words, DuckDuckGo believes that Google is still collecting data, which is why the company that promises privacy to users has now decided not to give them the option to log in with a Google account at all. All you need as a user is to have the DuckDuckGo browser extension active and all Google queries will be automatically blocked.
In November, DuckDuckGo enabled Android users to block third-party trackers in all their installed apps. The new version of App Tracking Protection lets Android users see which trackers are blocked and what kind of information they’re targeting. According to DuckDuckGo, Android users have an average of 35 apps installed on their devices. This reportedly generates between 1,000 and 2,000 tracking attempts per day for over 70 companies.
