DuckDuckGo Subscription: A User-Friendly Privacy Boost, but Not for Power Users
You won’t find specialty servers, such as Double VPN or Onion Over VPN options, which encrypt your connection twice for beefed-up privacy. Folks with critical privacy needs, like investigative journalists or political asylum-seekers, should look elsewhere. Unlike rivals Google and Bing, DuckDuckGo eschews ad trackers, making it tougher for websites to gather browsing data.
In other words, you aren’t giving up everything when switching to DuckDuckGo. There may be Google features you’ll have to live without, but hopefully, the important ones are included in the list above. You also won’t have to go without Featured Snippets (Instant Answers in DuckDuckGo), business directions via Bing Maps or Google Maps, or image, video, and news. The DuckDuckGo offers all of the following embedded features from https://parimatchindiaofficial.com/ right inside the search field. If you’re like many other internet users and are concerned about how much your internet activities are being searched and used for advertising or other purposes, DuckDuckGo may be the perfect solution.
VPNs can be overwhelming if you’ve never used one, and this app lets you get started without needing a veritable glossary of terms to determine the correct settings to enable. On top of the security and privacy reasons for using the DuckDuckGo search engine, there are also other reasons to consider using it. Of those, we like DuckDuckGo because it doesn’t spin search results based on previous search history or corporate goals. Additionally, I can see this as a nifty all-in-one privacy suite — a VPN and tracking-free browser — while on a borrowed computer. You could simply download the DuckDuckGo browser, log into your VPN and enjoy system-wide privacy on a friend or family member’s PC, for example.
DuckDuckGo Private Browser
- The company’s identity theft restoration helps you recover financial losses, correct errors in your credit report caused by fraud, and cancel and replace lost credit cards, passports, driver’s licenses and social security cards.
- The DuckDuckGo offers all of the following embedded features from right inside the search field.
- Surfshark One Plus, which costs $94 for the first year, includes a VPN, antivirus software, personal data removal and personal data security alerts.
- That means that everyone who uses the search engine to search for any given term will see the same results because the engine just finds the most relevant content to what you just typed in.
- That’s why the title says DuckDuckGo Browser, and not just DuckDuckGo (the search engine).
These are often enough reasons for many users to switch over entirely to using DuckDuckGo as their search engine of choice. In April 2024, DuckDuckGo introduced Privacy Pro, a paid subscription that includes a VPN, Personal Information Removal, and Identity Theft Restoration.63 The subscription launched to users of the DuckDuckGo browser in the United States. We invested in it because there is a need for a private search engine.
The toggle is also available on the new tab page in the browser, which is set to DuckDuckGo.com in the browser. The company’s identity theft restoration helps you recover financial losses, correct errors in your credit report caused by fraud, and cancel and replace lost credit cards, passports, driver’s licenses and social security cards. Plus, you’ll get up to $500 for emergency travel assistance when you’re over 100 miles away from home while experiencing identity theft.
Surfshark One Plus, which costs $94 for the first year, includes a VPN, antivirus software, personal data removal and personal data security alerts. There are pros and cons to bundling cybersecurity services, and one of the main considerations is the specific tools you receive. For instance, some people might find Surfshark’s VPN and antivirus more useful, while others may want DuckDuckGo’s privacy-forward AI chat and identity theft removal services. However, it separates itself from the others by being one of the few search engines online that promises not to collect personal information about you. It doesn’t sell your search data to advertisers, and it won’t use your search history to alter your search results.
What Is DuckDuckGo? Is It Safe?
Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers. You’ll want to consider what privacy and security software you need, then shop around and decide whether to go the bundle or a la carte route.
It has been audited to back up its no-logging claims, supports split-tunneling on some platforms for VPN connection flexibility and there’s a growing server network of 30-plus countries. In addition to a VPN, you get some handy privacy and security tools, as well as artificial intelligence chatbot access. Although DuckDuckGo’s VPN lacks the sheer volume of servers and bountiful privacy features of our top VPN recommendations, like ExpressVPN or NordVPN, its intuitive design is great for beginners. DuckDuckGo also offers a subscription consisting of a VPN, information removal tool, identity theft restoration and now AI chat model support.
When compared with other available bundles, DuckDuckGo is a decent value, but it’s better for casual VPN users. Our top-rated VPNs boast significantly larger server networks, more advanced privacy features like split tunneling (which lets you pick and choose what apps to use a VPN connection with) and greater app support. In September 2025, DuckDuckGo added AI chatbot support, with access to several large language models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4o and GPT-5, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 and Meta’s Llama Maverick on Duck.ai. DuckDuckGo maintains solid privacy in its AI offering — your chats are anonymized so as to hide information like your public IP address, your data isn’t used to train AI models, chats and other settings remain on-device.
DuckDuckGo’s privacy bundle features a VPN alongside personal information removal and identity theft protection services. Its information removal scans more than 50 data brokers — like Spokeo — and automatically requests your data’s removal from that site. Personal information you provide when setting up personal info removal stays on your device — your Windows or MacOS computer — rather than DuckDuckGo servers, for increased privacy. The DuckDuckGo subscription is a privacy suite that includes a VPN, personal information removal, identity theft restoration services and now AI chatbot support, giving you no-frills privacy essentials. Because of its limitations, I don’t think DuckDuckGo’s VPN will become most folks’ — myself included — daily driver.
The new experience is currently live in the DuckDuckGo browser on Windows and macOS on DuckDuckGo.com. However, it does not seem to be available on Firefox, Chrome and other browsers on desktop. I also tested the DuckDuckGo mobile app, it’s not available in it either. That’s why the title says DuckDuckGo Browser, and not just DuckDuckGo (the search engine).
We did it for the Internet anarchists, people that hang out on Reddit and Hacker News. It could be, because normally when you have to use Duck AI, you have to run a search and then choose AI assist, or go to Duck.AI and then type your query. Now, you can switch between the two and use whatever you like, it does save a couple of seconds, which could add up. For people who have set DuckDuckGo as their home page, or new tab page, the new experience is a nice little quality of life update, just like the one that lets you hide AI generated images in the search results.
The following are the main privacy features included when you use DuckDuckGo. The option on the sidebar and settings page could be the reason why the option is possibly exclusive to DuckDuckGo’s browser. DuckDuckGo Browser has a new option on its homepage that allows you to set AI mode as the default option. Notably, this isn’t the only privacy-first AI chatbot on the market — Proton’s Lumo is a privacy-forward ChatGPT alternative — but it’s great to see more options for folks who want to use artificial intelligence chatbots while keeping data private. Nevertheless, you’ll still need to place a high degree of trust that your data truly isn’t being used to train the AI chatbot you’re using, which can be difficult to verify completely.