DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine established seven years ago, surged in popularity in 2015. They started the year off with an average of 7.7 million searches per day, and by December the average had climbed to 10.8 million. On the 14th of December there were 12 million worldwide searches in a single day. Overall, it expanded by 70% in a single year.
This search engine differs from others because it is designed to prevent search leakage and provide automatic encryption of information. In other words, when you carry out a search, information about your search terms will not be sent to any other sites. As it does not collect any personal information, it is also not possible for outside parties to gain access to users’ search histories or for different searches to be linked together as belonging to the same person.
The success of DuckDuckGo demonstrates that modern search engine users have concerns about privacy and are looking for alternatives to the more well-known search engines. It seems likely that use will continue to rise as more people become aware of the fact that there are alternative search engines to choose from. With online security concerns more prevalent than ever before, it seems that other search engines and online providers will need to step their game up when it comes to offering users a greater degree of online privacy.